Gem

The 1956 letter from American artists to James Johnson Sweeney, protesting Frank Lloyd Wright's curved-wall design for the Guggenheim:

The basic concept of curvilinear slope for presentation of painting and sculpture indicates a callous disregard for the fundamental rectilinear frame of reference necessary for the adequate visual contemplation of works of art

Repair work

"Abstract painting," a friend once said to me. "It's so hard to look after."


In a recent NY Times article Holland Cotter writes about the Guggenheim exhibition Imageless: The Scientific Study and Experimental Treatment of an Ad Reinhardt Black Painting.

In 2000 AXA gifted a damaged Reinhardt black painting, along with a conservation grant, to the Guggenheim. The gesture, as Cotter describes it, was "the equivalent of donating a body to science": the donation enabled the Guggenheim's team to research Reinhardt's painting methods (which included siphoning most of the oil out of his oil paints, and mixing colours with his blacks) and to practice restoration techniques.

The final exhibition presents the still imperfect painting along with photos and video from the conservation work, and a group of undamaged black paintings. A great slideshow on the NY Times site mixes installation shots with photos of Reinhardt in his studio and preservation images.

Image: Reinhardt working on one of his black paintings in July 1966. Photo: John Loengard/Time & Life Pictures, via Getty Images. From the NY Times website.

Guggenheim @ NGV: highs, lows, and distressed attendants

Last week in Melbourne I went to see the Guggenheim exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Created just for the NGV, the show had all the hallmarks of a blockbuster: extensive (somewhat baffling) advertising campaign, sizeable ($20) entry charge, bags of merchandise and a mixed selection of works.

My best moment in the show was seeing Maurizio Cattelan's We are the Revolution. Placed at the end of a narrow corridor which was blocked off from the rest of the final gallery, I laughed out loud when I rounded the corner and saw it (no on else did though, so maybe I'm the weirdo). It's fantastic - the slump of the shoulders, the quirk of the eyebrows, the nap of the suit.



There were some other things that were fantastic to see in all their painterly fleshiness: like Lucio Fontana's exquisite Concetto spaziale, Attese (the NGV also had a beautiful Fontana on display in their contemporary international collection gallery)



and Ellsworth Kelly's Dark Blue Curve.



Both of these are the kind of painting that do nothing in reproduction, and everything when you get to stand in front of them. And standing in front of works was quite easy - although there were crowds of people, a preponderance of audio guides meant viewers tended to stand well back from the work they were listening too, and the guards were being fairly relaxed (although more on that shortly).

Part of the reason that the guards were being laid back was that the majority of the paintings in the first room of the show - the Pollock, the Frankenthaler et al - were inside glazed frames. This was okay for the mini Pollock, but the bigger paintings were just ruined. Motherwell's Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110 was almost impossible to view unless you were nose-to-frame with it: standing back to try to take in the whole work equated to watching 20-odd people reflected against a cream and black background.




And the two glazed Agnes Martin paintings just died on the walls, which was such a shame.



Apart from the Cattelan, my most enjoyable time in the show was spent watching the antics of the poor attendant patrolling the thin white line that surrounded Ann Hamilton's between taxonomy and communion, a long table covered with iron oxide powder and approximately 14,000 human and animal teeth.


The people actually looking at the table were very careful. The barrier line was barely noticeable, however, meaning that people passing the work to get to other parts of the exhibition tended to step over it. At which time, the attendant would streak after them and reprimand them. When she wasn't running after accidental interlopers, she was hovering anxiously and craning her neck around to spot infringements, like a chicken on speed.

Although it had some definite highpoints, the Guggenheim show was overall a disappointment - somewhat incoherent and inelegantly displayed, especially when compared to the smaller, well-chosen and beautifully hung works in the permanent collection.

Images:

Maurizio Cattelan, We are the Revolution (La Rivoluzione siamo noi) 2000. Polyester resin figure, felt suit, and metal coat rack, ed. 3/3. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, Attese 1965. Water-based paint on canvas. 130 x 97 cm.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Ellsworth Kelly, Dark Blue Curve, 1995. Oil on canvas. 46 x 190 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110, Easter Day, 1971. Acrylic with pencil and charcoal on canvas, 82 x 114 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gift, Agnes Gund, 1984.

Agnes Martin, White Flower, 1960. Oil on canvas, 71 7/8 x 72 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Anonymous gift, 1963.

Ann Hamilton, between taxonomy and communion 1990. Steel table, iron oxide powder, and approximately 14,000 human and animal teeth. 78.7 x 487.7 x 137.2 cm (table). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Gift, Ginny Williams in honor of the artist, 2004.

A cracker

Yep, lame cracks abound in articles about the Guggenheim's new exhibition detailing the repair of its disintegrating facade. The New York Times has this nifty image from the show, with all the repairs needed marked up in hot pink.

Face lift for an aging museum - The New York Times