Patricia Cronin's Memorial to a Marriage in DC exhibition "Bodies and Soul"

                              

Patricia Cronin, Memorial to a Marriage, 2002 in bronze and marble.

Patricia Cronin: Bodies and Soul, Conner Gallery, Washington, DC , Febuary 4 - March 10

In July, this blog celebrated the marriage of New York artists Patricia Cronin and Deborah Kass, whose long-time commitment inspired Cronin's sculpture Memorial to a Marriage, 2002, permanantly installed in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.  The marble mortuary sculpture was accomplish in death that which seemed - in 2002 -  impossible in life.

Now the exhibition of the bronze version of this sculpture, on view at Conner Gallery in Washington, DC, celebrates the transition of this artwork from depicting a dream to immortalizing reality. 

Last Call: The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, through January 29

Ezra Jack Keats, "Crunch, crunch, crunch, his feet sank into the snow." Final illustration for The Snowy Day, 1962. Collage and paint on board. Ezra Jack Keats Papers, de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi. Copyright Ezra Jack Keats Foundation.
The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, The Jewish Museum, through Sunday, January 29, 2012.

Now that New York has just survived its first snowy day of 2012, it's time to visit or revisit another "snowy day" in the form of Ezra Jack Keats' original art for his enchanting book A Snowy Day (1962).  Born Ezra Jack Katz (1916-1983) to poor Eastern European Jewish immigrants living in Brooklyn, he experienced first hand the pain of antisemitism and being an outsider.  This aspect of his life accounts for his choice of African-American protagonists, featured for the first time in modern American children's literature. 

Best known among all his characters is Peter, the adorable little boy who ventures outside into the snow to make a snowman, snowangels and snowballs.  When he decides to bring one snowball home in his pocket, he discovers - much to his chagrin - that his precious creation has disappeared.  But luckily, more snow falls the next day and he goes out this time with his friend to enjoy another snowy day.

Luminous Modernism in Scandinavia House

Luminous Modernism: Scandinavia Art Comes to America, 1912

Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue at 38th Street, October 25, 2011 - February 2012

Harold Sohlberg, Flower Meadow in the North, 1905

Oil on canvas, 37.8 x 43.7 inches; 96 x 111 cm

The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo

As we celebrate the new year and the rebirth of light after the Winter Solstice, Scandinavia House on Park Avenue gives us one more reason to break out the akavit to commemorate an important occasion: Luminous Modernism.  This exceptional exhibition presents 48 works by 20 artists who participated in a similar exhibition 100 years ago, sponsored by The American-Scandinavian Foundation.  Back then, these young European artists offered a taste of the avant-garde hardly known in the United States - preceding the infamous Armory Show of 1913 (wherein Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending Staircase, No. 2 blew the critics' minds).  Eight of the paintings in the 2011-12 exhibition were included in the 1912 exhibition.

Last Call - Georges Braque and Geoffrey Johnson Pose Existential Questions

Georges Braque, Harbor, 1909, oil on canvas, 16 x 19 inches,

National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly in memory of her son, John W. Mudd
1992.3.1
Image Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism, Acquavella Gallery through November 30.

The glorious Georges Braque retrospective, long overdue, is scheduled to close too soon.  For beautiful as it is, Braque's work may not be as easy to understand as it may seem superficially.  It requires multiple viewings at different times to understand this exploration of the seen and unseen all at one time.  This is truly Cubism: a conceptual intersection of space and time.  Ideally, one should see the show, read the brilliant catalogue essays by curator Dieter Buchhart, French modernist scholar Isabelle Monod-Fontaine and Cézanne specialist Richard Shiff, and then return for another look to study the writers' insights. 

However, if you have not seen the show already, just go before it closes midweek.  

Last Call - Hannes Schmid's Cowboys, Beatrice Wood Makes Artistic Whoopie, and Richard Serra at Lord Gaga's

Hannes Schmid, Cowboy, 1999

Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York and Zurich

Hannes Schmid: Cowboys at Edwynn Houk Gallery through October 29



Swiss-photographer Hannes Schmid (b. 1946) is a media-mediated mythmaker. The creative eye behind those hunky Marlboro Men who ride, rope and sell cigarettes.  Back in the day .. .  Schmid’s concept of hardcore masculinity entered our consciousness through the tiny television screen at home or loomed large on highway billboards.  The Marlboro theme song (can you still hum it?) transported us to a glamorized West.  These rugged wranglers silhouetted against the open sky joined with other faux cowboys -  Bonanza’s Cartwright family, Roy Rogers and Bat Masterson – to wrest right from wrong.  They were our flannel and jeans supermen (albeit invented by urban Mad Men trapped in gray cubicles between lunchbreaks and commuter rides to the suburbs).