Art and Me

In a recent interview, painter Carroll Dunham sits down with Brooklyn Rail reporter Phong Bui to discuss his exhibition at the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea. The artist's exhibition showcases his recently created fanciful paintings that are rich in color and line - relaying a somewhat childlike and storybook-esque sentiment. As Bui points out, Dunham is known for not putting eyes on the people in his paintings, which Dunham attributes to his stylistic developments.

The artist says,

...it isn’t precisely that they’re blind—it’s just that they never developed eyes [laughter]. There is no particular metaphor about blindness in my mind; it’s just that when I tried to draw characters in my work with eyes they didn’t feel comfortable as part of the image, so I had to eliminate that feature altogether. What it means psychologically or how one might extrapolate a story from that isn’t on my mind when I’m working.

The interview continues as the artist discusses his experiences at Andover Prep School and Trinity College. He talks about meeting various people who attributed to his desire to paint and his ultimate success as an artist as well as what his life was like during the 1970s and 80s.
Dunham answers a question about many of his paintings, including his "Wood" paintings, stating,

There was a return of interest in Surrealism that was shared by a number of artists at that time. Although it took different forms, my interest did perhaps lean a bit more towards the automatistic part of it. There were others like Peter Schuyff, whose work was more connected to the hyper real, Tanguy side of Surrealism, while George Condo was maybe somewhere in between. Basically I think you go through a period where you’re trying to shed interests and influences that you think are trivial and take onboard the ones you think are more profound. This involves throwing a lot of babies out with the bathwater when you’re young, and then maybe you go further into your work, and you get a little more clear on what your territory is, and some of those earlier interests can come back in another form.

To read the entire interview and learn more about Dunham's experiences, influences, and multifarious artistic styles, click here.

Apparently the Frieze Art Fair in London is experiencing some better than expected sales and a definite increase in confidence regarding the art world. While sales have not returned (or even come close) to what they were in 2007, spirits are higher than they were last year, and buyers and sellers are becoming more confident. One exhibitor, Jose Freire of New York's Team Gallery  (which is selling work from Dawn Mellor's solo show) is delighted with the unexpected outcome. As noted in an article from the Art Newspaper,

“This is the best Frieze we’ve ever had," said Freiere, reporting sales of 11 paintings portraying a bloodied Charlotte Rampling, Helena Bonham Carter, Kristin Scott Thomas and other beauties. The paintings sold by Friday afternoon, priced around £5,500 apiece. This was a drastic improvement from Frieze’s last edition. Autumn 2008 was not kind to Lehman Brothers, and certainly not to many Frieze exhibitors. “Last year was an unmitigated disaster,” said Freire of the 2008 edition of Frieze. “We lost our shirts.”

Because of the economy, Frieze attracted less exhibitors and in some cases a reduction of asking prices by 40%. To disguise these factors, Frieze organizers transformed a section of the fair into "Frame," a platform for younger dealers show casing cheaper art by less well-known artists in solo shows. As Matthew Higgs, head of the New York non-profit White Columns space stated in the above mentioned article,

“Frame is a good move to introduce new voices... Dealers were pleased with the results."

“People who are on top of things came here," said San Francisco dealer Claudia Altman of Altman Siegel (R25). “Plus, prices are low." Altman featured Trevor Paglen’s poetic images of US surveillance satellites priced $6,000 to $9,000. She sold three.

The Israeli artist Guy Ben-ner has slowly becoming more and more recognizable among the artsy crowd over the past few years. His charming and poignant videos have catapulted him into exhibitions at places like MASS MoCA, Postmasters, and the Hayward. Here's a random sampling of some clips of his work:

The self-taught contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan born in Padova, Italy in 1960.









He's best known for satirical and controversial sculptures such as:

La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour)- You can see below it's the Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite



His humor is apparent in his art and the way he conducts himself. For instance, he's infamous for persuading his art gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin to walk around in the costume of a giant pink phallus.....for a month.


Emmanuel Perrotin in costume

He also did a sculpture of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in an open casket for the public to see. He is presentable and looks exactly as people remembered him before the assassination.




Currently there is an exhibition entitled "Maurizio Cattelan is Dead: Life and Work, 1960-2009" a humorous exhibition at Triple Candie pretending to highlight his art and work as a deceased artist. The exhibition doesn't actually contain his artwork but photocopies, printouts, and wall text to support the exhibition. Although his artwork won't be displayed, this is definitely in Maurizio's style.

According to NY Art Beat the wall text of the exhibition starts with:

Maurizio Cattelan (Italian, 1960 - 2009) was a con-artist and a populist philosopher whose art embraced what might be called comic existentialism. He began his career in a small city in Northeastern Italy, worked briefly as a furniture designer before turning to art, and in a very short time built an illustrious career through a mix of savvy resourcefulness and puckish deceit. His career took off in the mid-1990s; in 2004, one of his sculptures sold at auction for three million dollars. When he died, he was living in New York City.

Forbes Magazine coined the Indian artist M.F. Husain as the "Picasso of India."  He is one of India's best known artists and was born in 1915.

A Brief biography from the 20th Century Museum of Contemporary Indian Art:

A self-taught artist, Muqbool Fida Husain was born in 1915 in Maharashtra. At an early age he learnt the art of calligraphy and practiced the Kulfic khat with its geometric forms. He also learnt to write poetry while staying with an uncle in a madrasa in Baroda, an art that has stayed with him through his life. His early education was perfunctory but Husain's love of drawing was evident even at this stage. Whenever he got a chance he would strap his painting gear to his bicycle and drive out to the surrounding countryside of Indore to paint the landscape. In 1937 he reached Mumbai determined to become an artist, with hardly any money and lived m a cheap room in a by lane inhabited by pimps and prostitutes. Initially Husain apprenticed himself to a painter of cinema hoardings which he would paint with great dexterity perched on scaffolding sometimes in the middle of traffic.



The Prophet Man- M.F. Husain

He is primarily a painter but also has produced several films such as Through the Eyes of a Painter winning him awards.  In 1967, this short film won him the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

However, he is best known for portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually inappropriate manner, which has caused a lot of controversy among the Indian population.

The artist Marlene Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa and studied there until she moved to Amsterdam, NL when she was 23 years old and where she currently resides.



A NYT article describes Marlene Dumas in her Amsterdam studio:



"She can customarily be found in her studio at 2 or 3 in the morning, and her desire to record experience in its most extreme forms — she paints birth, sex, death and violence, for starters — has failed to bring her one inch closer to observing or recording the famed Dutch light. Tellingly, she does not like to travel, even across town."






She seems to be devoted to her paintings and her studio, as if being visited or visiting the outside world would interfere with her favorite place- her mind - where she can reflect at peace. This is very different from the artist who seeks exterior 'life experience' for inspiration or source material.


Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave is an exhibition that traveled from Los Angeles and to New York displaying her career's artwork. The NYT articles goes on to state, "one trademark of the artist’s work is her ability to conjoin nerve-racking subject matter and elegant brushwork. She is one of contemporary art’s most compelling painters, taking people from newspaper photographs and turning them into agents in a psychological drama who might shut their eyes on us or look out at us with a gaze that says, 'Don’t go.' "

A blog post by Laura Lark on Marlene Dumas asserts "You don’t view a Marlene Dumas painting; you are confronted by it"

She was also considered the world's most expensive female artist for a while according to art auction results. However, Louise Bourgeois is now the world's most expensive female artist. 



"A Dumas painting is easy to recognize. It typically shows a face or a figure in dramatic close-up, isolated against a neutral ground. Put another way, the people in her pictures are not sitting in a cafe or strolling the avenue, and they seem to have sprung from some infernal realm where personal memories are constantly colliding with public traumas. Her subjects include her daughter, her mother, terrorists, drowning victims, hanging victims, Emily Dickinson, the South African poet Elisabeth Eybers and the model Naomi Campbell. In addition to her oil-on-canvas output, she is prolific on paper and specializes in inky watercolors that use a meltingly sensual style to conjure disturbing scenes, among them strippers standing with their backsides shoved at us or the impassive heads of blindfolded male prisoners who may or may not be alive. " - NYT



Not only is she proficient in beautiful oil paintings, but her ink drawings are equally compelling:


Her life's achievement can be viewed on a Marlene Dumas Timeline, which lists articles and art exhibitions of her artistic career.

John Currin was born in 1962 in Boulder, CO. He received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA from Yale University. Currin now lives and works in New York.  It seems to me that John Currin's talent for provoking and shocking people is his most valued power for discourse in art:

According to Michael Kimmelman, "His (John Currin) work leaves you alert to the affectations that pass for civil discourse in well-heeled circles. He is a parodist of suburban social deceits who has invented his own funny, freakish race of people with variously disproportioned bodies, and heads that are much too big or small."

"He came onto the scene during the heyday of political correctness as a contrarian, using the discredited (in fashionable circles) medium of painting to make not only weirdly arresting portraits like 'Mary O'Connell,' based on campy and debased subjects, but also pictures of middle-aged women and of pin-up models with preposterous breasts -- supposedly no-no subjects for men. 'Boycott this show,' wrote Kim Levin in The Village Voice about his solo debut at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in 1992. Mr. Currin hit a bull's-eye."

Who is Charlie Rose?

"Acclaimed interviewer and broadcast journalist Charlie Rose engages America's best thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business leaders, scientists and other newsmakers in one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions."

What interests me is that part of these 'best thinkers' include artists, and he's done many interviews with these fascinating people so we can really try to get inside their minds and figure out what they're thinking and seeing.

The show generally broadcasts around 11pm Monday through Friday on over 200 PBS affiliates throughout the United States. Programs are one hour and may differ according to location.

Recent interviews with artists include

Photographer Brigitte Lacombe




architect Frank Gehry



Painter, Chuck Close


Other artists include Shepard Fairey, Francesco Clemente, Max Gerber, among others. He also does more than just artists, he covers areas of the art world such as museum curators and dealers who participate in discussions on specific artists, time periods, and topics which enlighten the listener and viewer on understanding art.

It's a god resource to really view the artist as if you were in the discussion room, view their expressions and body language that goes with their thoughts and dialogue.

Julian Schnabel is both painter (at heart and he very much works in this manner) and film director the public can see from his various films such as:

"Basquiat" (on the New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat)

"Before the Night Falls" (a look within the life of a Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas played by Javier Bardem which was his groundbreaking role)



"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby the trailer of this award winning film



He was also the interior designer of the Gramercy Park Hotel which is a luxury hotel in New York City. It also contains works by contemporary artists such as Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, and Julian Schnabel.

But as an artist painter his work is simply amazing as well- what a well rounded perception. Check out his work inspired by Gaudi's use of mosaics, ceramics, and scraps to build and create works of art. Schnabel uses this idea to create a painting. There are no limits and he's one of the first to use materials in this manner

Some of his "Plate Paintings":

      

"Hope" by Julian Schnabel where encaustic art methods were being used (which uses molten wax to manipulate at the discretion of the artist)



To know more about Julian Schnabel check out this video with intervieCharlie Rose





"Follow your own heart and don't be too myopic about your own desires!"

Rather than posting about an artist, today I'm going to introduce a useful art resource website that all art world interested individuals will find amazing! It's called MutualArt.com and I like to use it to search for information about artists and events upcoming in my city- New York (but this can also be used worldwide which makes it so cool!)

Let's take the example of Jeff Koons from my last post. If I want to know more information about Jeff Koons I type it in the general search and I get everything I need from recent and past articles written about Jeff Koons, exhibitions that have occurred and featured his work or on-going exhibitions such as the current Popeye Series in London as well as other artists I might enjoy.

Now this is for a general search on artists. What makes MutualArt.com special is the ability to create your own personalized profile (I definitely have one because it keeps me up to date on contemporary artists and events.)

The way it works is you sign up for an account, then you specify your preferences by stating what city you live in (for me it's New York City), but say you're traveling then you can include other cities and be updated on arts events happening there like Miami. Then you click your favorite medium, genre of art (I'm mostly into contemporary artists as you can see on my blog) and you can even specifiy which artists (everytime I blog on an artist I add them to my preferences like Jeff Koons). Everyday I get articles, events, or suggested artists I might like according to my preferences. I absolutely love it because now I can really be on top of things and know about art events on time!

Jeff Koons is known as a controversial artist for his outrageous sculptures of balloons that have sat up high on the Metropolitan Museum of Art Terrace overlooking New York City, to shocking the French by displaying his contemporary artworks in the Chateau de Versailles. He is also the world's most expensive living artist and once married to an Italian porn star maybe politician known as La Cicciolina.

Puppy At Bilbao, Spain


Video Showcasing Jeff Koons in Versailles.


Koons tried to imagine what the sun king, Louis XIV would have liked to see in his garden or palace. Something extravagant, flashy, large, sensual, and this is what Jeff Koons was trying to accomplish.

Time Out London has provided a recent interview with Jeff Koons asking him about what he aims to do  and accomplish with his art. It gives a better idea of whether he does work in a factory style, what he thinks about the high auction prices his works tend to go for, and what makes him upset when people don't understand his work.

Do I just call you Jeff?
‘My real name is Jeffrey Lynn Koons, but I’ve always liked the simplicity of Jeff.’

Why is this your first public show in London? Is there something about you that we Brits just don’t get?
‘I have wonderful friends in England and have always participated in group shows here. I like to think of myself very much as an international artist, but I also know my own cultural history.’

But your work still polarises people, like Marmite in the UK, or Dr Pepper in the US…
‘I’ve always dealt with my work in a very honest manner, and so whenever someone responds that they don’t get it, I feel like I lost that person.  Every time you do or make something you do it for that singular moment of communication. It happens one person at a time, but you want it to be effective. We all have the same pleasures and desires, I just think that some people are more protective and shelter themselves from their experiences, especially if it’s sexuality, the foundation of our life experience.’

You talk about acceptance, but your work still has an edge, whether it’s a porcelain model of Michael Jackson with Bubbles or images of you having sex with your ex-wife.
‘All my work tries to embrace visual power, and acceptance does not have to be all warm and cushy, there’s also a violence to acceptance. I was a painter until I left art school, when I started to deal with things outside the self.’

For the rest of the interview to get to know Jeff Koons better see the rest of the article.

Jeff Koons continues to proliferate in the global art world and his most recent work can be found at the Serpentine Gallery in London on the "Popeye Series" from July 2 to September 13 2009

Bruce Nauman recently received considerable critical acclaim and success at the Venice Biennale, some dubbing him as “Almighty Bruce.” True to the nickname, he was awarded the Golden Lion for the best National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, signifying that Nauman isn’t going anywhere. He established the contemporary art scene back in the 1970s and has been performing strong ever since. He currently resides in New Mexico near Santa Fe, where he avoids being seen in the public eye, preferring to work on his ranch rather than to go to openings and exhibitions. In a rare interview, he explains much of his motivations and thought process.


Double Poke in the Eye, II
1985

Nauman's frequent use of the neon lights is insired from what he absorbed through the envrionment. He recalls a neon sign advertising beer that hung in the window of the studio. "...it was the idea of using the sign which you could read from the outside but see also inside out," the artist clarifies.

Some of his other works...


One Hundred Live and Die
1984


Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care
1984

In terms of the pavilion, he comments, "I like the way that the spiral interacts with the building." To see his works on view at the Biennale, check out this site.

His influence on the contemporary art scene is undeniable; influences can be seen in works of artists such as Kiki Smith, Tracey Emin, Tony Oursler and Rachel Whiterread. As the article summarized, "Walking around this year's Venice Biennale and its many off-site events, it is clear that Nauman's influence is everywhere."

For more on Nauman including his other works, essays and video interviews, check out the Art21 website.

The New York Times described him as “one of the most celebrated of India’s Modernist painters, whose work broke auction records...” On a more personal level, a fellow painter, Vrundavan Solanki told the Times of India, “Mehta was a very humble and simple man…he worked silently in the world of painting but had a huge impact.”


The artist in his studio

Mehta died Wednesday at the Asian Heart Institute Hospital in Mumbai at the age of 84. His health had been failing for the past two years, according to his friends. He is survived by his wife, children, and grand-children.

The artist is credited for bringing recognition to the Contemporary Indian Art largely due to the record-setting sale at Christie’s in 2005. The Painting, Mahisasura, sold for $1.58 million, marking the first time a Contemporary Indian work was sold for over a million. Later, another painting of his would sell for around $2 million.


Confident, painted in 1962, sold for $2 million at Christie's

Despite the sudden fame, the artist never worked from commission as he frowned upon the association between money and art. In fact he continued to work steadily and quietly. His aesthetics seem deeply rooted by his early-life experiences, when he entered the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai in 1947, the pivotal year when India declared independence from England and the partition between India and Pakistan was enforced. He witnessed many haunting cruelties, such as a man being lynched by a mob; by 1952, when he left the school, his motif had been established: “falling human figures , bulls trussed for slaughter and the buffalo demon being crushed by an all-powerful divinity.”

He went on to receive many prestigious awards including the Padma Bhushan by the President of India, and the Dayawati Modi Foundation Award for Art, Culture and Education. 

He is most comfortable as a recluse painter, however. “I have always been a loner, and am quite still a bit of a recluse. My happiest moments are spent with myself and my art,” the artist said.

Jenny Holzer, an American conceptual artist, caught the attention of the public during the Whitney Biennial 2009. As a graduate of RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), she began as an abstract painter, though now she primarily deals with text and its placement in space.

I’m not a big fan of text art (which I mockingly call word art). It makes art way too cerebral, and it eradicates the instinctive dialogue between myself and the work. How am I supposed to respond to the work when I have to think about what the word means and how it affects (and is affected by) the space around me? Even with my skepticism, I found entranced by Holzer’s LED lights; perhaps because of the superficial attraction to bright lights, but I liked the fact that it wasn’t subtle.


Truisms, 1977-79


Purple Cross, 2004

For that reason, her works successfully depict consumerism and the world of advertising. But through her words a certain expectation is broken; the aesthetic is familiar but the text forces us to dig deeper.


Xenon for Berlin, 2001


Xenon for Bergenz, 2004

Check out Holzer’s official website. Also, read interviews and watch videos at Art21.


Wish List Black, 2006

Agnes Martin is a Canadian-born painter who was considered to be a minimalist, though the artist thought of herself as an abstract expressionist. She often utilized a rational grid system in her works then superimposed “a network of penciled lines and later coloured bands on fine-grained canvas stained with washes of colour in such a way as to reconcile these apparently antithetical elements.” As a result are delicate, moving, and ambiguous ghosts of images.


Tremolo, 1962

Martin studied at Columbia University and the University of New Mexico, where she would reside for many years. The artist led a recluse life, denouncing “intellectualism” that swept the art world but instead focusing on the spiritual. In addition, she was deeply influenced by Eastern philosophies; the artist’s hand was a crucial component to her works.


Mountain 1, 1966


The Tree, 1964

Her works are quiet but powerful. Definite tension exists between elements in her pieces, as if individual lines are vibrating. To see more of her works, visit the MoMA on-line collection.

Neo Rauch, 49, recently received a lot of attention when Brad Pitt bought one of his paintings for approximately $1 million. Etappe, completed in 1998, was showing at Art Basel in Switzerland.

Etappe, 1998
 

The German artist, who lives in Lipzig, Germany, credits Surrealist artists such as Giorgio de Chirico and Rene Magritte as his influence. In his own works, he seems to incorporate some Surrealist elements with a vague narrative and architectural, geometric elements.

 

His biography states that, “His harsh, industrial colors and heroic, 1950s-looking workmen and sturdy women, depicted with almost cartoonish realism, are elements Rauch has retained from the Socialist Realist aesthetic of communist East Germany, where he grew up and received his artistic training.”

 

Sekte, 2004


Grotte, 2004

His works seem to be infused with magical qualities or a feeling of weightlessness. But because of his harsh colors and metallic palette, you walk away with a foreboding sense of a futuristic work.


Vorort, 2007


Jagdzimmer, 2007


Goldgrube, 2007

 

To view more of his works, the MET has an online collection of his works.

Magdalena Abakanowicz has been one of my favorite artists for some time. I become more drawn to her work the more as I encounter minimalist works that seem sterile. Abakanowicz continues to be poignant and relevant; the artist’s hand is clear in the way her sculptures are created. Every imperfection of the surface is reminiscent of human perseverance and courage to display one’s vulnerabilities.



Magdalena Abakanowicz, born in 1930, is a Polish artist who works primarily in sculpture. Abakanowcz frequently grapples with the issue of “the countless” in her sculptures made of organic materials. Though she was born into an aristocratic family, the instability of Poland during her childhood forced her to adapt to unexpected situations and use whatever material was available. During her university years at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, she received formal training in textile design, and she learned the art of weaving and screen printing among others. For her achievements, Abakanowicz exhibited in numerous museums and galleries in addition to receiving prestigious awards and Honorary Doctorates.





The artist’s official website features a diverse collection of her works. She often works with a series of sculptures where a specific forms is duplicated, whether it be legs, heads, or backs. However, every sculpture in the series of multiple is unique. In addition, the way the figures are arranged challenges the viewers’ conceptions of space.





"I feel overwhelmed by quantity where counting no longer makes sense. By unrepeatability within such quantity. A crowd of people or birds, insect or leaves, is a mysterious assemblage of variants of a certain prototype, a riddle of nature abhorrent to exact repetition or inability to produce it, just as a human hand can not repeat its own gesture".

-Magdalena Abakanowicz

John Wesley’s opening at the Venice Biennale marks his second retrospective. It takes place in two giant rooms situated in a former boarding school on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Covering the walls are more than 150 of Wesley’s paintings from 1960s. The artist is excited to see some of his earlier works that he hasn’t seen in decades, according to a New York Times article.



Wesley is regarded largely to be a Pop Artist, though admirations earned from artists such as Donal Judd also pushes him to the minimalist category. His work can be described as “bright, funny, relentlessly flat and often unsettlingly erotic.” John Wesley received no formal art training perhaps in part of his hectic and difficult childhood. His father passed away as a result of a heart attack when Wesley was just five, which resulted in the artist having to briefly stay at an orphanage then eventually settling in a home with a demanding step-father.

Wesley worked at a variety of places, such as the post-office and an aircraft company, where he drafted plans and interpreted blueprints. He attributes the dark, industrial blue color of his earlier paintings to that experience.

The artist discovered Jasper Johns and other post-Abstractionist painters. Wesley’s working process still alludes to the influences. He beings painting by tracing images from magazines, books, or photographs. He then transforms the line into gouache then acrylic paintings. Forms are reduced further and further until elements become repetitive and stylized.



The ambivalent nature of his works is what remains fascinating; in some ways, it is over the top with frills, sharp edges and shapes, but his paintings also seem uncompleted in a way because of flat masses of color. That tension exists in the process, narrative, and between the forms.

When asked how he became a painter, Wesley laughed and answered, “I have absolutely no idea.”

“But I seem to have found my own place, which I am thankful for.”

Artists and art critics have a symbiotic relationship. Or perhaps more accurately, a love-hate relationship that drags on and on which is as necessary as painful at times. When thinking about artists, it’s easy to overlook the influence of the audience, as artists, especially in the post-modern era, seem to be detached from expectations imposed by the society, but no one truly lives alone; if you are an active artist, you will be subjected to some type of judgment. That’s where the art critic’s role comes into play. Jerry Saltz, a critic for the Times, has so eloquently and clearly vocalized his opinion on works that are being produced while subtly commenting on the conditions of the contemporary society.

What I love about Jerry Saltz the most is that he doesn’t exude the overly-academic, pretentious, elitist persona that is easy to take on while talking about art. He knows the history inside-out, which allows him to make unexpected connections between works but makes it humorous and easy to understand for anyone, not just for art buffs.



His recent review about the Charles Ray exhibit is a perfect example of Saltz’ witty and acute observation to the contemporary work. His classification between drugged and stoned works is hilarious yet completely coherent, and his description of the work is so dead on. He mixes objectivity with a perfect amount of his own biases.

For anyone interested in contemporary art, (or art in general) take some time to read Saltz’ reviews. Each one is full of relevant connections in art history, and you’ll be an art connoisseur in no time. Thanks to the internet and the NY Magazine, the full Jerry Saltz archive is easily accessible.

Last weekend, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and unexpectedly stumbled upon an exhibit in the Costume Institute wing called Models as Muse. In their press release, the MET describes the show as exploring the “reciprocal relationship between high fashion and evolving ideals of beauty.” The exhibit consists of various areas with mannequins that showcase designer works as well as beautiful black and white photographs of iconic models such as Twiggy, Kate Moss, and Christy Turlington. For me, these photographs were the highlight of the show. In particular, I found the works of Peter Lindbergh to be particularly enchanting and refreshing—he so marvelously captured his subjects with a hidden objectivity while maintaining a sense of delicacy.

The show led me to look at other works by Lindbergh, which can be found here. There’s something about the black and white aesthetic that always gives me a sense of nostalgia. I especially love the way he captures fabric in certain places.

So…head on over to the MET to sample his works. Other photographers include Irving Penn, Lisa Fonssagrives, Cecil Beaton, and of course, Annie Leibovitz.

Models as Muse
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Tisch Galleries, second floor
May 6–August 9, 2009