Abstract Expressionism at MoMA

Three of the works featured in the Museum of Modern Art's Abstract Expressionist New York, October 2, 2010--April 23, 2011.

Hedda Sterne, New York VIII, 1954, 72 1/8" x 42"

Philip Guston, The Clock, 1956-57, oil on canvas, 76"x64 1/8"

Philip Guston, Painting, 1954, 63 1/4"x60 1/8"

Anna Hepler

I had only half an hour to run in for a look at Anna Hepler's show "Makeshift" at the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) when I visited Maine a week or so ago. But that was long enough to enter the Museum's Great Hall and be entranced by Hepler's massive plastic web installed under the central skylight in the hall's huge open space. What a magical display of light and volume she created from salvaged tarps and boat wraps!
(NOTE: Click on photos to open up large.)

Hepler's The Great Haul in the Great Hall of the Portland Museum of Art
(image courtesy of PMA website)

Another view of The Great Haul (PMA website)

Patterned light spilling onto the floor from The Great Haul (PMA website)

Anna Hepler's exhibition at the PMA, called "Makeshift," consists of four parts: The Great Haul, Full Blown, series of 12 Inflatable Drypoints and 8 "Cyanotypes"  (each to be explained later). The Great Haul was not part of the original exhibition proposal but was added later when Hapler convinced curators that this installation would take advantage of light spilling into the museum's entry hall and draw viewers into the space to see the work. Fortunately, she had her way because this piece is the star of the show and a wonderful creation that draws attention not only to itself, but to the volumetric architecture of the space.

To understand what really went into Hepler's creation of this piece, you have to watch the 12-minute video by David Camlin produced for the PMA. Believe me, you won't be sorry that you invested your time. Hepler is thoughtful, intelligent, inventive and a great art talker. The video shows her gathering skanky used tarps (without gloves or special clothing!) and boat wraps for the piece, then cutting the plastic into manageable hunks and then slicing those into strips that were sewn into latticed nets on sewing machines by Hepler and an assistant. When the piece was installed at the museum, nets were joined together by staples. If you go up close to the piece, you can see lengths of sewing thread in various colors sticking out from seams and adding a delicate extra dimension to the work. (If I had been taking the pictures, I would have taken one of this.) This was a gargantuan effort because the piece is 20 feet x 20 feet x 20 feet. Light falls into the piece from above but seems to emanate from inside the huge webs, which are actually double webs - blue inside and clear or white outside.

Upstairs gallery: Full Blown and cyanotypes (NN photo)

Upstairs on the fourth floor is an open gallery, more like a balcony or mezzanine that is open above to skylights and open below to a large gallery on the third floor that contains the PMA's limited collection of contemporary art. In the photo above you can see in the distance a deflated version of Full Blown and the wall of cyanotypes on the right.

Full Blown in a deflated state (NN photo)

Full Blown, like The Great Haul, hangs from a skylight so that it receives natural light. It's a translucent but relatively solid container for the compressed air which blows into it from a compressor above and inflates it every 16 minutes. Then air slowly leaks out through the taped seams or thin plastic and it goes to a deflated state. In the video, you can see Hepler very excited the first time it's blown up and she gets to look inside the giant balloon.

Here's the inflated version and you can see how it lifts off the floor when full (PMA photo)

Light and volume are the twin focuses of Hepler's work and even in her drypoint prints (that she calls "Inflated Drypoints") and cyanotypes she has found a way to translate three dimensions into two by first building volumetric structures using plastic and tape. Tape forms the skeleton of the pieces.

This was my favorite of her drypoints and the biggest at 23.25"H x 50"W. It's a drawing of the tape that Hepler used to hold pieces of plastic together and form a balloon-like shape, a smaller version of Full Blown. You will see her in the video blowing up objects like that with a straw. To draw the object, Hepler let the air out of it and drew the flat shape. The variation in darkness of the tape is caused by the slight dimensionality of the deflated shape. (NN photo)

Here's another drypoint that you may be able to see better. (PMA photo)

And here's a third one that is more schematic. There were a whole series of these drawings based on 3-D objects that she first created and then flattened. (PMA photo)

Then there are the cyanotypes, but they are not just cyanotypes per se. To make cyanotypes, you coat paper with a light-sensitive solution that turns blue when exposed to light. You let the coating dry in the dark, then expose the coated paper to a strong light (sunlight or bright lightbulb) with an object on top of the paper. The object that you wish to capture interferes with light hitting the coated paper and that part does not turn blue. You are left with a negative image of the object against a blue background. Dimensionality of the object is indicated by the clarity of the negative; parts that are farther away from the paper are less defined than those that are close.

Hepler used this process but in a much more convoluted way. She first collected insect wings, scanned them, then cut up and assembled the scans into 3D sculptures. She then photographed the sculptures, exposed transparencies to the cyanotype process, then copied and enlarged the cyanotypes, finally printing them out on inkjet printers. Wow! What a lot of manipulation! But what she got were images of objects that seem made out of light. They almost look like animated versions of atoms buzzing around in space.

Above, three examples of the eight cyanotypes (35" H x varying widths).

Anna Hepler was chosen to be the first artist in a new series of exhibitions at the museum called CIRCA that will focus on contemporary art in Maine. This is a great beginning for the series and the museum did a very comprehensive job of presenting it in a nicely installed exhibition, large color brochure with many images, full image gallery in high and low resolution on the website, image checklist with sizes, 12-minute professionally-produced video running in two galleries at the museum and available on the website, links to reviews, Hepler's statement, c.v. and website link, press kit, etc. All museums should do as much for their exhibitions. Kudos to the Portland Museum of Art for dotting all the eyes and crossing the tees.

Front entry to the Portland Museum of Art (NN photo)

Circle motif on the facade (NN photo)

I was very impressed with the architecture of this buildiing. The spaces were interesting and details of lighting, stairways, windows, etc. were unusual. The building was designed by Henry Nichols Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners and opened in 1983. I thought it had a much more contemporary feel. I enjoyed my visit and am looking forward to more exhibitions in the CIRCA series.

The Questionnaire: Beverly Rippel

The Questionnaire is meant to be a lighter version of a bio, a little more revealing in some respects and personal without all the facts bogging it down. I supply the questions and the respondents supply the answers. Either one or both of us supply the images. 

             B e v e r l y  R i p p e l           

What is your favorite color?

I am more interested in the interaction of colors –often complementary colors – and find that one either quietly enhances the other….or may cause some ‘razzle-dazzle’. I also use monochromes (or black + white) for effect, and find that size matters, too. 

Threefold #28, oil and encaustic on linen, 66"x42", Beverly at River Tree Arts show "In Flat Fields", 2008, Kennebunkport, ME

Snow White Eve, oil on canvas, 20" x 20" x 3", 2007.

What is your favorite word?

Respect 



What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Nature’s sounds and silences… sitting by the ocean…going for a morning walk and being alone in my “mind studio”. Also, believe it or not, I find that when I clean my house on my hands and knees, (my repetitive “floor exercises”), I re-discover past yard sale collections or street finds. Sometimes past journal ideas are later re-ignited. 



What turns you off?

Unrest. Worry. 



What profession other than artist would you most like to be?

Other profession(s): medical, music, or maybe a pastry chef! (My dad was in the medical field, so that was my direction entering college.) Something about the physiological, the psychological or our cultural rituals has always fascinated me. I ended up studying anthropology along with folklore and liberal/ fine arts. It all shows up in my work. My mom, Julia, was a fantastic baker of desserts. I enjoy creating pastries and pies especially with woven, buttery crusts. We always joked about opening a bakery (together with my two sisters) which we would call “Julia’s Child”. Food, table settings - the idea of “ingesting” ideas- plays a part in my visualization. 

Rhubarb Custard Pie, edible materials, 12" round x 2" high, site specific/temporary construction, July 2010

What is your favorite book or movie?

Anne Morrow Lindberg’s A Gift From The Sea is one book that I go back to over and over. It is a simple book that I first read 40 years ago and have always included on my “suggested reading list” in my drawing and painting classes. Each time I revisit her words, Lindberg reminds me to simply ‘slow down’ and ‘notice’… actually a very Zen thing I need to do in between living and working. 


Who is your favorite musician, musical group or style of music?

Musician /music: Though I was trained in classical music and theory at The Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA, I enjoy all forms of musical expression . But—The Blues gets to my bones. 

Robert Johnson- a great, primitive blues singer/songwriter - is a favorite. He was born in 1911 in Hazelhurst, Mississippi.

A bit about Robert Johnson that I find truly resonates with me as a visual artist:

Stephen C. LaVere, music historian, wrote of R.J. “He was…a most serious and precocious individual. His greatest blues are not only super-charged with truly fiery emotion, but they convey a despair and dissatisfaction along with a nearly omnipresent solemnity.”

Keith Richards wrote “…he came out with such compelling themes, they were actual songs as well as just being blues. And the guitar playing- it was almost like listening to Bach.”

Eric Clapton wrote, “What struck me about the Robert Johnson album was that it seemed like he wasn’t even playing for an audience at all; it didn’t obey the rules of time or harmony or anything – he was just playing for himself….. It was almost as if he felt things so acutely he found it almost unbearable. This was an image, really, that I held on to for a very long time.” 

Red Body, found objects/guitar parts with encaustic, wall installation: 6' x 20". Included in 8/2010 Northeast Chapter of Women's Caucus For Art show, "Shine" at Bromfield Gallery, Boston, MA

Red Body (close-up detail)

What do you most value in your friends?

Being a generous listener. 



Name three artists whose work has influenced your own or whose work you most relate to 

So many….Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keefe, Jasper Johns, Kiki Smith, Cezanne 

Bodyscape II, oil on linen, 17.5" x 10", shown in 1994 at Gallery 84 in NYC. Juror: Ivan Karp of OK Harris, NYC.

Paint On Canvas III (Island), oil, 8" x 8", included in 8/2010 exhibition, "Collective" at  Galatea Gallery, Boston, MA

Just Once, oil on linen, 24.5" x 44.5" (Malcolm Rogers Award at Cambridge Art's 1st National Prize Show 1998)

Pink Cap Gun I, oil and encaustic on linen, 50" x 52", 2010

(This just in: Pink Cap Gun I was chosen for inclusion in the 2011 Biennial @ the Portland Museum of Art (April-June 2011))

Blue Cap Gun III and II, 70" x 52", oil on linen. Beverly shown with wall installation at University of Maine Museum of Art's 2010 I-95 Triennial Exhibition: A Survey from Four New England States. (Adjacent artwork by Walter Kopec, Boston artist.)

Name an artist whose work you admire but which may be unlike yours.

Cy Twombly’s brave open spaces. Gerhard Richter’s multi-faceted explorations both conceptually and materially.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Other than being lost in my studio- it is embracing my family around the dinner table with a home cooked meal. 





For more of Beverly's work, see newenglandwax.org

http://www.felosart.com/bev/BeverlyR.htm

www.umma.umaine.edu (I-95 Triennial Exhibition)

www.cambridgeart.org (“Grande” corporate works)

Errors and Omissions

Give Peace a Chance

Perhaps it didn't need to be said in my post yesterday that mentioned John Lennon's birthday, but one of the reasons that I so admire him beyond his musicianship is his work for peace. Who can measure how much John and Yoko influenced public protests against ending the war in Vietnam? Surely people were galvanized by their continual activism for this cause. Where are the John and Yoko of today working to bring an end to the wars started by the Bush administration? We need to declare victory and bring the troops home. Let's use that man+womanpower and vast budget to heal our own country's woes. Democracy can't be imposed but must generate itself from a people.


Gail Collins

Secondly, I neglected to mention another woman who brings me a necessary dose of humor. Gail Collins writes a twice-weekly column for the New York Times that combines political insight with witty observations. She was the first woman to be Editorial Page Editor of the Times and held that post from 2001 through 2007. Catch her yesterday's column about which state has the worst election this year here. It's pretty funny - and pretty "awful."

Help Me Make It Through the Day

John Lennon

John Lennon, 70 today if only... 
I was watching the You Tube video of Give Peace a Chance that starts with John and Yoko at the Montreal Bed-In and uses the song as the backdrop for turbulent scenes of anti-war marches, sit-ins, protests, arrests, long hair, banners, signs and general turbulence. (You'll have to click the link to see it because embedding was not allowed.) I would trade that turbulence any time for the apathy and hypocrisy of today. A person can only take so much of the Buffoons, Charlatans and Ne'er Do Wells that populate our every waking minute. Here's what I do to get some relief.

Yes, that's actually me laughing (if only...).

Avoid Stressors

My main source of stress release and calming is making art, and I try to cultivate humor and laughter wherever I can to avoid emotions like anger, sadness and outrage. I get my general and political news NOT from TV but from newspapers, online headline synopses and NPR (WAMC in Albany - a non-stuffy NPR station). I don't watch nature shows on TV because they always end badly. I choose HGTV for home buying shows or renovating/redecorating (especially Candace Olson and David Bromstad). I watch Survivor and Project Runway but not American Idol or Dancing With the Stars. I listen to upbeat music in the studio and whistle or sing along. I stopped reading the New Yorker and switched to New York magazine. I read history and biography and not novels. (I have nothing against novels per se but get too caught up in the good ones and hate to see them end.)

David Bromstad

Humor Me

I was thinking the other day that without humor, I just don't see how I would get through stuff like the 24-hour news cycle that drives so much pap and crap and the constant celebrity craze that makes stars out of people such as the Kardashians. (They are a particular bane to me because of their lack of anything that approximates talent or ability. So they have good PR, so what.) Whoops, this post is starting to sound like an old person rant. I better throw in a photo of Project Runway contestant Mondo Guerra, the daring and creative 23-year-old from Denver who will probably win this season.

Mondo Guerra

Three Women Who Makes Me Laugh
Anyway, what I intended to write about when I started this ramble were three funny women that I read or listen to from time to time because we're on the same side of the political spectrum and because they're funny.

Stephanie Miller

Stephanie Miller is the daughter of former U.S. Representative William E. Miller, who was Barry Goldwater's running mate in the 1964 presidential election and a Chairman of the Republican National Committee. She has a daily radio show that one of my local station carries with a couple of guys as sidekicks. She makes savvy political points while always keeping humor as her primary motivation. As an unexpected (to me) bonus, on August 13, 2010 Stephanie announced on her radio show that she is a lesbian and credited country singer Chely Wright with helping her come out. YAY!!! Another one for our team.

Randi Rhodes

Randi Rhodes was described by the Miami Herald as "a chain-smoking bottle blond,...part Joan Rivers, part shock jock Howard Stern and part Saturday Night Live's 'Coffee Talk' lady. But mostly, she's her rude, crude, loud, brazen, gleeful self."  She is all of that, not as funny as Stephanie Miller, I think, but with more emphasis on politics and less on humor. She does come up with some good ones from time to time. For example, on Newt Gingrich endorsing a book that claims Obama is living out his father's anti-colonialist dreams, Randi calls this high-brow birthism, an oxymoron (or is it oxy Moron?).

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd, the noted columnist for The New York Times, won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1999 for her series on Monica Lewinsky and the Bill Clinton scandal (now that was a story). She is witty, political, intelligent and not afraid to write what she thinks (critical and irreverent, as they say). It's a good day for me when she publishes a column.


Ah, women, how could I make it without them?


Happy Birthday, John Lennon
Here's a video release from Yoko that is really an ad for the new boxed Lennon release, but there are a lot of clips of John singing, marching, etc. Enjoy - and laugh!

Note: the video doesn't really fit in this format, so if you click here you can see it in the correct width.

A Stainless Silence

(click to enlarge)

The Questionnaire: Joanne Mattera

The Questionnaire is meant to be a lighter version of a bio, a little more revealing in some respects and personal without all the facts bogging it down. I supply the questions and the respondents supply the answers. Either one or both of us supply the images. 

For this interview, Joanne supplied the images and the captions for the images.

           J o a n n e  M a t t e r a          

What is your favorite color?

Red, from orange red to blue red. I like that you can have those complements in one hue. Also, do you know I have a paint named after me? Joanne Loves This Red (from Evans Encaustics).

Uttar 286 in the window of Arden Gallery, Boston, in December 2008, for my show, Contemplating the Horizontal. JM photo

Hue Again, a 2008 installation view of my solo show at an academic gallery north of Boston, with a view of Ciel Rouge, a four-panel painting, 48 x 57 inches. JM photo

I like red that works its way into orange. This is Soie 5, part of a series I did this summer, in gouache. It's 22 x 30 inches, Arches 140 lb hot press paper. Much as I love encaustic, I love and work in other mediums, too. My middle name, as you may know, is I-Am-Not-An-Encaustic-Artist. JM photo.

This red-with-orange-undertones paint is named after me, Joanne Loves This Red, by Evans Encaustics. I had a cow named after me once, too. Photo: Evans Encaustics.

What is your favorite word?

Yes.

An impromptu picture taken in the studio a couple of years ago. Photo: Claudia Saimbert.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Creatively: going into the studio and allowing my brain to click into that place where “it” happens; spiritually: centeredness; emotionally: humor, wit, beauty

You asked what turns me on creatively. It's going into the studio. Entering the space I have set up for artmaking allows my brain to switch to a different channel. For almost 20 years I had a 9-5 job, and when I got into the studio in the evening, there was no time to futz. I had four good hours before hunger and tiredness sent me home. When the key clicked in the lock, something clicked in my brain. I've been able to retain that "switch" even now that I'm painting full time. This shot was one of several taken for a postcard of a 2006 show in Atlanta, so the studio is cleaner than usual--but it's typically organized. That's how I like to work. JM photo.

An installation shot from Luxe, Calme et Volupte: A Meditation on Visual Pleasure, which I curated for the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta in 2007. You can view the online catalog, which has an essay by me here. In this photo: Heather Hutchison in the far gallery, Frances Barth, Tim McFarlane. JM photo.

Peeking into the back gallery, there's Tim McDowell, left, and a closer view of Hutchison's painting. These were the only two works in encaustic in the show. Luminosity is the reason they were installed near one another, just as geometric composition is the reason the paintings below were installed together. JM photo.

In a third gallery--this was a big show with 14 artists that stayed up for two months--you see two paintings by Julie Gross, left, and two by Julie Karabenick. On the floor is a marble sculpture by Julia Venske and Gregor Spanle. JM photo.

What turns you off?

Incompetence, deviousness, lateness



What profession other than artist would you most like to be?

I usually say “Curator” because I plan to return as a curator in my next life, but my fantasy is to be a conga drummer

But what I really want to be is a conga drummer. This is me in 1996 in my Union Square studio in Manhattan. Dig that platinum hair!

What is your favorite book or movie?

This may be very un-lesbian of me but I loved Marcello Mastroianni, so any movie with him. And there were many wonderful ones in which he played gay men, or old men; he wasn’t just the stereotypical “latin lover.” Also, movies with him usually included Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Stefania Sandrelli, Catherine Deneuve and were directed by Fellini or Vittorio De Sica or Vittorio Gasman, and had music by Nino Rota. Notice the thread here?

Here's how much I love Marcello: When my publishing job ended in 1998, I spent two weeks at the Marcello Mastroianni Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center. I knew I'd never have that kind of time again, so I went every day to see one, sometimes two, Marcello movies. Image via the Internet.

Of course I also got to see Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Catherine Deneuve and other actors. This is the young Sophia, when she was still acting only in Italian. Image via the Internet.

Who is your favorite musician, musical group or style of music?

Latin music, from traditional Cuban singers like Celina Gonzalez to contemporary traditional like Albita and Celia Cruz (her rendition of “I Will Survive” in Spanish surpasses even Gloria Gaynor’s classic); to latin jazz via Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Chico O’Farrill, Bobby Sanabria and Canadian flutist Jane Bunnett. I just wish there more women in the percussion section. Conga drumming women are heartstopping.

Latin music is my passion, from traditional Cuban to jazz. For several years in New York I went to every concert of Celia Cruz and Tito Puente--sometimes they performed together--because they were getting older and I wanted to see as much of them as possible before they passed. They were great performers as well as musicians. Image via the Internet.

What do you most value in your friends?

Honesty, generosity, responsibility, reliability, which I am more than happy to reciprocate



Name three artists whose work has influenced your own or whose work you most relate to.

Artists I relate to: Agnes Martin for her visual purity; the Siennese painters of the Renaissance for the gloriousness of their color; Martin Puryear for the materiality and mystery of his sculptures.

There was a wonderful Agnes Martin retrospective at the Whitney about a decade ago. You could see the work get purer and more breathlike as she got older. I admire her monasticism, but I want to be more out in the world as an artist. Photo: Charles R. Rushton, via the Internet.

Giovanni di Paolo's Creation of the World and Expulsion from Paradise, about 1445, is an abstraction of a dimensional universe. This is before Columbus sailed across the ocean, when most people though the earth was on a plate. You can see this image in the Lehman Wing at the Met. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, via the Internet.

My favorite painter is known only as the Master of the Osservanza--a monk named for a church in Sienna where one of his works is placed. His paintings have a kind of abstraction that's contemporary. Look at that sky; it's like a Clyfford Still painting! This is St. Anthony Tempted by a Heap of Gold, about 1435. The heap is missing--maybe someone else was tempted and scraped off the gold--but a pentimento is visible between the hare in the left corner and the figure of St. Anthony. Image via the Internet.

I saw the Martin Puryear retrospective at MoMA in 2007 and wrote about it here. Puryear taps into a collective idea of culture, of what it means to be a human who dreams, who works, who makes things. JM photo.

I have to give you one more name: Eve Hesse, who combined minimalism and materiality in a way that has been a beacon for me.

Eva Hesse has been my hero since art school. I respond to her use of materiality in the service of a minimalist vision, something I have been similarly involved with. I wrote about her 2006 show, Eva Hesse: Sculpture, at the Jewish Museum here and more recently on Eva Hesse: Test Pieces at Hauser & Wirth here. Image via the internet.

Name an artist whose work you admire but which may be unlike yours.

I’m giving you three: a painter, Joan Mitchell; a sculptor, Jackie Winsor; and that force of nature, Louise Bourgeois.

Joan Mitchell did something with gesture and color that moves me. Her pastels, in particular, have an immediacy that pulls me in. Her fingerprints are all over the work, a kind of living reminder of the artist making the work. Photo: Cheim and Read Gallery, via the Internet.

I am hugely enamored of Jackie Winsor's cubes from the Seventies. A recent show at the Paula Cooper gallery brought together a good deal of her early work, including this one. JM photo.

Louise Bourgeois is the original "material girl," having worked in all kinds of mediums from plaster to cloth to marble to wood, without allowing herself to be pigeonholed by medium. I wrote about her 2008 retrospective at the Guggenheim here. JM photo.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Sitting on a beach in summer in the late afernoon looking out at the horizon as the sun shines on the water and the sand retains its warmth. On another day I might tell you it’s snorkeling in the Caribbean after a couple of tokes, or being anywhere in Italy.

This is not me sitting at the water's edge--I pulled the image from the Internet--but it could have been. I like to put my chair in the water and look out at the meeting of heaven and earth. This image might even be of Herring Cove, the beach in Provincetown where I spend part of every summer. The light there is extraordinary.

Another bit of earthly happiness in Italy. This happens to be Napoli, home of yin and yang Italian style, where beauty coexists with traffic and trash.

What I did this summer: a series of gouache-on-paper paintings called Soie, silk. The series came from the print I did in June at Connecticut College, part of a printmaking project I wrote about here. JM photo.

The cover of The Art of Encaustic Painting, published in 2001 and now in its seventh printing. (A note from NN--still The best of all the books on encaustic.)

For more of Joanne Mattera's work and writing:


joannemattera.blogspot.com
www.joannemattera.com
encausticconference.blogspot.com/