The Words of Art and the Art of the Word

   Semen Fridliand, Die kaüfliche Presse (The Venal Press) 1929 halftone reproduction, 

6 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. (16 x 21 cm)  National Gallery of Art Library, David K.E. Bruce Fund

 

At least four exhibitions on the Mall, at the National Gallery of Art and Hirshhorn Museum, take a look at printed word in painting and other art forms of the past century.  Chronologically, these exhibits begin with the avant-garde artists of circa 1910 at the National Gallery of Art's "Shock of the News" exhibition.  They end with today's leading provocateur-artist, Ai Weiwei of China, at the Smithsonian's contemporary art museum, the Hirshhorn.   So we search for the meaning of the word in art.   

Jean-Léon Gérôme, O Pti Cien, 1902, is an academic style

In 1902, Jean-Léon Gérôme, a leading academic artist of the day, painted O PTI CIEN, a puppy wearing a monacle. The letters suggest a reading of "au petit chien" ("at the little dog"), which would sound approximately like  Oh P T shee-en to the French.  But the letters also form the French word for an optician. This work actually was a competition for an advertisement, but Gérôme's humorous pun set the stage for the Cubists, Surrealists and other artists who brought the painted word into prominence: Picasso and Georges Braque, Dada artists and even Surrealists like Magritte.





The intersection of the news media and visual art is the subject of the National Gallery's Shock of the News.  This cultural force burst onto the scene around the 2nd decade of the 20th century, when an Italian group, the Futurists, published their manifesto in 1909.  Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were soon incorporating collage into Cubism and using words from the newsprint to articulate their artwork. Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass, 1912 has the masthead from "Le Journal," a Paris daily.  The letters Jou appear as reminders of le jour, meaning day, journal, the daily newspaper and jouer, which means to play.

Pablo Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass, 1912  sheet music, newspaper, colored and white paper, charcoal, and hand-painted faux-bois paper on wallpaper  47.9 x 36.5 cm (18 7/8 x 14 3/8 in.)Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay ©2012 
Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork

That last word is the key, because modern art, if anything, is playful and ironic. If you can't make the world better, why not laugh about it?   The Dadaists, who followed Picasso, were despondent over the established civilization and the horrors of World War I.  Particularly in urban centers of Germany and in Paris and New York, they couldn't fight the world, so ridiculed it.  Their art is full of newsprint, ready-made objects and things not expected to part of aesthetics.   Hannah Hoch's collages are particularly playful and  interesting      

Hannah Höch  Von Oben (From Above), 1926-1927  photomontage and collage on paper 30.5 x 22.2 cm

(12 x 8 3/4 in.)Des Moines Art Center’s Louise Noun Collection of Art by Women through Bequest, 2003

Semen Fridliand's photo halftone image, The Venal Press, above center, is a commentary on the public's capability to let the press influence their to beliefs in everything.  How much greater that power is with the blogs, the facebook and Twitter of today!

Of course, Picasso continued to respect the power of print media in Guernica, of 1937 (not in the exhibition), which is his commentary the first time a bomb was dropped from air, hitting the Basque city of Guernica in Spain.  He wanted the monumental, 25-foot painting to have journalistic quality and therefore imitated the lettering of newspapers, while painting only blacks, whites and grays.

On Kawara,Oct. 26, 1971 (Today series no. 97), 1971
cardboard box, newspaper, and liquitex on canvas
painting: 10 1/8 x 13 in., box bottom: 10 1/2 x 13 3/8 x 1 3/4 in. box lid: 10 5/8 x 13 1/4 x 1 3/16 in. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2007. The Panza Collection

On Kawara painted the date, October 27, 1971, in white on a black canvas.  It is one of over 5,000 such images his has done over many years.  Each painting goes along with a cardboard box and cover and the packing functions as a time capsule, because the news of that day is place in the box with the painting.   After leaving the Shock of the News exhibition, National Gallery visitors move onto the next exhibition, Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective.

Roy Lichtenstein, Look Mickey, 1961, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 175.3 cm (48 x 69 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

First and foremost, we think of Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) as the artist who transformed the art of the comic book into a higher form of art.  As a Pop artist, he is often eclipsed in reputation by Warhol.  This large exhibition brings together works from his entire career, encompassing several themes.  Throughout his long career, he used bold colors and ben-day dots.  The dots imitative of a printer's dots for the comics and newsprint remain a consistent signature of his style, but Lichtenstein's late work parodies earlier art history using few words. His images of the 1960s borrow from cartoons, but he added captions and details to complete the compositions.  His captions capture the spirit and humor of certain cultural icons like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.  Other large cartoon-like images fill rooms on the specific themes of war and romance.  He uses boldness, humor and a surprising amount of emotion in a simplified style. 

Barbara Kruger, an installation at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, through 2014

The bold, sans serif letters of Barbara Kruger overwhelm the ground floor of the Hirshhorn right now.  The exhibition, called Belief + Doubt = Sanity, uses words in every way to make us think. Kruger was a graphic artist before she became a fine artist and the heritage of graphic art remains part of her style and her appeal, much like it did for the Pop Artists before her.  The stairs and adjoining rooms are dressed in bold letters using only black, yellow, red and white, an overwhelming effect.  Her messages are arresting, questioning thought about politics, consumerism and all sorts of aspects of contemporary life.  We realize the dichotomy of much in the world in which political banter stems from belief in one truth.  The only sane way to evaluate it is with a blend of belief and doubt.  Her art functions to ask questions, to question the cultural norms and to make us stop to think.  As we ponder one of her bold messages, we recognize ourselves in the lines:  "YOU WANT IT, YOU BUY IT, YOU FORGET IT."

Ai Weiwei, Coca-Cola Vase, 2007, paint on Qing Dynasty

ceramic at Hirshhorn Museum until February 24, 2013

The Ai Weiwei exhibition, According to What (named after a painting by Jasper Johns currently in a Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition, Dancing around the Bride), is on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Hirshhorn.   Like many contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei doesn't limit himself to one medium; he does photographs, sculptures installations.  He critiques American and Chinese governments, most notably the shoddy building construction which led to the death of 4,000 plus children in an earthquake. Ancient culture and modern life clash, but come together in Coco-Cola vase. He disrespects tradition but forces us to think how consumerism, corporate marketing and globalism meet ancient culture. 

The works of Ai Weiwei and Barbara Kruger entertain, but those artists also challenge us and make us think more than Pop Art does.  This summer I saw another contemporary, conceptual artist's work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in of University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.  Stefan Sagmeister's The Happy Show, is also the work of a graphic artist, like Kruger. The words printed are in black on a yellow ground, the typeface combination that can be read most easily in the mode of the yellow pages. Yellow is the happiest of colors.  Sagmeister made me think of a  modern "pursuit of happiness" written into the Declaration of Independence.  The exhibition questioned, provoked, entertained, tried to make us laugh and added one more valuable asset, encouraging happiness.  If we recognize the paradoxes that Barbara Kruger and Ai Weiwei demonstrate, it's possible to use the art of the word to promote not just "JOU" (play), but also joy in the world, or joy in the word.

Stefan Sagmeister, The Happy Show, at Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, April 4 - August 12, 2012

"Not a Painting But a Vision"

Last weekend the annual Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art at the National Gallery of Art was "Not a Painting But a Vision."   Andreas Henning, curator from Dresden, Germany, spoke about The Sistine Madonna, a magnificent altarpiece Raphael painted in 1512 which is now in the Dresden State Art Museum.   I have written about it in a previous blog, comparing the Mary of this painting to the  Raphael's lovely image of inner and outer beauty in La Donna Velata.

However, as the title suggested, it is painting of a vision and that Mary is not of this world.  She has facial features of that generic beauty similar to those of the Donna Velata, but she is more ethereal and otherworldly.  As much as we may want to reach out and hug the baby Jesus, we can't. The Madonna also carries a tinge of sadness in this image, a practice artists used to reveal Mary recognition that her Son will die someday. 

However, two saints, Saint Sixtus and Saint Barbara have brighter colors and lead the transition to the audience on earth.  The curator explained that they represent a reconciliation of opposites, as we often find in Raphael's paintings.  They are male and female, old and young, the active life and the contemplative life.  But the truth is that they, too, are in heaven.

When the Sistine Madonna was completed and set as an altarpiece in a monastery church in Piacenza, we must imagine curtains framing the Mary, her veil blowing in a wind, as separating one world from  another.  The drama is in the relationship of the audience to the vision in the work of art.  Only the saturated green curtains and a balustrade on bottom are meant to be part of the material world. In fact, in this visionary painting, Raphael has gone behind the Renaissance perspective which aims for imitation of reality.  He anticipated the triumphant late Renaissance artist Correggio and the visionary art of Baroque, such as Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

I've never seen this painting, but was thrilled to view the new slides since the painting's cleaning. In the background, the clouds reveal the faces of many more cherubs.  There are 42 faces in the clouds.  (These faces are mainly visible in first image on the upper left side.) What glorious illusion!

The curator also pointed out that these sweet and precious angels, who look upward in observation and wonder, were an afterthought which Raphael  felt the composition needed them for completion.  What impeccable images of innocence, charm and love!

Día de los Muertos

Nicolás de Jésus and students, October 2012, NVCC, Annandale, VA, right side

The day of the Dead ( Día de los Muertos) is a starting point for Mexican artist Nicolás de Jésus, who visited and demonstrated his work in my Art Appreciation Class on October 17th. Since today is Halloween, it's a good time to explore how Nicolás de Jésus uses this theme. A mural he completed with students has been hung on the second floor of the CM Building.Is it a coincidence or not to discover this past weekend that someone near and dear to me turned out to be in an art exhibition on the El Dia de los Muertos theme?

Nicolás de Jésus, Fiesta de los Muertos, etching and aquatint

Nicolás de Jésus mesmerized the class as he explained his prints, impressive for their beauty, meaning and the textures. The skeletons of his prints are very animated and life-like. His art dips into memories of his childhood in the Amayaltepec region, where he learned to make art at a very young age and his father was among the most notable folk artists.  At first his art seems immersed in imagery of Día de los Muertos, but closer examination reveals that the holiday becomes a means to an end. His meanings go much deeper, because the subjects of the vernacular, folkloric tradition apply as well to other themes.

Dia de la Muerta, etching, aquatint

The celebration of the Day of the Dead recalls our own Halloween, but it is celebrated on November 1 (for deceased infants and children) and November 2 (for elders) in Mexico. Typically families go the cemeteries where deceased members of their families are buried.  In some parts of the country they dance in the graveyards. They build altars to the deceased and present offerings of food, like sugared skulls, and decorations such as trinkets or flowers, preferably orange marigolds.  They bring toys to the children, essentially blurring the boundaries between life and death.  The celebration combines aspects of an ancient Aztec celebration with the Catholic feast days. The lines between the living and the dead become blurred, as I had recently witnessed in an exhibition at the National Mexican Fine Arts Museum in Chicago, where there were installations with food offerings to the dead, Hanan Pixal.  Art is life and the art of this theme is for both the living and the deceased.

But in the art of Nicolás de Jésus, the skeletons can be powerful metaphors for the living.  The skeletons dance and celebrate, taking on the qualities of living people. They act out the human comedy, or, at times they partake in the human tragedy and satirize human behavior. His meanings can be critical and provocative. He is concerned with the lives of Mexicans on both sides of the border.

Left side detail with skeleton in NVCC/Annandale's new mural

Maicidio refers to the death of corn, a gift

from Mexico, through modification

Nicolás de Jésus prints his works from amate bark, native to his Guerrero region of Mexico, which is west of the Yucatan peninsula. Though he did not demonstrate in our class how to do his  technique, it is a combination of etching and aquatints.  In etching, the artist sketches the lines of an image into a waxy substance over the metal plate.  For broad areas of shading, aquatint is used. Aquatint is a printmaking process that uses rosin, a natural lubricant produced by from tree sap, melted on a zinc plate to give a grainy quality to the tones. A acid bath 'bites' the images into the metal plate in both etching and aquatint, before the scene can be inked and printed in reverse of the drawn image. De Jesús uses the aquatint process frequently to create the grainy, textural backgrounds of many works. 


One print that really strikes me is Maicidio, suggesting death to corn, one of Mexico's great gifts to the world. The United States has now changed the nature of corn, overproducing it and turning it into cattle feed or high fructose corn syrup, things it was never meant to be. Its by-products become additives in almost all processed food. With American corn now is 85% genetically modified, it's no wonder the skeletons attack and pull it apart.  Let us remember this fact next Tuesday, when Californians go to the polls and vote on Proposition 37 which will require labeling for genetically-modified food (GMOs).   As our industrialized US agricultural system is dominating and killing corn, people in the US become increasingly disconnected to land.

En El Tran recalls when the artist lived in Chicago. 

Nicolás de Jésus lived in Chicago from 1989-1994, and he has at least 60 works of art in the Mexican Fine Arts Museum in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. En el Tran brings his familiar skeletons into the elevated train of Chicago's mass transit system, while skyscrapers are seen out the window behind. He implies a deeper truth behind the scene, the fate that awaits all of us in the end. Although not mentioned, Mexico has a tradition of Surrealism and de Jésus also seems to be connected to Surrealists.


In many ways his prints follow in the tradition of socially and politically active artists from Mexico in first half of the twentieth century: Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.  A full-blooded Nahua Indian from a small village in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, he is an advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples. Themes of struggle meet the themes of celebration in his work.  Though he is critical of much in society, he is above all a humanist who recognizes our foibles but understands our humanity.