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Bits & Pieces: Guillermo Kuitca edition

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Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008 opens at the Walker this Saturday after presentations at the Miami Art Museum and the Albright-Knox Gallery (it travels to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this fall). “The greatest artist in the world” Why not start with the superlative to end all superlatives? Ben Lewis, the [...]

Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008 opens at the Walker this Saturday after presentations at the Miami Art Museum and the Albright-Knox Gallery (it travels to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this fall).

“The greatest artist in the world”
Why not start with the superlative to end all superlatives? Ben Lewis, the British filmmaker and art critic for Prospect magazine, bestowed that title on Kuitca last January. “Kuitca’s oeuvre is original, impassioned and striking,” he wrote, comparing the artist to Francis Bacon, Lucio Fontana, and Yves Klein (coming this fall!) as successful but little-known figures who at some point “shot up the pecking order.”  

Kuitca's self-portrait, shot for "W" magazine

 

“… immersed in conversation, his hand never stops moving. Fascinated by pencils even more than by paint, he doodles incessantly.”
W magazine published a lengthy profile of the artist last fall, when Everything premiered at the Miami Art Museum. Doodlers of all stripes and skill levels will want to join Kuitca as he hosts the Drawing Club at Walker Open Field tomorrow — Thursday — from 4 to 5 pm.  

 

[He uses] “common, almost generic, forms that say a lot about human social relationships, without using the human figure.”
In the July issue of Minnesota Monthly, director Olga Viso talks about Kuitca and explains her role in bringing the show to the Walker.

“… what I get [from teaching] is an incredibly rich, panoramic view of what art is and how people tend to approach different problems.”
“All About Guillermo Kuitca,” the cover story for Modern Painters‘ summer issue, is an interview with writer and curator Robert Storr; the accompanying slideshow includes great shots of Kuitca’s studio in Buenos Aires.

 

“I hate to throw things away, but I do throw away drawings. I keep maybe one out of 30 and throw the rest away. But with the painting, I keep fighting a little bit more …”
Kuitca in conversation with Argentine singer Juana Molina. The two interviewed each other for Mary Abbe in Sunday’s Star Tribune; Molina performs at the Walker Saturday, June 26, for the opening night of Everything.

 

Tickets are still available for the After Hours preview party this Friday, June 25.

Adieu, Sigmar Polke

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  “Sigmar Polke, an artist of infinite, often ravishing pictorial jest, whose sarcastic and vibrant layering of found images and maverick, chaos-provoking painting processes left an indelible mark on the last four decades of contemporary painting, died yesterday in Cologne, Germany.” – from the New York Times‘ Arts Beat blog The Walker enjoyed a long history [...]

 

Polke with his artwork at the Walker, May 1995. Photo by Glenn Halvorson

“Sigmar Polke, an artist of infinite, often ravishing pictorial jest, whose sarcastic and vibrant layering of found images and maverick, chaos-provoking painting processes left an indelible mark on the last four decades of contemporary painting, died yesterday in Cologne, Germany.”
– from the New York Times‘ Arts Beat blog

The Walker enjoyed a long history with Polke, whom former Walker chief curator Richard Flood called “probably the closest thing we have to a history painter in the latter part of the century.” In 1994, it acquired a comprehsive archive of the artist’s prints and other editioned works spanning the first thirty years of his career. This collection continued to grow and today comprises a remarkable body of work: prints, photographs, three-dimensional constructions, artist’s books, and other special publications.  

Flood organized the 1995 retrospective Sigmar Polke: Illumination, which featured Frau Herbst und ihre zwei Töchter (Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters) (pictured below), the huge 1991 painting whose combination of fanciful, almost surreal imagery, gorgeous abstraction, and translucent fabric has made it a Walker favorite. 

 

Flood said of Polke’s innovation with this work: 

“… you have this meta thing and, then, you put it on a transparent surface, this totally permeable skin, that is accepting light and at the same time dealing with the notion of illusionistic space, but in a very real architectural way, just lifting it off the wall, allowing you to see the support structure through it. I think his contribution is bigger than I’m describing. At the same time, it’s amazing that people did not think of this earlier. It’s kind of astounding. All of these things look quite simple. Was that a big idea? Actually, yes, it was a big idea. But did the big idea have to be complicated? Not really. I take great heart in that as well.”

A  key early work from Polke – Apparat, mit dem eine Kartoffel eine andere umkreisen kann (Apparatus Whereby One Potato Can Orbit Another) — goes on view August 12 as part of a new exhibition, A Shot in the Dark, in the Medtronic gallery.

Roberta Smith’s obituary at the New York Times

Apparat, mit dem eine … on ArtsConnected.org

Sigmar Polke in the Walker collection at ArtsConnected.org

A Shot in the Dark (opens August 12)

 

Polke, circa 1960s