Bliss at the MoMA

This years Museum of Modern Art's Artist's Choice exhibition features art by Trisha Donnelly. She is known for her conceptual and performance style. She works with multiple mediums of art including drawing, photography, video, film and sound art. This particular exhibition features paintings, photographs, and sculptures in three different galleries located throughout the Museum. Donnelly pushes the boundaries and raises the question, "what is art?" One of the galleries includes 28 photographs that feature nature. The second gallery, on the fifth floor, includes drawings, prints, and photographs of landscapes and portraits. This exhibit does not only feature artwork by Donnelly. With help from MoMA's curator, she selected other pieces of work that she believed fit into her galleries. This exhibition is called Bliss, named after one of the museum's founder, Lillie P. Bliss. Bliss is known for being an, "eccentric, joyful, finely wrought excursion."
        
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/arts/design/trisha-donnelly-in-momas-artists-choice-series.html?pagewanted=1&ref=design

ART

The new year brings new changes and a further appreciation of the art world. President Obama just recently passed a bill that requires every town to install a playground that can also pass for an art gallery. Fish Creek, Wisconsin will be one of the first towns in the country to start construction on January 1st. The small town has employed the esteemed art critic and artist, "Art" to design the highly anticipated, indoor, art gallery/playground. She plans on using an abandoned barn, about half the size of one Titanic. Her designs are not complete, but she is certain about a few things. Upon arrival, each visitor will receive a pocket chair and a paper bag that contains a radio that continuously plays the soundtrack from the phenomenal flick, The Bodyguard. "Art" will also hang large swings and giant curtains throughout the barn. Decorating the walls will be large portraits of Vladimir Putin and Peter the Great. This groundbreaking project is estimated to be completed in 2 score years.

PS For more information, and an overall better explanation of this project, please read the January issue of the Viking Voice

"The Event of a Thread"

"The event of a thread" is a new art installation at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. This performance art piece is simple. It consists of one very large piece of fabric and 42 large wood-plank swings. The artist, Ann Hamilton, placed large swings, big enough to fit 2-3 people, on either side of a white hanging piece of lightweight fabric that moves once people start to swing. Some may not even call this piece of art "art," but rather theater. In addition to the virtually quiet moving curtain, the 55,000 square-foot room is filled with the sound of radios in paper bags, pigeons, and actors reading snippets of text. Hamilton decided to have the actors read works by authors such as Aristotle and Charles Darwin, that rotate daily. In addition, there is a writer that sits at one end of the room who writes whatever comes to mind. Go to the following link to view a video of this interesting piece of work.           http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/arts/design/ann-hamilton-at-the-park-avenue-armory.html?ref=arts&_r=0

Pushing the Limits of the Canvas

"I lost my language because we traveled so much," 81, Ms. Denes recently said in a New York Times interview. From a young age, Agnes Denes wanted to be a poet. However, since she was forced out of Hungary into Sweden due to the Nazi occupation, then to the United States by the time she was a teenager, she had no definite language. However, she didn't give up on her art dream completely. Denes became more and more interested with the visual arts. She began as a painter, but she felt like that medium was too limiting. Denes wanted to go past the edge of the canvas. "Rice/Tree/Burial," is a on of Denes many fascinating pieces. It is believed to be the first ecologically conscious earthwork. (Ecologically friendly and art equals a win win) Denes planted rice seeds in upsate New York, along with planting a time capsule filled with some of her haiku. This combined communication with the earth and the future. All of Denes' artworks combine her interest of math and psychology, but they are still extremely aesthetic. Dene even moved out of her beautiful apartment filled with antiques to a loft because she wanted to be able to roll out of bed and make art. Agnes Denes still has more to say, but she said, "I feel so restricted at being caught in my lifetime."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/arts/design/agnes-denes-stretches-the-canvas-as-far-as-can-go.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=design&adxnnlx=1354474886-vv/4IrMeZUVdchsblYJYC

Slideshow of some of Agnes Denes pieces of work:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/12/02/arts/design/20121202-DENES.html?ref=design

Pop Art goes Sinister

When it comes to modern art, Pop Art is the largest form of income. People will pay big bucks for a painting done by Andy Warhol. There have been many museum displays of Pop Art recently such as "Regarding Warhol" at the Met in New York and the touring exhibit, "Lichtenstein survey" which is currently located at the National Gallery. However, like everything these days, people are always looking for the next big thing. They Whitney art museum in New York has taken the next step with a new exhibit called "Sinister Pop." Organized by the museum's curators, Donna De Salvo and Scott Rothkopf, displays Pop art with a sinister twist. The art on display features consumerism of the early 1960s, antiwar, and anti-corporate sentiment of work. It also includes photographs from the 60s and 70s. Some of the paintings include Warhol's race riots and electric chair, paintings of gas stations, and barred-off highway landscapes. This new exhibition evokes gloomy thoughts within the frequent visitors.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/arts/design/sinister-pop-at-the-whitney.html?ref=design&_r=0
 

'Absorbed by Color'

The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, N.Y. is hosting "Absorbed by Color: Art in the 20th Century." This show is a tour of color in 20th-century paintings. This display is ambitious, but the "younger sister" of the 2008 Museum of Modern Art's "Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today" exhibition. "Absorbed by Color" is not a collaboration of well known artists and paintings, instead, it leans toward lesser-known and overlooked artists. Artists featured in this display include Joseph Albers, George Biddle (influenced by the famous impressionist, Degas), De Hirsh Margules, James Henry Daugherty's and many more talented artists. The curator decided to arrange this exhibition by color, grouping the reds together, the yellows together, ETC. Some may say that this is a childish way of displaying this show, but it will attract the largest possible audience.        http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/nyregion/a-review-of-absorbed-by-color-at-the-heckscher-museum-of-art.html?ref=design

Art Comes Alive at the MoMA

Even a dangerous hurricane cannot stop an exhibit at the MoMA in New York City from going off without a hitch! The Museum of Modern Art has had a dance series and the last installment was interrupted by Hurricane Sandy. "Some sweet day" is the series finale. The artists, Deborah Hay's and Sarah Michelson included racial themes. In this exhibit, the dancers mingled with the audience. The choreographer, Ralph Lemon said that, "It's been a difficult week." This performance provided a relief from the horrible events from the past week, if only for a moment. The dancers came from a wide range of dance companies.       http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/arts/dance/sarah-michelson-and-deborah-hay-in-moma-series.html?ref=arts&_r=0