Jun 15
Stenographic Figure, 1942
Artist: Jackson Pollock
MoMA - not on view
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from Maldives
seen from China
seen from Israel
seen from Russia
seen from Maldives
seen from Türkiye
seen from Maldives
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from France
Stenographic Figure, 1942
Artist: Jackson Pollock
MoMA - not on view
“The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.”--Goethe
In what will become one of the standout shows of the season, the MoMA is presenting the first museum survey, To Look Without Fear, of the artist, Wolfgang Tillmans opening on September 12th. Curated by Roxana Marcoci, MoMA’s Senior Curator of Photography, the exhibition takes us on a serendipitous exploration. While the journey begins chronologically, the various mediums, juxtaposition of works, manners of display, and installations--all reveal an artist with deep curiosity and a tenacious commitment to freedom.
Now in his 50′s, Tillmans’s career has spanned the 1980s to the present. He began his explorations in a time before the internet when the use of a photocopier machine, video cameras and audio equipment had a different relevance than today. While his creative approach to art has adapted with the times, the common thread throughout his oeuvre has always been his humanistic sensibility.
When asked about his work, Tillmans told a group of us that one should not “come to these pictures with ‘W Questions’ (why, what, when, who) but rather with ‘H Questions’--how?” The how this work makes us feel, how it connects us with others, and how it inspires--are some of the questions Tillmans asks of us.
But as we all know...each of us will have our own unique experience engaging the work, wandering the rooms, and creating our own meaning. No matter what an artist asks of us, or curators tailor for us, sometimes the hardest thing to see is before our eyes. --Lane Nevares
Marilyn Monroe, 1967
Artist: Andy Warhol
In 1967, Warhol established a print-publishing business, Factory Additions, through which he published a series of screenprint portfolios on his signature subjects. Marilyn Monroe was the first one. He used the same publicity still of the actress that he had previously used for dozens of paintings. Each image was printed from five screens: one that carried the photographic image and four for different areas of color, sometimes printed off-register. About repetitions Warhol said, “The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel."
Portfolio of ten screenprints
Dimensions composition and sheet (each): 36 x 36"
Sources: Sotheby's MoMA
“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”–Irving Penn
Since 1985 and every couple of years, the Museum of Modern Art here in New York explores contemporary photography as part of their “New Photography” series. What started under John Szarkowski remains a vibrant offering today. The current exhibition, “Being: New Photography 2018″ is no exception. I was delighted to see the show and to encounter the striking work of photographer Aïda Muluneh.
Ms. Muluneh is of Ethiopian descent, but is truly an internationalized person, having grown up most of her life in diverse countries, not the least of which being the USA, including a degree from Howard University. She is a trained photojournalist and is also founder/director of the Addis Foto Fest. But above all these things, including her activism, Ms. Muluneh is a photographer who embraces all the possibilities of the medium.
Her series “The World is 9″ opens MoMA’s exhibition. The potent colors and stylized models are only the surface. Much is being signified through the colors, the gestures, the clothing, the body paint. Beneath the striking images, though, Ms. Muluneh is provoking us to ponder the fundamental questions: what is beauty? what is my role? what mask do I wear? who am I in an uncertain world? what makes us human?
While the sixteen other artists in MoMA’s New Photography exhibition explore various themes and ideas with their unique approaches, I found myself returning to the work of Ms. Muluneh because it is, in a word, effective. –Lane Nevares
"Happenings were often impromptu, theatrical in nature, and involved audience participation. For Kusama’s unauthorized 1969 Happening, Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at MoMA, the artist instructed the stark naked performers to embrace each other while playfully engaging the sculptures around them. By staging a bacchanalian romp among live humans and static sculptural forms—many of which were nude figures by deceased artists, such as French sculptor Aristide Maillol, creator of the reclining figure *The River*—Kusama critiqued MoMA as a repository for “dead” art in need of more living artists’ activations. "
Steffani Jemison: Escaped Lunatic | MoMA
Steffani Jemison's video Escaped Lunatic explores the image of running black bodies. Watch the work in full on our website.
The video borrows its narrative structure from early 20th-century cinema—the chase genre in particular—which often depicted African Americans in scenes of flight from various forms of authority. Shooting the work with a Houston-based parkour team when she was living in that city, Jemison links a structure borrowed from early cinema to a contemporary scene, boldly linking the unjust conditions of urban life for black folks across time.
[Steffani Jemison. Escaped Lunatic. 2010–11. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2016 Steffani Jemison]
(via Steffani Jemison: Escaped Lunatic | MoMA)
Steffani Jemison: Escaped Lunatic | MoMA
Steffani Jemison's video Escaped Lunatic explores the image of running black bodies. Watch the work in full on our website.
The video borrows its narrative structure from early 20th-century cinema—the chase genre in particular—which often depicted African Americans in scenes of flight from various forms of authority. Shooting the work with a Houston-based parkour team when she was living in that city, Jemison links a structure borrowed from early cinema to a contemporary scene, boldly linking the unjust conditions of urban life for black folks across time.
[Steffani Jemison. Escaped Lunatic. 2010–11. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2016 Steffani Jemison]
(via Steffani Jemison: Escaped Lunatic | MoMA)
louise bourgeois, le mot pitié m'a apaisée, state II. 2001