Friday

This particular statue has always felt to me like someone long suffering, world-weary, on the verge of giving up everything, stopping to take stock, to take one last breath, to hold onto one last shred of hope before she gives in. It’s a reminder that none of us are infallible.

Thursday

Let’s talk Balinese art for a minute. Or, rather, let’s not. Let’s just look at it. Let’s stare at the balance of composition for a long hard moment and how the colors enhance the way we’re meant to feel about the prince and the attacking serpent and let’s just marvel at the sheer beauty of the piece, shall we?

Balinese art is its own special breed of pretty. You can’t teach it and if you don’t like it, you can’t teach appreciation for it. There is a very small gallery of paintings and masks and the like tucked amongst the rest of the Asian art that’s just Balinese and it’s breathtaking in its glory.

Wednesday

Sooooo, I have feelings about this piece. Intense feelings, both positive and negative. And that’s part of the point of this blog, right? To talk about art in a way that scholars don’t necessarily talk about art because they think their credibility is on the line and whatever else, and so on and so forth and I digress.

Venus Victorious does not have any of the typical feel of Renoir’s works that I have seen – even his other sculptures. The modus operandi is not similar. The compositions are completely different, alien. It may have been directed and micromanaged within an inch of its life by Renoir, but I cannot reconcile it being a Renoir in my head. It’s like if Beethoven’s 5th was rewritten as death metal, recorded backwards, and deconstructed, then released under Beethoven’s attribution: it just doesn’t work.

The sculpture itself is insanely beautiful. You can walk around all sides of it and take in all of the details, marvel at the casting and the intricacies of the craftsmanship…

But dear lord, please stop calling it a Renoir when clearly its primary attribution should be to Richard Guino.

Tuesday

For being a really old piece of pottery, this jar has a very modern design. The colors are bold and sexy, the splashes abstract and come hither in a way that both intrigues and repels, and the whole thing seems to be deliberately unfinished. I love it for all of its inconsistencies.

Monday

To me, this painting symbolizes movement of all kinds: dancing, singing, gestures, walking, breathing, existing, growing. There is a simplistic kind of impressionistic expressionism that smacks of introversion and an inner turmoil that can only be explained by these childish slashes of paint that is very appealing and I love it. I see everything from growing flowers to a flamenco dancer in the lines and between the lines is a world of unexplored pleasure and pain.

Sunday

Today’s work was by request of my niece, Charlotte, who is a wee dancer herself, and who recently had her spring recital.

Impressionist sculpture isn’t something that you really think of as a homogenous concept – it’s either realistic or abstractionistic, but as you look at what almost looks like brush strokes within the thumbworking in the original clay-casting, you get a feel for the impressionism that Degas tried to instill in his sculptures. There’s another bronze of his at SLAM that’s similar that I’ll cover at a later date that has similar working.

What I like most about this casting is that they aren’t afraid to go with the mixed media, adding in muslin and ribbon to add to the illusion of our little dancer being just as alive and bravely stepping out onto the stage as she would have been in her lifetime.

Truly, this is one of the prized pieces in SLAM’s Impressionist galleries, and with good reason.

Saturday

This particular gallery is a vast open space, as you can see from the first photo, with numerous works on all sides – the least of which being January, December, November. The gallery is part of SLAM’s newest expansion which is incredibly modern (made of concrete and glass) and a work of art in and of itself. The space feels as if it was purpose built to house this particular set of canvases, as you can see from the way they are displayed. If you sit on the bench closer to them, you lose the impact that comes from seeing them as a trio from afar – so in a way, the benches further back in the room are ideal for viewing.

January, December, November to me are very peaceful, relaxing, soothing pieces. They conjure up the static of old television sets, of the idleness of the mind creating dreams and conjuring desires in your sleep. They are an abstraction of idealistic, simplistic beauty, and I adore sitting before them and breathing them in like a healing balm.

Friday, Friday…

It’s really quite rare for jaded old me to come across something that moves my hardened old heart, but they opened a new exhibition in Gallery 100 with beautiful textiles and I am in bloody damn love. I was moving in a rapture from piece to piece, my eyes glazing over with passion, lust, glee, and everything in between… and then I saw something that took the breath out of my lungs, the proverbial wind from my sails, knocked me for a loop.

As simple as it might seem, this bedcover had me sitting down on the bench in the middle of the gallery and crying from the sheer beauty of it. The simplicity, the elegance, and yet the complexity and incredible amount of work that went into making the fabric make it a rare treat to have survived as long as it has intact. It’s an amazing feat.

Inaugural post!

This beautiful grille is just outside the gift shop and the cafe on the first floor of the museum, just chillin’. It gets natural light from an overhead window and really has pride of place where it is. The design itself is very simple, skewing toward Bauhaus-inspired modernism before there was such a thing, and well-worn, as you can clearly see from the bits that have come off over the years.

The designs of the 1890’s were often about form over function, but in this case, they were pretty evenly matched. The artistic balances well with the functionality and practicality in a way that is attractive and informal rather than stilted and classist.