(Sorry in advance for the reflections in the photos. Better job next time.)
This is the show's opening image:
It is quite large (at least 1 meter across?), and the text appears to be a sheet of grammar exercises. The questions in parentheses are meant to test the student's knowledge of Russian case endings, but end up sounding vaguely poetic.Approximate and fairly literal translation:
For a long time and (how?) sweetly sang the red robin about the hot light of the sun, about the honey clovers. The merry Zheltukhin again went to check the space.
Exercise # 4
How? well, firmly, exce...
Where? here, there, in the front
Where to? to the left, into the distance, in front
When? earlier, now, sometimes
Where from? from the right, from above, from below
Where? here, there, in the front
Where to? to the left, into the distance, in front
When? earlier, now, sometimes
Where from? from the right, from above, from below
11 April
Classroom
Exercises
Classroom
Exercises
All of these are from the series "Susie and Others" from the 1960s-70s. Apart from that first one with the text, these were all small images, perhaps the size you might find in an old photo-album, not quite as big as the 5x7" we're used to now, perhaps 4x5"? There were also many many more of these than I'm posting here, and looking over my "catch," I am realizing just how odd many of the ones I did not photograph actually were. There were a lot more bulgy, manic nudes like pencil-belly and melon-boobs up there, as well as more odd little things like that furry clump of a hat on the red table-cloth. For some reason, I think my self-defense mechanism against this onslaught of the unheimlich was to photograph the more classically-composed, comfortably genre-specific images.Still, even the ones here have a satisfying edge to them. They are confusing and odd in a way my eye does not expect. What is this floral-patterned (not shown) world where women stand in dirt lots lifting up their skirts (not shown) and men's scabby penises look like walruses in close-up (definitely not shown)? And, by extension, what is the viewer's relationship to the people who live there? Are we voyeurs or co-conspirators? Are they posing for us, or are we snatching glimpses?
The world depicted here feels much more expansive than just the Thaw-era aspirations to capture individuality, expressiveness, a space outside socially-prescribed and circumscribed codes of appearance and behavior. (As claimed in the curatorial wall text.)
And, AND, what about the relentless play of forms? The crooked horizon lines, the visual rhymes, the tiny format that packs a punch by managing to squeeze in the whole joke?
New Museum Buddy has resolved to judge art by the criterion of work put in. Meaning that: she will appreciate the meticulous craft and the sustained thought evident in the artist's work rather than some prescribed formal criteria. I agree, but see it from the other, perhaps less reliably quantifiable, perspective: the more the work sustains my attention (literally, the longer I want to stand looking and wondering, the more I want to labor at it), the better it is.
Thoughts?
2) This stray lump made me think of Leonard Farnsworth. I hope this little guy knows how to stay warm at night.
3) We saw this:
4) Then we noticed this:
5) And then, finally, after many a-wandering, we brought our two themes together. Awesome creamy veg soup in a hollowed-out warm and toasty brown bread loaf. Slightly disturbing*, but so warm and good. The picture does not convey the awesomeness.
*"Architectural," according to NMB. But looking at this picture, just the big gaping hole in a sideways loaf is creepy.6) Then I rode home on the metro and dreamed about airplanes.
2 comments:
hmmm, maybe if i kept my pencil in my bellybutton i wouldn't keep losing it.
methinks your artist is on to something!
And how.
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