NYC Day 36: In Which I Go In Search of Frank Lloyd Wright

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Yesterday I decided it was time I took a long, detailed look at the major Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Wright was one of the most influential American architects of the last century.

Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by the Fallingwater house (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture". [Source: Wikipedia...]

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I have had an interest in architecture for many years, and the more I travel the more I like to seek out great examples of the profession. Having said that, I have little interest in the smooth modern glass and steel buildings that are dominating the New York City skyline more and more as this century progresses. My favorite buildings, whether cloud busting skyscrapers or four and five storey walk-ups, tend to be survivors from the past two centuries. They invariably have features and facades that stop you in your tracks, and force you to pause and examine, and marvel at the skills of the masons, engineers, steel workers, and other tradespeople who laboured to construct these beautiful buildings. So it was with much interest that I devoted a couple of hours to Frank Lloyd Wright.

The exhibition presents hundreds of drawings, models, film, letters, documents and other memorabilia from the vast FLW archives that are now in the possession and care of the museum. And when I write vast, I mean vast:

Unpacking the Archive refers to the monumental task of moving across the country 55,000 drawings, 300,000 sheets of correspondence, 125,000 photographs, and 2,700 manuscripts, as well as models, films, and building fragments. It also refers to the work of interpretation and the close examination of projects that in some cases have received little attention. [Source: Info panel at the exhibition]

Above: A longitudinal section in ink and pencil for the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, and below a detailed image for the peaked roof seen in the image above.

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As you might imagine, with so much material to select from, to say the current exhibition barely scratches the surface of Wright's massive archive is to state the bleeding obvious. The curators probably had no choice other than to present some of the better known works from among a collection that may stretch back to the beginning of Wright's architectural career. A period of some 70 years.

I was particularly interested in his initial concept for one of his most famous buildings, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue. Early sketches show a building similar in design to the building as it stands today, but instead of rising to the equivalent of a six storey building, the early drawings show one that might rise as high as nine or ten storeys.

Above and Below: Early design concepts for the Guggenheim Museum.

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Always one to think big, in 1956 Wright presented a concept drawing that was eight feet high! Executed in colored pencils and gold ink on tracing paper, Wright was proposing to build the Illinois, a 'mile-high' skyscraper on the lakefront at Chicago. His initial concept may not have been much more than a clever marketing exercise by Wright for his architectural practice, but it go plenty of attention when he unveiled his drawings and ideas back in 1956/'57.

Above: This image does not do the concept of a mile-high building any justice whatsoever. Try to imagine the picture being eight feet high, 

Above: other design ideas for Wright's mile-high Illinois building.

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I very much appreciated the chance to examine the many drawings and renderings (such as the 'mile-high' building), at the exhibition. Modern architects use state of the art software to design their buildings which also allows them to spit out drawings and renderings with a few clicks of a mouse button. What gets lost in that process are the beautifully hand drawn designs one sees in Unpacking the Archive. While many of these drawings were almost certainly made by Wright's assistants, they stand as beautiful works of art in the own right.

Above and detail below: Marin County Civic Center and Fairgrounds, San Rafael, California (1957). 

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There is much to enjoy at Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, even if you only have a passing interest in architecture. Children will enjoy looking at the models, while adults will gain a greater appreciation for Frank Lloyd Wright, and hopefully for all architects who design the homes and buildings we almost certainly could not live without in the 21st century.

IF YOU GO
Now through until October 1, 2017
Tickets: Adults $25; Seniors $18; Students $14 (under 16, free)
Exhibition free with museum entry
11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan
Open seven days a week.
MoMA Online... 

More Information
Frank Lloyd Wright at Wikipedia...

Above: Detail of building model for St. Mark's Tower, New York.

Below: unidentified building model. 

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Friday 21, July | Expenses $23.00 ($29.05)

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Any questions, comments or suggestions? How about complaints or compliments? Let me know via the comments box below.

NYC Day 21: In Which I Visit Robert Rauschenberg at MoMA

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Rauschenberg at the Museum of Modern Art
I returned to the Museum of Modern Art this afternoon, planning to catch up on a couple of major exhibitions that I have yet to immerse myself in, and was immediately assailed by thousands of other visitors who had decided to do the very same thing. Talk about crowded! It took me some time to remember that MoMA, like a number of other museums across the city, offer free entry to all-comers on Friday evenings -- and by gawd, they turned out in force.

I spent the bulk of my time examining the very extensive Robert Rauschenberg Among Friends exhibition. As the title implies, not only are visitors treated to a wide range of Rauschenberg's abstract art, but friends such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Susan Weil, and others are represented in the more than 250 works on show.

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Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He became the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of fruitful artmaking. [Source: Wikipedia...]

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Let me be perfectly frank with you, dear reader, abstract art is not at the top of my list of favorite art styles or genres, and I confess that more than once I have said the same things you have probably said when confronted with some abstract or modern art, "Even I could do that!" The fact that I haven't 'done that', I guess is the difference between myself and Robert Rauschenberg, and it most definitely is the reason that his art is hanging in the Museum of Modern Art (and in many other galleries and art museums around the world), and my art is not!

I would love to be able to explain the intricacies and raison d'etre of Rauschenberg's work, but that is way outside my area of expertise so I will have to leave it to you to do your own research on this area of art and the artists who practice it and who continue to push the boundaries of what art, all art, is.

It's a cop out on my part I know, but I will let Rauschenberg's art speak for itself (now there's a cliche if ever there was.)

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I will also refer you to Wikipedia and share a brief quote from that site on Abstract Art:

Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time. [Source: Wikipedia...]

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Sunday 9, July | Expenses $32.50 ($42.80)
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New York City Arts Round-Up #1

MoMA: Unfinished Conversations

This is the first of a regular series of posts highlighting the current art scene in New York City. I have long had an interest in the arts, and now visit to New York is complete without spending time in at least one or two the city's great art institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and so many others. If You are a New Yorker, you know you are spoiled for choice when it comes to immersing yourself in the arts there.

MoMA: Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection brings together works by more than a dozen artists, made in the past decade and recently acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. The artists that make up this intergenerational selection address current anxiety and unrest around the world and offer critical reflections on our present moment. The exhibition considers the intertwining themes of social protest, the effect of history on the formation of identity, and how art juxtaposes fact and fiction. From Cairo to St. Petersburg, from The Hague to Recife, the artists in the exhibition observe and interpret acts of state violence and the resistance and activism they provoke. They reexamine historical moments, evoking images of the past and claiming their places within it. They take on contemporary struggles for power, intervening into debates about government surveillance and labor exploitation. Together, these artists look back to traditions both within and beyond the visual arts to imagine possibilities for an uncertain future.

Now through July 30, 2017. More at MoMA…

Rubin Museum: Gateway to Himalayan Art

Rubin Museum of Art

150, West 17th Street, rubinmuseum.org

The Rubin presents art that traverses Asia’s diverse cultures, regions, and narratives. The Museum’s special exhibitions celebrate art forms that range from ancient to contemporary, including photography and multimedia, while its permanent collection galleries are focused primarily on art from the Himalayan region. Of particular interest are two exhibitions: Sacred Spaces: Himalayan Wind… (through until June 5, 2017; and Gateway to Himalayan Art (through until June 27, 2017). Sacred Spaces invites visitors to reflect on devotional activities in awe-inspiring places, while Gateway to Himalayan Art introduces visitors to the main forms, concepts, and meanings of Himalayan art represented in the Rubin Museum’s collection.

Grandma's Closet At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

Sara Berman's belongings became an unlikely meditation on immigration, re-invention and feminine independence. By Priscilla Frank, Arts Writer, The Huffington Post

Sara Berman kept her closet in perfect order ― shoes lined up in an unerring row, crisply ironed white shirts stacked one atop the other, her signature bottle of Chanel 19 perched within easy grasp. Her children and grandchildren would gaze into the modest, meticulously organized niche reverently, as if staring at a work of art. Still, they never actually imagined their mom or grandma’s closet would one day, quite literally, find its way into The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“If someone told my mother her closet would be in the Met one day, she would have thought they were crazy,” artist, author and illustrator Maira Kalman said during a talk held at the museum last week, alongside her son, Alex Kalman, and Amelia Peck, a curator of American decorative arts at the Met. And yet, among the period rooms in the museum’s American Wing, most of which display opulent domestic craftsmanship from the 17th to 19th centuries, is Berman’s neat and tidy closet of the 1980s. 

If You Go:

Sara Berman’s Closet… 

Now through September 5, 2017

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park & Fifth Avenue

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Carol Rama: Antibodies at the New Museum

From April 26—September 10, 2017

235 Bowery, New Museum…

Appassionata (1940), by Carol Rama; Photo: Studio Gonella

This exhibition is the first New York examination of the work of the late Italian artist Carol Rama. The exhibition lays claim to being the largest presentation of her work in the US.

While Rama has been largely overlooked in contemporary art discourses, her work has proven prescient and influential for many artists working today, attaining cult status and attracting renewed interest in recent years. Rama’s exhibition at the New Museum will bring together over one hundred of her paintings, objects, and works on paper, highlighting her consistent fascination with the representation of the body.

Seen together, these works present a rare opportunity to examine the ways in which Rama’s fantastical anatomies opposed the political ideology of her time and continue to speak to ideas of desire, sacrifice, repression, and liberation. “Carol Rama: Antibodies” celebrates the independence and eccentricity of this legendary artist whose work spanned half a century of contemporary art history and anticipated debates on sexuality, gender, and representation. Encompassing her entire career, the exhibition traces the development from her early erotic, harrowing depictions of “bodies without organs” through later works that invoke innards, fluids, and limbs—a miniature theater of cruelty in which metaphors of contagion and madness counteract every accepted norm.

More at New Museum…

More Arts Information

Museum of Modern Art…
Rubin Museum of Art…
The Metropolitan Museum of Art…

Village Voice Guide to NYC’s Spring Art Exhibits…

Stargazing in Manhattan

~ So there I was, walking through Manhattan when I noticed flashing lights down a side street. I soon realized they weren’t so much flashing lights as they were the flash from lots of cameras going off simultaneously.

Of course, I had to investigate.

The cameras were being wielded by 15-20 photographers at the entrance of MoMA - the Museum of Modern Art, where a special screening of George Clooney's film, Leatherheads was about to take place. There was no red carpet, but I joined a group of locals, tourists, and autograph hunters, and waited to see who was going to turn up.

I didn’t have long to wait. Through the crowd walked Bruce Willis and his latest flame. Unfortunately, by the time I had my video camera ready to film he had disappeared into the building. Damn. I decided to keep my camera on in readiness for the next star. A succession of guests entered the building, most of whom I didn’t know – until Jonathan Pryce walked out of the building.

Now Jonathan Pryce may not be an actor whose name is on everyone’s lips, but he just happens to have been the lead actor in one of my all time favourite films, Brazil, directed by one of my favourite directors, Terry Gilliam. Maybe Jonathan knew something about Leatherheads the rest of the guests didn’t, because he never did return to MoMA for the screening.

A long, black, stretch limo pulled up in the street. Out stepped Howard Stern and his partner. I have heard of Howard Stern, but I wouldn’t have known it was him if someone hadn’t told me.

A couple of very tall, thin anorexic looking women arrived over the next ten minutes or so. At one point, I had the nerve to shout out to one of them, "When was the last time you ate?" But if she heard me, she didn’t let on. My poor attempt at humor did get a laugh from some of the locals however.

Suddenly a tall familiar looking African-American stepped through the crowd. It was Danny Glover (of Lethal Weapon fame), who apologized for not posing for photographs, because he was running late. As it turns out, Danny need not have worried. Renee Zelwegger, who also stars in the film, and who was due to appear at the screening was apparently unwell, and decided to give it a miss. When George Clooney was informed of this, he also decided not to turn up – to his own film screening – and that was that.

As soon as the photographers heard that Renee and George were not going to show, they packed up and left. It didn’t matter who else might turn up. As the saying goes, ‘There’s no show without Punch’, and since Punch wasn’t turning up, the photographers disappeared into the night.

And with that dear friends, my night of stargazing came to an end.