Little escap(ad)es: Triumphant Scale by El Anatsui

Over the last few years Instagram has become one of my sources for inspiration, information and interesting stuff. Looking at pictures posted by people and on hashtags I follow, and looking at hashtags below, and then clicking there… Certainly a way to spend time, sometimes waste time, but often a way to find out about things I had not heard of. So through some way on Instagram I found out about and ended up in Munich last week, at Haus der Kunst, with the exhibition “Triumphant Scale” by El Anatsui. I have to admit I had never heard of him, and I hadn’t been too good about keeping up with the exhibition schedule in cities around me.

It was absolutely impressive, almost overwhelming. 

I spent a good while walking through the labyrinth in the large hall. 

Quite a while ago I had played around with the idea of constructing a labyrinth for exhibition visitors to walk through, some see-through arrangement of fabrics, I think I was considering using organza and various loose combinations. It never materialized because I could not seriously figure out how to do the hanging from the ceiling. And I guess I was not persistent enough to push it through – I also thought at the time it was a bit wild. Now that I see that it is indeed possible I realized some of my ideas might not be too far off from being good and interesting ideas. Except that it has been done by now, and it wouldn’t be original anymore and… oh well. Another possibility to become famous gone down the drain… Not that I am comparing my stuff with El Anatsui’s…

Looking out from the labyrinth onto other pieces on the wall.

Of course one wonders about how the masses of bottlelabels, 

and it was interesting to read that it started with a found bag of bottle labels that he picked up somewhere and then had sitting in his studio for quite a while. My son is always completely embarassed when we happen to be walking down the street together and I stoop to pick something up. So far I have withheld from picking up bottle caps – although my environmentalist mind scringes every time I see one lyeing around. And there are many many many lyeing around. It is simply annoying to see how people just throw stuff like that around. Even if I had been picking them up I would still be far from amassing enough to put them together into a decent-sized wall-piece. But the audio guide said El Anatsui’s need for bottle labels has become known all over Nigeria by now, he buys the labels from a distillery … My son would be even more embarrassed about his mother if I started picking up bottle caps as well.

There are sketchbooks to see, 

and I also loved his wood carvings. 

A very inspiring exhibition! If you can get there before July 28, by all means, you have to go!

Little escap(ad)e: Haus der Kunst, again

A few days ago a friend of mine and I took a day trip to Munich together, that also included yet another visit to the Haus der Kunst. (There are other musuems in Munich worth visiting, but somehow I often end up going there, because they have the shows that most interest me...) Of course, the Haus der Kunst in  itself is an always impressive building, outside and inside.

Outside facade with temporary installation of Jiddish words,
put up onto the Nazi-building by Mel Bochner.

Electric shift switch? Or art in itself?

Ancient organisms integrated into the building -
for the visitors to step on...

This time I went to two different exhibitions, both of which I found very impressive.

The first is an overview of Kendell Geers’ works from 1988 to 2012.  Geers is a white South-African with a working-class background, who begins his CV with the arrival of the first Dutch settlers at the Cape. His work is full of political statements, and although the catalogue claims that he has altered his original political approach to more spiritual statements after a year’s break from making art in 2000, it remains very political and provocative nevertheless.

He has used one of South Africa’s most successful export goods – double sided barbed wire – to build labyrinths for the visitor to walk through, arranges police batons in circles, spirals or other patterns, sticks broken glass into various shapes and uses as a lot of words in a variety of arrangements:

Very thought-provoking! This exhibit is still on until May 12, 2013.

The second exhibition was conceptual artist Mel Bochner’s  “Wenn die Farbe sich ändert” (“When color chages”. (His website is here and an entry in wikipedia is here). I especially liked his text-paintings. (Pictures taken from the internet.)

But also the wall with two number lines: one had been written on masking tape, starting from the left, and then pieces of the tape had been removed. This line thus was interrupted. The other number line starts from the lower right corner, running consecutively, filling in the gaps that had been left by the removed masking tape. No picture of this one...

Interestingly enough, my friend witnessed a woman photographing the Blah-Blah-picture at the entrance platform to the exhibition who insisted in her argument with the guard (who wanted her to stop taking pictures) that she had to photograph this because Bochner had stolen her idea. (Though I would say that it does not take a whole lot of originalty of idea to put a text like “blah blah” into a painting, numerous comic strips have used the sequence before...) 

And in the museum shop I found a postcard of a work by Sigmar Polke, which was similar to some of Bochner’s paintings and even the textual orientation, though at that moment I wasn’t sure which work was dated earlier than the other. But perhaps once that using text in (conceptual) art had established itself there isn’t that much stuff left to be truly original anymore?

This, too, was a very interesting exhibition, and is on until June 23.

Textiles in Museums: Alexandra Bircken

When I went to see Ellsworth Kelly at the Haus der Kunst recently, I took advantage of the „two exhibitions“-price and also went to see an exhibit by young sculptors in the upper floor, called „Strukturales Handeln“ (translates roughly as „Structural Action“). No photos allowed here either, so I am taking two pictures that were published on the homepage of the Haus der Kunst:

Kimberly Sexton, column 4

Kimberley Sexton exhibits plaster casts of space. Sounds unbelievable, but is great to look at. Definitely a must-see.

Michael Beutler, the gardens

And Michael Beutler constructs machines for each individual venue so he can do something in situ. Here he built an „Oberflächenaufknackapparat“ (translates roughly as „Cracker of surface structures“). This machine is left standing around next to its products, the whole back part of the room looks sort of like an unfinished construction site.

My attention was caught mostly by Alexandra Bircken’s works, though. Besides wood, leather, metals, plaster, stone and everyday objects she does also include that rare commodity, „textiles“ in her works.

Funny and clever her version of an instrument for spool knitting. Not a self-made yarn-spool, but constructed from old skis. In German, the little instrument is called Strickliesel, which was   transformed to a “Skiliesel” by Bircken:

Alexandra Bircken, Skiliesel

In other works she frequently includes pieces of fabric, yarn, knitted pieces.

Alexandra Bircken, Gewächs

When I first saw them, I was a bit disappointed. It bothered me that the textile parts are included looked so roughly made, obviously deliberately unaesthetic. “So why do those textiles that get included in modern sculpture have to be ugly?” I asked myself. Then I started searchiing the net about her, as I really did not know much about her before I saw this exhibit, and my frustration diminshed somewhat on seeing the variety of things Bircken has already made. (I also had that encounter with the drummers I wrote about here.)The way Bircken  includes everyday items such as a panty-hose or a skirt (sewn closed shut) still makes it possible for the viewer to have the original associations that come along with these things. You then have to figure out why they were put together like this for yourself. Perhaps if the knitted pieces included in her art were ‘nicely’ made, people would give them fewer thoughts? Beautiful knitting (or any other kind of handiwork) doesn’t qualify as art in real museums...

Here you can see a few more pictures of works by Alexandra Bircken.

And this is a link to another blog-entry which talks about Alexandra Bircken and newer works of hers.

The exhibit in Munich is still on until February 26, 2012. 

Little escap(ad)es: Ellworth Kelly, Black and White

Since I had seen the announcement on the side wall of the Haus der Kunst earlier this year I had known that I would have to return to this museum once more this year:

Pre-announcement earlier this year

Ten days ago I finally managed to get away and spend a day in Munich, and it was well worth the trip.

The Haus der Kunst, with its history as a Nazi-building and its role as place where the “Degenerate Art” exhibition was shown in Munich, is not a museum that I can develop a special sympathy for. But it certainly is a befitting location for an exhibition like this.

Abstract paintings, objects, sketches, all in black and white, with a plentitude of space around them – the effect is almost indescribable.

Outside announcement of current exhibition

The place was brimming with guards, so it was not possible to sneak a (forbidden) picture to show at least a little bit of the combined effect of space and Kelly’s works. Unfortunately, the catalogue does not nearly convey what it meant to be present in the huge rooms, surrounded by several of Kelly’s large scale paintings in odd shapes and interesting positions.

One room was almost completely filled with a floor-covering-sculpture/painting commissioned by Haus der Kunst, “Black Curves 2011”, which will be destroyed after the exhibition ends. I made several little sketches of the arrangement from a viewer’s perspective, here is one of them.

sketch by a dilettante

This piece is not even displayed in the catalogue itself, but only as a study from a bird’s eyes view. 

Kelly's study for "Black Curves", photo taken from catalogue

It was put into the room touching the walls on each end such that you could not walk around it, robbing the viewer of the possibility of walking around it like a sculpture. What you see is a painting placed on the floor, submitting a two-dimensional piece to viewing conditions dictated by three-dimensional space. The perspective changes completely, depending on where in the room you're standing, and much more so than with an ‘ordinary’ painting hanging on the wall.

Just as interesting as his paintings and sketches were his exhibited photographs. Kelly takes only photos in black and white, and it is mostly the forms that he is interested in. I take lots of pictures like that myself – even got a guard’s official permission to do so in the sacred halls of the Haus der Kunst to catch a shadow that was very befitting to a Kelly exhibition in black and white. Of course nowadays one doesn’t have to take photos in black and white, as it is easy to turn a photo into black and white via software:

Kelly-type shadows in Haus der Kunst...

... transformed into black and white.

And – perhaps except for the colors – this could be a Kelly, too, although it’s entirely mine (found art in local town hall):

You get a lot of inspiration for the ten euros entry fee that you pay for this exhibition! Open through January 22, 2012.

Little escap(ad)e

We live east of Munich, out in the countryside, where there isn’t really much going on. Although Munich is only approx. 55 miles to the west, we might as well be living on another planet, gathered from the frequency with which we get to go there. So on Monday this week I took additional use of a train ticket that would have taken me through Munich anyway, left a few hours earlier than necessary in order to get to my intended destination, and spent those hours in Munich indulging.

Already the train ride was great. I love looking at the landscape zooming by, even tough I have seen this particular scenery many times already. I got to see a whole flock of white herons standing in a meadow. I got to see many wonderful trees in their winter skeletons, some of which would certainly make beautiful objects for a Daily Art project. The tunnels and underpasses on the way to Munich are decorated with lots of colorful graffitis. And what I liked most: seeing the effect of the warmth of the sun. In certain spots the shadows of trees had prevented that the frosted grass had thawed up, but the shadow itself had already travelled on a little, so you could see exactly where the white frost would thaw next.

Of course it being Monday, the typical day for closed museums, I didn’t have much of a choice where to go – couldn’t go to the Exhibition by J. Albers in the Pinakothek der Moderne which I definitely still want to see. But the Haus der Kunst was open, where I had seen Ai Wei Wei’s exhibition „so sorry!“ almost exactly one year ago. Although they had ‚only’ one exhibition open right now I decided to go for it: Marlene Dumas (English information on her here, German information on her here).

Marlene Dumas is of South-African origin, but now lives in the Netherlands. You can find pictures of her and her works here.  The exhibit is called „Tronies – Marlene Dumas and the Old Masters“. Tronies were sketches of people/people's heads first used for exercise, which then turned into an art form with the Old Dutch Masters. The show juxtaposes Dumas's portraits with a number of tronies.

If you know about M. Dumas, you probably know the painting used for the large banner on the building to announce the show, but if you don’t - before you read the caption below, give yourself a second and try to guess: who is depicted in this painting?

Banner at the Haus der Kunst,
based on M. Dumas's painting 'Naomi'

 This picture is not even that large, definitely smaller than you would guess from the size of the banner. In the exhibition I overheard a tour guide telling her group that the painting was part of Dumas’ dealing with the effects of the fashion world. Naomi Campbell , who has been a steady presence in the fashion world for many years now is shown as an icon, which has a lot of the characteristics of an African mask, and although you can see her pride and feel the strength of her personality when looking at the eyes in the painting, one can also see that she is at the same time one of the supermodel stars and a living victim of that fashion world.

Dumas works her portraits from photos or magazine pictures, not from a live model. I’m not sure whether she used a pciture of a Barbie for this portrait of Barbie, too.

Barbie, by Marlen Dumas

A few pictures were shown from a series of ‚rejects’ in which Dumas had overlaid pictures that she had rejected onto others, tearing parts – mostly the eyes – out of the pictures in the top layer so that the one below showed through and became an integral part of the entire combination. Very interesting effects! It reminded me of some of my techniques used in quilting. If something doesn’t turn out right on the first try, don’t throw it out yet, you may use it in connection with another piece. Always a possibility to cut something off and combine it with something else!

My most favorite portrait in the entire exhibition was that of her then three- or four-year-old daughter Helena with a look on her face that only children at that age can have – a forceful mixture of critical observance, strong-willed anger and defiance. I did not sneak a picture of this portrait, but unfortunately they did not have it on postcard in the shop, and I couldn’t find it on the internet either. However, I did sneak two pictures of a series of ‚collaborations’ by Dumas and her then six-year-old daughter, who had overpainted or ‚corrected’ rejects by her mother.

What I like about these are the contrasts in style, and the surprise effects that develop from that. Of course, it is clear which part of the pictures was done by the child and which is by the adult, but if you look closely at the top left picture in the lower photograph, where the red paint overpaints the orginial, you can see a technique that Dumas herself used in her painting of Sigmund Freud’s wife, which is also shown in the exhibition.

After a stopover in the museum bookstore, which is so fabulously well-assorted that it is a very dangerous and potentially rather expensive place to go, and lunch at the museum restaurant I had enough time to take a little stroll outside. Munich was basking in what almost seemed like a spring-day-sun.

Three surfers at the Eiskanal were making use of the surfwave in the middle of the city.

The boule players in the Hofgarten were out.

And, as is typical for Munich as soon as the temperatures rise over freezing point, people were sitting outside in the biergarten.

Munich does have a flair of its own. And I think I will try to do this kind of escap(ad)e more often – perhaps every four to six weeks?