Where High Gets Low.
Moving Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass, somewhere in Rowland Heights, Calif. Yes, this is total boner art. But as the daughter of an engineer, I can’t resist the transport of a 340-ton granite boulder. The L.A. Times has the blow-by-blow. (Photo by C-M. More pix here.)
This past December, I spent several days in northwestern Honduras, visiting the Mayan ruins at Copán, among other sites, and the village of Copán Ruinas. I can’t recommend this area enough: beautiful, low-key, not entirely saturated by tourism.
A clay sculpture of an Aztec warrior dating back to the 15th century — the first time this particular piece has been seen in the U.S.
Bring out yer dead: A detail from a painted screen depicts European notions about America, confused-looking unicorns and all. (The full screen is featured after the jump, below.)
A funerary cape crafted from the feathers of Amazonian birds, from 12-13th century Peru. Obtaining feathers, shells and materials from the furthest reaches of their empires was one of the ways that the Incas and Aztecs showed their power.
Because of various deadlines and lots of travel, we’re a little late getting up this photo essay of from LACMA’s exhibit Contested Visions, which explored the ways in which Spanish and indigenous cultures both faced off and fused in the period of colonial rule (from the 15th to the early 19th century). The show, unfortunately, has already come down, but thankfully we have this photo essay from a tour I attended with the show’s curator, Ilona Katzew. If you’re in Mexico City, expect this to land at the Museo de Historia at the Castillo de Chapultepec in July.
A detail from Rome, ca. 1970, by the Rev. Samuel David Phillips.
An abstraction made from reclaimed lath board by Kinetic Tornado (in benefit of the Konbit Shelter Project).
Jaguar, by Oranit Solomonov.
Testimonio, 2003, by Isabel Ruiz, from Guatemala. Painted on 23 handkerchiefs are testimonies of violent incidents during Guatemala’s Civil War, from 1960-96. (All photos by C-M.)
The Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (MADC) in San Jose, Costa Rica is the single biggest, most important center for contemporary art in Central America — with a permanent collection that is focused on the region. I’ve been to the museum countless times, but this time I was lucky enough to stumble into a show of works from their permanent collection. (It’s a small institution, so display areas are usually occupied by temporary exhibits.) Always refreshing to see work by artists operating outside of the Bermuda Art Triangle.
Colección MADC is now on view.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: Works from the collection at MADC, Costa Rica.’
OMFG, yes: lobster swimsuits by Mary Ann DeWeese, on view at LACMA as part of the California Design show.
The Avanti, designed in 1961 by Raymond Loewy. I would wear my lobster swimsuit while I drove this around.
A pamphlet advertising the City of Lakewood — L.A.’s first planned community. Speaking of which, if you haven’t read D.J. Waldie’s Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, then get on it. He covers this very subject.
Painting, 1948, by Willem de Kooning. (Photos by C-M.)
As I’m sure you’ve well read by now, the Willem de Kooning retrospective at MoMA is all kinds of gangbusters. I’m not going to get into some dissertation about what he and his work signified, because I think there have been plenty of those — among them, the comprehensive 500-page catalogue. But I did want to highlight one of the aspects of the show I really dug: the black and white paintings from the late 1940s — mainly because I’m a sucker for black and white, but also because they seem to revel in a certain gritty New York City-ness (that seems to no longer exist). They also look like a type of proto-graffiti, what Jed Perl describes in New Art City in the following way: “De Kooning’s nitty-gritty New York was all knock-you-in-the-teeth actualities, all surprising particulars: the dramatically contrasted sizes of adjacent buildings, the abandoned lots and demolition sites, the oil stains and graffiti on the pavements, the reflections of neon signs on wet streets.”
This is also an opportunity to pimp my podcasts on New York City in the time of the Abstract Expressionists. Many more pictures after the jump.
de Kooning: A Retrospective is on view through January 9 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: de Kooning: a Retrospective, at MoMA — the black and whites.’
In 1971, Trisha Brown gathered nine dancers dressed in red and scattered them across rooftops in lower Manhattan. For half an hour, the dancers — all of whom stood blocks apart — relayed a series of movements to each other, in the dance world’s version of the game of telephone. The work, called Roof Piece, was staged several times during the early 1970s, but had not been performed in its original rooftop context since 1973.
Last night, Brown’s dance company restaged the piece in the vicinity of the High Line Park on Manhattan’s west side, on the rooftops of office buildings, butchers and trendy restaurants. The weather, initially, did not cooperate. (An end-of-the-world thunder shower — complete with lightning — left all of us spectators huddling under the Standard Hotel shortly before the show was supposed to begin.) But once things cleared, everyoe took their positions. Ironically, the steely skies made a perfect backdrop to the bright red outfits worn by the performers.
There was something beautifully zen/tai chi about the whole exercise, with one dancer’s gesture inspiring another’s and then another’s, over several square blocks, in a rippling chain reaction. If you have a chance, there are still three more performances over the course of the weekend (and they’re free). Find the schedule here. For a good take on the original performance, see this write-up by photographer Babbette Mangolte.
All photos by C-M.
