Off Center

© Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com

Last year, street artist Shepherd Fairey got the go-ahead to create a now-iconic portrait of the then-candidate Barack Obama to use in campaigning for the nation’s highest office. Now another high office of sorts - the National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution - has put the portrait on view. It’s unclear whether the piece was acquired, but its owners/loaners are Washington, D.C., art collectors Heather and Tony Podesta - Tony being, yes, the brother of John.

One note of interest: the National Gallery usually displays the officially commissioned portrait of a U.S. president in the weeks before he leaves office. So is this display of a President-as-candidate portrait unprecedented? Another issue speaks to the artistic success of the image (though I loathe Fairey’s Obey Giant stuff - yes, I suppose that makes me “old”): it has retained its icon status despite the veritable flood of Obama imagery that has come along; as candidate and now as President, he is one of the most-commodified presidents ever.

More from the Walker blogs on Fairey’s Obama portrait is posted here, and just yesterday, the New York Times published a thoughtful piece by Randy Kennedy on what it means when cultural institutions of authority (like this one) begin to accept and even welcome the longstanding questioning of that authority by street artists and others once considered outsiders.

Museum of Bad Art

Today the Walker was visited by Michael Frank, the Curator-in-Chief of Boston’s Museum of Bad Art (MOBA). Since the early 90’s, the MOBA features “art too bad to be ignored™,” displayed in galleries in the basements of two community theatres in the Boston area, the “largest network of theatre-basement exhibition venues on Earth.” The museum exhibits artworks with a playful ironic subtext. The hilarious website is a fascinating peek into the world of images found in thrift stores, garbage piles, yard sales, and even donations from artists themselves. Michael is in town to view and promote Masterworks: The MOBA plays , 6 commissioned plays based on 6 paintings from his new book The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks. Being a Boston native myself, I was immediately excited to meet Michael and ask him some questions about MOBA.

What is your professional background?
I’m a professional musician and guitar player—Mike the Hatman. I do kids’ shows.

How did you become involved with MOBA?
In the early 90’s, the founders of the Museum of Bad Art decided to move on. There were a group of us who wanted to see it continue. I knew the founders because of a donation I made to the museum. I became Curator-in-Chief because I donated more art than anyone else.  Louise Reilly Sacco, the sister of one of the founders, became Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director.

What is the mission of MOBA?
We look for art created in earnestness, but where something went wrong in the execution or concept.

Which piece exemplifies the mission of MOBA?
That’s so hard to do, choose one piece. That’s like asking, “Which kid do you like the best?” I think Gilded Nude does a good job of showing what we’re about. You have to read the commentary, though—“The viewer is struck immediately by the youthful female subject’s oversized arm.”

Very tongue-in-cheek.
That’s MOBA.

What is your definition of “bad art?”
It’s difficult to be ironic about abstract art. Most art I would include in MOBA is representational, mostly with poor technique. Just because it has poor technique, though, doesn’t mean it automatically fits in at the MOBA. Some of the work has very good technique. It has to be a compelling image, one that I find interesting. Basically, if I say it’s museum-worthy, it is.

How do the artists at MOBA compare with “outsider” artists?
The works are very similar to Outsider Art or Art Brut. Some of the artists are also in many outsider art collections.

Some artists donate their works. How do the artists feel about being exhibited at MOBA?
A lot of artists do donate works. Some artists will use MOBA on their resumes. I follow the mission of MOBA when choosing the works. If the artist is too self-conscious or silly, trying to make bad art, I don’t accept it. Some artists are surprised when they find that their works are in MOBA. Only one person objected, the rest are happy about it for the most part.

MOBA exhibits mostly paintings and some sculpture. Have you considered including other media like film or performance art?
No. I thought about photography. Like abstract art, I find it hard to be ironic about photos. I do have a collection of music that I play at the galleries. One musician is Mary Schneider, Australia’s Queen of Yodeling. She yodels the classics. She yodels the melody to the William Tell Overture with an accompanying orchestra. She has fantastic technique.

What are people’s reactions to MOBA?
Almost everyone likes it. Some people don’t get it. What are people’s reactions to the Walker?

Mostly positive, some mixed opinions. The Walker shows so many different kinds of art, not many people like everything at the Walker. A lot of people know who we are and that we push the boundaries of the definition of art, so they expect that. Some people expect to see Van Gogh paintings and are mad when they find out we don’t show any.
I saw some works in your museum that I might consider for MOBA but like I said, it’s hard for me to be ironic about abstract art. I wondered, “Why is a canvas with a slit cut into it considered art?”

The Bryant Lake Bowl is currently showing Masterworks: The MOBA plays, performed by the Minnesota-based Commedia Bauregard theatre company. Interestingly, one of the plays is based on the painting Bone-Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt, by Minneapolis artist Mari Newman.

The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks and other MOBA merchandise can be purchased from the MOBA website.
Like all reputable museums, MOBA happily accepts donations. Submissions should be made via email: curator@museumofbadart.org.

Marlene Dumas, Die Babe (from http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk)

A friend just send me this post from artfagcity, on images of babies in contemporary art - something we’re both interested in, being moms of toddlers ourselves. (I’d say we’re obsessed, but being moms of toddlers leaves scant time for obsessing about anything except the toddlers.) AFC’s Paddy Johnson also includes a link to this essay on motherhood and contemporary artists, from The Brooklyn Rail. While reading it, I recalled watching the uptick in strollers on the streets of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) a few years back - but at the time I wasn’t considering that many of those pushing the strollers might be working artists … Then again, isn’t Williamsburg now too expensive for working artists, with or without offspring? Circling back to artfagcity, an artistic comment on both topics.

PS - Margaret, a working artist and mom-of-toddlers and a regular here on the Walker blogs, has a number of thoughtful posts on art and parenthood.

One of reasons to enjoy working at this institution is that there’s an understanding about certain things - such as the fact that many of us employees (not to mention Walker visitors) might be a touch giddy in our anticipation of the history taking place next Tuesday.

So, thanks to the coordinated efforts among four departments - Human Resources, New Media, Events and Media Production, and Visitor Services – the Walker will be showing the television broadcast of 44’s Inauguration in the Cinema, for employees and visitors both.

Note that the actual swearing-in ceremony, where President-elect Obama loses the “elect” qualifier, is scheduled for 11:00 am CST; right as the Walker opens, so arrive promptly to catch that event on the big screen (consider using the Vineland entrance, right next to the Cinema). All of the attendant Inaugural hoopla will also be screening throughout the day (the traditional parade should start about 12:30pm CST), so take a break from the Tetsumi Kudo / Text/Messages / Beuys, Flavin and Judd exhibition circuit and stop by the Cinema to revel in the Change underway, at long last.

Edited: Times corrected.

mnartists.org’s Scott Stulen (project director) and Susannah Schouweiler (editor) are two of four critics selected to make an art show, rather than write about it. The Critics’ Show, running January 15 through February 22 at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, makes visible the personal tastes of local critics; it also subjects them to dissection, analysis, and, of course criticism, from their peers, arts, and the public at large.

A novel idea, no? Still, the critic in me can’t help but quibble with the format. The exhibition theme does not revolve around the art or the artists, but rather the curators (let’s leave out the fact that Stulen, for one, is a practicing visual artist as well). That would be fine if a single curator/critic were involved, but having four of them, each contributing one or two artists, makes this a group show of curators, not artists, if that makes any sense. Which it largely doesn’t – thus the quibble.

But there’s another novel aspect to the show, one that could detract from the above issue: At tomorrow’s opening reception, the quartet of curator/critics will briefly talk about their selections. Actually, the press release used the verb “defend,” perhaps to sound more provocative. But whether the critics defend, justify, extol, or merely explain why they chose what they did, it sounds promising. Perhaps this is something that should occur at more gallery receptions?

PS – if you’re hesitant to venture to Hopkins, get over it. Hopkins Center for the Arts is at the end of a quaint (but not overly cute) shopping street, with several options for dining and drinking; you can even catch a movie after the reception - the gallery is across the street from one of the few remaining bargain cinemas in the metro area.

“The Critics’ Show”
Opening Reception + panel discussion with artists and critics
January 15, 6 – 8 p.m. (panel discussion at 7pm)

Charles D. Redepenning Gallery at the Hopkins Center for the Arts 1111 Mainstreet
Hopkins, MN 55343

The Critic/curators:
Kate Iverson (A+E Editor, Secretsofthecity.com) selected Rudy Fig and Travis Stearns

Susannah Schouweiler selected Kao Lee Thao, Alex Kuno, and Alonso Sierralta

Scott Stulen selected Erik Ullanderson, Beatrix JAR<
Gregory J. Scott (Lead Arts Writer, Vita.mn) selected Ruben Nusz

Here at the Walker, as associate registrar Joe King is preparing to restore the brilliant red paint on Spoonbridge’s crowning touch, we received the sad news that one of its co-creators has died. In addition to writing scholarly pieces on artists like John Baldessari and Gerhard Richter, Coosje van Bruggen worked with her husband Claes Oldenburg on a number of sculptures that basically monumentalized Pop art, a body of work she dubbed “The Large-Scale Projects.”

The outsized objects, which date back to the late 70s, range from a baseball bat in Chicago to binoculars in Venice, California, to a broom and dustpan in Denver; Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985-88), a highlight of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, is special in that it was the duo’s first fountain sculpture. Van Bruggen, who succumbed to breast cancer at her home in Los Angeles over the weekend, is being memorialized by dozens of obituaries online, including Time and the L.A. Times, which has a fine slideshow as well, featuring the work that has become a Minneapolis landmark.

Daniel Rozin, Peg Mirror, 2007.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is currently exhibiting a show called Act/React. I visited the show just over a month ago and have been meaning to blog about it for some time. It is coming down on January 11, so if you’re going to be in or passing through Milwaukee over the holiday break, take a moment to stop in and see the show. It is worth it.

Going into the show, I was most excited to see the work of Cammille Utterback. Her piece, Liquid Time, is one of my favorite pieces of artwork. Several pieces from her External Measures Series are in the exhibition. One piece in the exhibition that really surprised me was Daniel Rozen’s Peg Mirror. The mirror consists of a collection of rotating pegs. Each peg’s end is tapered, and when they rotate in the light, the change in shadow represents shades of light and dark. While it’s a mechanical device, it feels very warm and inviting, certainly due to the warmth of the wood and the amazing precision it shows in reflecting the viewer.

Nathaniel Stern wrote a wonderful in-depth review for Rhizome:

…all the works on show are unhindered by traditional interface objects such as the mouse and keyboard. Most of them instead employ computer vision technologies, more commonly known as interactive video. Here, the combined use of digital video cameras and custom computer software allows each artwork to “see,” and respond to, bodies, colors and/or motion in the space of the museum. The few works not using cameras in this fashion employ similar technologies towards the same end. While this homogeneity means that the works might at first seem too similar in their interactions, their one-to-one responsiveness, and their lack of other new media-specific explorations — such as networked art or dynamic appropriation and re-mixing systems — it also accomplishes something most museum-based “state of the digital art” shows don’t. It uses just one avenue of interest by contemporary media artists in order to dig much deeper into what their practice means, and why it’s important. “Act/React” encourages an extremely varied and nuanced investigation of our embodied experiences in our own surroundings.

Stanley Landsman, Walk-In Infinity Chamber, 1968.

Another exhibition currently on view at the MAM is Sensory Overload: Light, Motion, Sound, and the Optical in Art Since 1945. It is a perfect companion exhibition to Act/React, highlighting some of the MAM’s new media collections, and connecting the contemporary work in Act/React to a deeper history of new media work. The exhibition web site notes:

The Museum has collected and exhibited new media art ever since 1967 when it co-organized Light | Motion | Space with the Walker Art Center, one of the first exhibitions on this form of art in the United States. Sensory Overload features some of the most popular works in the Museum’s Collection as well as key works on loan from other institutions and private collections.

A couple notable pieces are Erwin Redl’s MATRIX XV, Josiah McElheny’s Modernity circa 1952, Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely, and Stanley Landsman’s Walk-In Infinity Chamber, to focus on just a few. Many of the artists in the exhibition are also part of the Walker’s collection.

George Brecht gestorben
È morto George Brecht, genio di Fluxus
Fluxus Conceptual Artist George Brecht Dies at Age 82
L’artiste américain George Brecht, un des membres du groupe Fluxus, est mort à Cologne (Allemagne) …

… the breadth of publications reporting on the demise of this artist is an indication of how influential – and appreciated – his art is. Brecht was a key figure in Fluxus, a 60s movement whose art has been a focus of the Walker in its acquisitions, and his work was featured in the museum’s 1993 Fluxus survey. It will also play a prominent role in the upcoming Walker exhibition, The Quick and the Dead, opening in April – that is, to the extent that “prominent” means anything, given that Brecht sought to create “an art verging on the non-existent, dissolving into other dimensions.”

Peter Eleey, The Quick and the Dead’s curator, has selected several of the artist’s “event scores” for placement throughout the exhibition, where they will act in concert as a “larger score.” These are simple instructions for performances or “events” that anyone can enact - or in some cases, they simply happen. There’s Sink, for example, which is “on (or near) a white sink,” and Winter Event, which is simply “snow.” And every Thursday is the performance of Brecht’s Thursday.

While death means the end of Brecht’s career (though you never know, given the morbid preoccupations of many Conceptualists), that of another artist featured at the Walker has been coming into a full flowering. Mark Bradford, a self-described “beauty operator” whose work was included in Brave New Worlds at the Walker in 2007-08, will return to speak here in April (actual date to be confirmed – check back for details).

In the meantime, his Ark – built from the shell of a destroyed house and assorted flotsam from Hurricane Katrina - has become perhaps the emblematic piece at the sprawling Prospect.1 New Orleans biennial. (The image here comes from the exhibition’s homepage.) In his review, the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl declared it perhaps the single artwork most liked by the locals. Prospect.1 is on view through January 18 should you have plans to be in New Orleans (warmth-seeking Minnesotans, take note!).

(Credits for Brecht’s Void Stone : Arp Museum Bahn hof Rolandseck. Photo: Warburg. Via Artdaily.com.)

• Potty Art again: The New York Times’ City Room blog takes a seat and looks at some art museum toilets by way of The Art Museum Toilet of Museum Art. The name is a mouthful and I think the joke is on us. The Walker isn’t part of the museum, but our restrooms are rated highly and named lovingly.
• 2010 Whitney Biennial curators named: Francesco Bonami will be the curator, working with the Whitney’s Gary Carrion-Murayari as associate curator. Bonami curated Unfinished History in 1998 and was an contributing curator on Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972 in 2001, both at the Walker.
• Money and Art: Giant Robot is making money from art, having a print sale. Included in the Giant Robot print sale is the work of Mike Perry, has been mentioned on this blog before, resulting in some, uhh, interesting search terms. Mike’s latest book, Over & Over, full of hand-drawn patterns is excellent. Rirkrit Tiravanija is making art on money.  Rirkrit created untitled, better known as the stage, in 2006’s Open Ended exhibition and has several works in the Walker’s collection. [via]
• Two things beautiful: Manhole art from the streets of Japan and Miquel Barceló’s ceiling installation at the UN’s palace of nations in Geneva.

Downtown Minneapolis’ Peavey Plaza made news on Friday as a “Marvel of Modernism.” Designed in the early 70s by M. Paul Friedberg, it’s one of 12 urban spaces selected by the Cultural Landscape Foundation as part of its “Landslide 2008” campaign to draw attention to mid-20th century landscape design – and that fact that these highlighted “Marvels” are looking rather shabby. Indeed, the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota included the plaza on its own “10 most endangered” list last May.

Part of the need for such campaigns is due to the odd niche that urban landscape design occupies. In its story about Peavey Plaza, MPR made the point that most people don’t think of landscapes as being designed; by extension, it’s also rare to think about their “maintenance” beyond lawn mowing and leaf raking. Those who perform maintenance, of course, realize that it’s quite a bit more complicated, especially with a design like Peavey Plaza’s, which involves water and fountains and relatively unusual materials like pebble aggregate. (Interestingly, MPR’s story noted that the plaza is maintained not by parks staff, but city streets staff, who may unintentionally make poor decisions since the Plaza is not part of its regular maintenance program.)

Many of the other 11 places chosen by the Cultural Landscape Foundation are intriguing, especially Herbert Bayer’s Mill Creek Canyon from 1982. In the spirit of Bauhaus, where he got his start, Bayer’s outlook as a designer was admirably “universal” (as he named one of his fonts); besides graphic design and landscape design, he also made sculptures and helped transform Aspen, Colorado from a mining town into a ski resort.

On the other side of the coin, I’m stumped by the inclusion of Boston’s City Hall Plaza. I’ve been there, and it’s simply a wind-swept hardscape wasteland – the exact kind of place that gives mid-century modernism a bad name. What’s almost amusing is that, at the end of its own lengthy essay on City Hall Plaza, the Cultural Landscape Foundation concludes that investment in “making the plaza attractive, viable, and environmentally sustainable” is needed. If this place is neither attractive, nor viable, nor environmentally sustainable – why is it considered noteworthy, let alone a marvel?

I’d be interested to hear about other urban landscapes that people feel merit a visit, whether they are marvelous or stupendously awful. (For the latter, I have a local example: Minneapolis’ Federal Courthouse plaza, pictured here.)

(Image sources: Top: Preservation Alliance Of Minnesota, via Star Tribune; bottom: Dig This Designs )