Saturday, July 06, 2024

Christopher Wool: See Stop Run at 101 Greenwich St.

This show swept our imaginations and it's easy to see why. Official link

Wool assembles years of work made in Marfa, Texas in an abandoned office building downtown. Hanging metal sculptures, prints, painted prints, and mosaic intersperse with city views, combining vast and intimate perspectives. 

The city and unfinished walls of the space interpenetrate.

Print, paint, surface, see stop run.
The portrait makes an entrance in a series of small heads.
Loved the wall-size prints.
Wondered, what did it take to make this project of five years' planning, especially this massive mosaic as an exhibition capstone? The answer is here, in a commissioned mosaic called Crosstown Traffic, which I saw returning from the Bonnard show at Moynihan Station (Crosstown Traffic is just next door). Even through the intrusive front window logo, the work is a knockout. This mosaic is its sibling.

The shifting views, even by a footfall, imbue the printed fields and ambient surround with change and insight. Art is printed, pressed, wired, knifed, wrapped, constructed, produced, and most especially witnessed. The gesamtkunstwerk is foundational.

A personal favorite--the wiring, like a curtain above the stage.






Returning in-depth to the mosaic, for research.
It's a free-standing wall.
Thick wood, drywalled and layered with wire mesh for the mosaic.
Putting it out there: I want to work with these mosic companies--a collaboration between NY and Italy.

The gloss, it pierces my heart.

That flickering coral, the shot of shiny black.
Simply the most gorgeous mosaic I've ever seen. 
Not to mention the notes on abstraction.

Side of mosaic wall
Back of mosaic wall


A testimonial to maximizing vision.

 

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Bonnard at the Phillips Collection



















Twilight, the Game of Croquet, 1892





Woman with a Dog, 1891




Steep Path at Le Cannet, 1945













The French Window at Le Cannet, 1932
For more on this painting visit Peptalk for Artists, Episode 51, The Bonnardians.









Nude in the Bath, 1936


Nude in Bathtub, 1941-46





Flowers on the Mantlepiece at Le Cannet, 1927

Two Baskets of Fruit, 1935
The White Cupboard, 1931



Basket of Fruit, 1946