What fascinated seeing a few new art shows the last 2 days after months of self-exile outside New York was just how much I needed those cultural injections and how much I hadn't realized. Will that change the problems of my life? No. Will that make me a better person? Probably not. What is crucial/critical is that reminder you are not alone in how you feel on this planet. You may literally 'be alone' but mentally there are many with you. Being human.
Now, one could argue how could e.g. a Donald Judd metal construction say anything about humanity. Yet I always love seeing people simply putting things together i.e. Joel Shapiro or Rebecca Horn or or or Richard Wentworth. The 'art world' and 'money' is a different kettle of fish, mongers/restaurants need sell fish! But an artist performs THE important role in society. Perhaps healing or exciting or simply floating in one's imagination. Food for folie...
Almost didn't turn up to anything this week as life keeps getting in the way. Or rather people (who don't quite know what they are doing etc keep getting/gone in the way). Thanks to those who do...
I say this 'cause when the morning at MoMA concluded listening to a riveting discussion with Glen Lowry and the curators of Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980.
Komisch how ironic that all was for me. …Well everyone, really, if they truly admitted it.
MoMA fascinates me. I know it frustrates some people (no names…!) yet there is a very 'socialist' ethic at play whilst juggling the corporate/elite rich forces. Not Communist (though at times, maybe a little, but so too the Democrats…ouch! meow!) and then maybe even..the NAME that dare not speak its 'food'….nutrients hard to find. Every museum in the world. Surely? !
I asked myself: would those who queue round the block on a 'free MoMA Friday' appreciate this architectural show? I would first say: buy yourself a membership (not that expensive…how much was that 'shitty' meal last night?! then no 45min queue). Secondly: one needs devote time to this show. As you do also the Adrian Piper show on the 6th floor closing on the 22nd- so many words to read. But not exclusively so.
I don't frequent MoMA as often as I did (well I ain't in town that much anymore…u know-talking to the giraffe that was never there/but was, the deer that is/was, trying to imitate birdsong- I've done well on that-I have a girlfriend there, least at 10 meters. Sometimes.) What always impresses me is just how fascinated most folk are (who probably buy a single MoMA admission) by the art. It isn't a tourist bus for them. No.
So: back to Yugoslavian architecture. Sounds like a total 'loser' date: "Thanks but my [non-existent] cousins are staying over for the weekend)." Right….guess the Wall Street guy and Cirque du Soleil won out. One out of two ain't bad….
OK, so the Yugoslav show is maybe a bit esoteric. Yet, totally the wrong word: really. Some projects in recent photos (commissioned by MoMA) resemble the decaying concrete dream of Corbusier. What astounds, though, is the 'out of the box' futuristic built Utopian reality of so so many projects that still exist after all the 'troubles'.
Co-Curator Vladimir Kulić: "Architecture only really survives if part of a social structure," or words to that effect. One does need an interest in the built environment to appreciate this exhibition. Not an easy sell. Yugoslavia, though, was so very different to the Eastern Block: "a sad, grey, place…the Iron Curtain, with no pleasure" was the considered opinion. The show convinces that was so not true including a design/living element that only a few until this show knew/appreciated.
Always loved Yugoslav poster design ..maybe less so than Polish, meow) nut nonetheless…they knew how to sell an event, ironically branding without 'branding'.
Yugoslavia and Tito is truly a fascinating/frustrating subject. Even if one vehemently disagrees with its aims. This exhibition makes a fool of you, somewhat however, if you do. Disagree! The more you get fascinated the more this show is totally the show of this moment. A nation with six Federal states trying "articulating the diversity of each". "It couldn't be branded," said Vladimir Kulić referring to other architectural movements in Europe. "A design for a self-managing society," after Yugoslavia severed ties with Stalin. Based on workers self-managing councils and similarly for commune self-organization.
Interesting fact: "15,000 apartments were being built every year by the 1970's in Yugoslavia." No other Iron Curtain (let alone European?!) could lay claim to that.
As a thumbs up for all those that hate the conventional wisdom of whatever field you are bejeezes studying, let alone art/architectural history, Vladimir Kulić offered this anecdote: "15 years ago when I was writing a university dissertation and suggested Yugoslavian architecture was a goldmine for historians: I was slammed!"
Go digging 'fffers' and dig some more! Not like it's Egypt for f's sake! It's almost all there in boxes!
Begone conventional wisdom!
Rising from my primordial slime;) schlepped from Brooklyn to the Whitney the next morning. Many will not know the name David Wojnarowicz and those like me who do may not have seen his work since the 90s! It just hasn't really appeared on the radar again, except as art historical. He died of AIDS in 1992 and much of his last work is to do with promulgating government lack of interest in the disease and pharmaceutical company greed. BUT! What is extraordinary about this Whitney retrospective (the first evaluation since 1999- that was yesterday for me! ;)) is just how humanly beautiful was David's work. All the violence, anger, frustration in some of his imagery is submerged yet resonates a sea of beauty. He often spoke of how important beauty and grace was in this ever problematic world. I wouldn't call his ever a tranquil sea as there are disturbances and rip tides everywhere. The hurricane is never far off in David's work.
Romanticizing would be wrong. Yet at his most profound he was a poet in paint, somewhat of a TS Eliot 'yin and yang' "till human voices wake us, and we drown". A man/worker strides towards the viewer with a stag on his back center canvas amid pollutant chimney stacks with the ocean as a predella. Non-human creatures appear frequently. The photo of a frog in the palm of his hand: What Is This Little Guy's Job in the World.
It's extraordinary that all this work was made in just 15 years. It puts us all to shame. I've always admitted that I'm not a huge activist-artist fan and that the artist endeavor speaks more loudly if forever more subtle. Then again, was I ever been that subtle! David was self-taught and constantly a champion of the outsider with an innate sense of the sublime. Really there was no-one like him. Not Basquiat, not David Salle, not Mapplethorpe. If this was a young artist today he would be hailed as a leading artistic force. That's how timeless is Wojnarowicz's best work.
Juxtaposed on the same floor is Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay- featuring 7 mid-career and emerging Latinx artists. Methinks Wojnarowicz would have approved. It is the first Whitney show for curator Marcela Guerrero. It asks who/what/why/where are Americans? A question I ask myself on a daily basis as an Ozzie/Brit in America. Well done Nordstrom for being the show's principal sponsor. Broadway Tony's to the Whitney, sounds the wacky way go for me!
What really got to me, in a way, was just how strangely not so far away is Broadway from these Whitney shows. Wojnarowicz's early work and his eternal impetus was French poet Rimbaud and human 'outsidership': Je est un autre (I is an other).
