The Art I Saw in 2011

I just finished my tally of all the art I saw last year, which was a lot.  Too much for one blog post, frankly.

The year started out with a visit to the uber-packed blockbuster Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne & Beyond at the DeYoung Museum. The stand out for me was the glaringly offensive lack of attention by museum goers to the four or five **amazing** works by Henri Toulouse Lautrec. This was of course in favor of three or four paintings by Van Gogh.  Of course. Why the museum decided to group all of Van Gogh's work into one corner is a mystery to me. There were some interesting Symbolism and Les Nabis paintings in the show too. Highlights are on this blog post.

I took my beginning art students to see Eva Hesse Studio Works at Berkeley Art Museum. It was a small show featuring some of the relics from her studio, and revealed a truly honest process. Her work is so corporeal. I'm always intrigued by it. It's also interesting to see how the synthetic materials, like the latex and resins, break down over time. It's even a growing field for conservators!

By FAR, the highlight of last year was Charlotte Salomon's Life or Theatre at CJM! I feel really fortunate to have gotten a chance to see this Magnus Opus in person, especially during a time when I was working on my own personal narrative. Her work, and writings, and story provided a lot of information to draw from. Although the 300 or so paintings in the exhibit only covered about 20% of the entire Opus, it was still amazing and eye-opening.

I got a chance to visit Philadelphia to catch the Barnes Collection in it's original location, before it gets transferred to Museum Row. What can I say about this place, and this work? It's CRAMMED with paintings, furniture and Pennsylvania Dutch metalwork. The highlight for me was the sheer volume of Renoir paintings that alerted me to a level of grotesqueness that I had never realized before, and that caused a nauseating sensation. Also, I felt that many of the truly interesting paintings were placed in obscure places, like in corners or above doorways or friezes.  It also reinforced my love for Degas.

While in Philadelphia I also got the chance to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art - specifically to see, for the first time, the amazing Marcel Duchamp installation, Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau, 2° le gaz d'éclairage. The word mind-blowing doesn't do it justice. My advice to any travelling to Philly: go in the back entrance of the museum and make a bee-line for Modern Art.  Skip it all and head to the last room, where all the Duchamp work is. Tucked in the rear corner is the permanent resting place for Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau, 2° le gaz d'éclairage.  Stick with the work for a while.  One look through the peep-hole isn't enough (that's the amazing genius of this work. It requires us to complete it in our minds).  Then, wind your way back through Modern Art, which will take you in a somewhat backwards chronology. The way you will experience the rest of the work in the museum is dependent on seeing Duchamp FIRST.

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art I got a chance to see Whistler's Nocturne painting. It's really small, about 5" x 10".  Funny, I just saw another Whistler painting at the Legion that was about 3" x 5" and it was dear!

Back home there were some gallery shows that really stick out in my mind. One was a collection of Jay DeFeo works at Hosfelt Gallery and the other was Lynn Hershman's solo show at Gallery Paule Anglim. Of course, there were dozens of great contemporary art shows, but those were the two that really nailed it for me.

I did see the Stein's Collect show at SFMOMA, and the coinciding Seeing Gertrude Stein show at CJM. Big year for Gerty. Maybe now I'll hear less of "There's no There There". To be clear,  I'm not annoyed at what she said, it's actually not important at all. I'm annoyed at the incessant use of it! Anyhow, the work in Steins Collect was very difficult to see through the throngs of people, so I kinda rushed through it. Although, I was glad to see a Balthus painting in person.

I saw two master painting shows: One was the Dutch and Flemish Masterworks at The Legion of Honor, and the other was Masters of Venice at the DeYoung. The similarities were that they were both rather small exhibits, but the museums charged extra to see them anyway. In fact, every "special show" charged extra admission, rendering it impossible to actually go to a museum for free, even on free day.  Grrrr...  I think that's the way things are going to be from now on. I wrote a piece on Realism in this blog post, sort of a response to SF Chronicles only art critic, Kenneth Baker, using the phrase Realism incorrectly. The Venetian Masters show was, sad to say, a little lackluster - mostly in scope, and not in the works themselves.  But well curated shows make a difference for the work.

Oh, also Berkeley Art Museum had a show of etchings by Whistler. This is the stuff to study, study, study, and absorb.  ... and there was Create! which I thought was good too.

It's a gift to get to pick and choose to do the things that interest us, and inspire us to put our best foot forward, and to make our best work.  With enough planning, we can go on Free Day, or simply visit galleries and see everything for free.  It's important for artists to see work in person.  Remember that, and get out to see some art!

And on that note, my next trip in the very neart future will be to the San Jose Museum of Art for Joan Brown's show, This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards, and to the Rosicrucian Museum to look at Egyptian Art.