Luckily, there are (still) people in Chicago who think that the arts are important enough to sponsor events for the museums (Free Winter Weekdays at AIC!). Also, luckily, I work down the street for the museum. Consequently, I have been spending many of my lunch breaks feasting on the art work there. Today, I aimlessly wandered into the lower level Textile Galleries, as I was internally outraged that I had not yet discovered them. (check out some of the works here)

I felt an instant connection with many of these pieces and their connections to the abstract works of the mid 20th century.

Designed and executed by Ethel Stein
American, born 1917
United States, New York, Croton-on-Hudson
Five Panels, 1982

Honestly, it's like Sol Le Witt

and MC Escher

gave birth to Ethel Stein's work. Although, obviously that didn't happen. It's pretty incredible to look at how she can be a link between the work of two artists I have never considered comparing.

Lenore Tawney is another artist whose work captivated me. Her piece "The Bride has Entered" is almost a proto-Kiki Smith.

Hanging Entitled "The Bride Has Entered", 1982

Cotton, plain weave; painted with pigment and gold leaf; attached linen threads in grid pattern
176.5 x 177.6 x 213.3 cm (69 1/2 x 69 7/8 x 84 in.)

I wish I had a better photograph of this. However, when I saw it down the hallway, it appeared as a jellyfish, suspended in the gallery. As I approached it, it appeared to me almost flesh-like in its color and form, almost menstrual. Yeah, yeah, I took it there. Anyway, Kiki Smith always does a splendid job addressing issues of womanhood with elegance the way that Tawney has in this piece.

I'm really excited to look at the work of Lenore Tawney more, as I learned briefly this afternoon that she's a Chicago artist. Maybe I'll have to start working on a post about her soon!

Finally, I spotted this one across the gallery as well

Hanging Entitled "La Mattinata" (Morning Song), 1975

Linen, plain weave; underlaid with cotton, plain weave; embroidered with linen, silk, and cotton in padded satin, satin and stem stitches; laid work and couching
184.1 x 154.3 cm (72 1/2 x 60 3/4 in.)

Maybe I'm the only person in the world who feels this way, but immediately, I felt that this piece has a strong connection to two other artists I have never before compared. It seems to have referenced a famous painting also housed in the same building...

Mary Cassatt
American, 1844-1926
The Child's Bath, 1893

The composition of the piece by Lissy Funk feels so much like the composition of Cassatt's piece as well. Funk almost has the basin at the bottom of her textile! Additionally, the colors are very similar. However, it's not completely Cassatt, but also a little bit Klimt based on the entwining figures:

... just a thought.

In the mean time, I will keep taking advantage of these free days at the museum for a few more weeks....

Fabrics of our lives.

Yes, it's been quite a long break. But, it's hard to keep yourself accountable when life just charges on ahead without asking your permission. Ah, well. I'm back. And with a little determination, this will be more regular-- hopefully a Tuesday night ritual.

Anyone who knows me at all and what I've been up to for the last couple of months will not be surprised by this post at all. Tonight, I bring you a little insight on Batik.

Ba-what? Wait hold on, I thought this was a blog about ART? Well, it's time I let you in on a little secret: I truly believe that textiles are art. Tonight on the way home from work, I finished this book, and I am now more thoroughly convinced that I need to be in this field that I was when I started the book (mind you, it was quite a bit before I began the book). See, visual culture, or visual studies if you will, operates on the assumption that culture is bound by the visual-- be it formal art practices or otherwise. It is essentially more complex that this, but that's the basic gist.

Something that I've been examining for a while now is Batik. Because it is directly related to my present creative endeavors (which, you will hopefully learn about very soon!), I've spent a lot (I mean, a lot) of time looking at Batiks. So here we go!

Traditionally using a wax-resist dyeing technique, Batik is a highly developed textile form that originated in traditional Indonesian cultures. For your visual consumption, this is a classic batik:

Great, so you've definitely seen them before if you haven't been living under a rock for most of your life. One of my favorite things is to see the way that many refugees continue to wear them in America. This is one of the only ways you will see them if you live in America. However, they are a very important part of many cultures, which is why I believe it is relevant and good to talk about them at all (in addition to the fact that many of them are just gorgeous).

While Batiks were originally developed in Indonesia, many of my favorites that I have seen come primarily from Ghana and other parts of West Africa.

Good golly, it feels like a forest. In truth, this lovely fabric is hand dyed, carefully constructed with all of those stripes.

Examples of batik textiles can be found throughout Africa, but the most developed skills are found in Ghana and Nigeria where the Yoruba people make adire cloths. There are two interesting methods employed when using the resist technique: adire eleso which involves tied and stitched designs and adire eleko where starch paste is used. Furthermore, the paste is most often made from cassava (a root plant) flour, rice, alum or copper sulphate boiled together to produce a smooth thick paste. The Yoruba of West Africa used cassava paste as a resist while the people of Senegal use rice paste. The paste is applied in two different ways.

• By using freehand drawing of traditional designs using a feather, thin stick, piece of fine bone or a metal or wooden comb-like tool; usually performed by women.
• Forced through a thin metal stencil with a flexible metal or wooden tool. This enables accurate repeat patterns to be achieved; usually by men.

What I find to be really fascinating about Batik traditions in Africa is that they are passed down through family lines. Additionally, the patterning, which can be anything ranging from quotidian issues to traditional or tribal history, is passed around through familial lines. In large part, Batik dyeing is a community activity-- this is one of the things I love most. This is generally done, because it is more cost effective, but let's be honest, it's a beautiful thing when humans come to create something in tandem with other humans.

As I mentioned previously, Batik is a huge part of a current project I'm working on, so it's on my mind a lot. Thanks for letting me give you a brief tutorial on batiks, and I'm looking forward to sharing more about my current projects very soon!

(Okay, okay, that last one is a compilation from ApartmentTherapy, but hey, trends! It's great!)

Weird is good.

In my opinion, and for my aesthetic tastes this is very true. Maybe it's my sense of humor (which is a little bit off the wall), but I generally like weird.

The tough thing about "weird" art, though, is that often times it's hard to explain why I like it. However, I read something today in the book I Sold Andy Warhol (too soon) by Richard Polsky -- a fantastic read for any one who is interested in the inner workings of art deals/art-world sketchiness-- that represented one of the reasons why I am inexplicably drawn to abstruse artwork.

The tumbleweed-esque pop art collector Leon Kraushar was once quoted in Life magazine as having said, "Pop art is the art of today and tomorrow and all the future... Renoir? I hate him. Bedroom pictures. It's all the same with Abstract Expressionists, all of them. Decoration. There's no satire; there's no today, there's no fun," (p. 173). While I have to say that I really don't agree with Kraushar on the merits of pop art versus abstract expressionism, I do think he's got a point. There's no harm in having a little fun with the work you produce. Satire is very profound.

Thus, with long intro, I give you Erwin Wurm.

Since the late 1980s Erwin Wurm (Austrian, b. 1954) began his ongoing series called "One Minute Sculptures," in which he poses himself or his models in unexpected and often times uncomfortably hilarious relationships with everyday objects close at hand, helping the viewer to investigate and question what we understand to be sculpture (and for that matter photography and performance). Here are a few of his One Minute Sculptures:

Wurm's One Minute Sculptures don't always involve people. Occasionally, he will use chairs balancing on one leg or with two legs propped up on carrots, a banana suspended between sliding cabinet doors, and upended and stacked configurations of hotel furniture-- all a little bit unusual. But what's really incredible about these is their frequent incorporation of perishable objects, which make the sculptures ephemeral and elusive.

The work that immediately captured my heart was Wurm's Fat Sculptures. I don't know if that's what their officially called, but that's what they are. In a series of mostly life-sized sculptures, Wurm imagines what every day objects would look like in their most obese state (had they the capacity to become that way.

So imagine that you get into your fat car...

and drive to your fat home. Where you will probably sleep on fat pillows with your fat dog in your fat bed.

In many ways, I have a hunch that Wurm draws a lot from Duchamp's why not? kind of attitude. I never felt comfortable approaching this kind of art until I let my guard down, let down my pretensions and joined in saying, "Yeah, okay, why not?" It's funny. It's weird. But it's also wonderful in the ways that it gently prods the viewer by challenging what feels uncomfortable.

For more info, here's a link.

ANOTHER blog?

Okay, I know. The amount of blogs on the Internet is absurd. But here's the thing: I've been looking all over the place for a blog about art history-- specifically contemporary art-- that encompasses what's currently happening in the art world and informs me about what lies ahead. Simply put, I have yet to find that blog all ready being written. And that's why this is happening. I was recently encouraged by my brother-in-law to start this blog for myself, even if no one else was reading it. I decided that would be a great idea, if for no other reason than to keep myself informed in a structured way and continue to write about art. Having just graduated with an undergrad degree in Art History, let's just say that I need an outlet.

I have chosen the title of this blog, "Not Vasari," because Giorgio Vasari, a 16th century Tuscan artist-turned-author, was one of the first people to formally write about artists and their work (check out The Lives of the Painters by the man himself if you're interested). I want to use this blog to promote contemporary art (and dig back a little bit if the spirit so moves) by looking at some of our most celebrated and under-appreciated artists of today. It's not Vasari, because we'll hopefully be looking at people Vasari could have never knows about (because he's dead). Vasari was a proponent of the idea of the progression and development of art, so I think that's a great starting place for looking at art. As I examine artists/pieces/movements, I hope that this can really be brought to the forefront of how we see art-- is it really progressing? how is it developing and why?

Given the extremely opinionated personality of your blogger, I fear that I may be no less biased than Vasari was; but I urge you, readers (if there are any) to call me out on it and challenge it. That's how we grow and change and become more well rounded versions of the people we are right now.

Happily, I will welcome contributions to the blog! I've all ready had a friend who's excited about composing something for the blog, and I'm very excited to see what he digs up. I'll try to carry the blog as much as I can, but I'd love support and contribution to everyone who feels so inclined. Also, if you have someone/thing that you want to know more about, let me know, and I'll research it for you, because Lord knows I'd love an excuse to do that.

Oh, and one more thing: let's leave Thomas Kinkade out of this. And Anne Geddes.

So, without further adieu, let's get on to our first artist! I find it only appropriate to look at/ eulogize the work of Louise Bourgeois, as she left this earth yesterday at the age of 98. Good heavens, she is precious. This photograph was taken with her standing behind her 1970 sculpture Eye-to-Eye. The website for the Centre-Pompidou's exhibition of Bourgeois has this to say as a summary: Born in France in 1911 and residing in New York since 1938, Louise Bourgeois is one of the major artists of the second half of the 20th and early 21st Centuries. Her work, which has traversed Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, oscillating between abstract geometry and organic reality, escapes all attempts at artistic classification. Based on memory, emotion and the reactivation of childhood souvenirs, Louise Bourgeois follows a subjective approach, using all types of material and all manner of shapes. Her personal and totally autobiographical vocabulary is consistent with the most contemporary of practices, and exerts an influence on many artists. (credit)

Bourgeois's work is bizarrely captivating. Evidently, she has had a life-long fascination with arachnids. While she has worked with spider-imagery since the 1940s, arguably her most celebrated works are her colossal spider sculptures (titled Maman) created in the late 1990s-early 2000. Ultimately, Bourgeois' sculptures incorporate a sense of vulnerability and fragility. Her works are often viewed to have a sense of sexuality to them, which she believed is a large part of both vulnerability and fragility-- undoubtedly themes learned through the childhood experience of her father's adulterous affair with her governess, and event that her mother refused to acknowledge.


Maman at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain

Rest in peace, Louise. The fact that you were the first solo-woman retrospective represented at MoMa speaks very highly of you and your work.