-REVIEW: MARILYN --MINTER:PRETTY/DIRTY, BROOKLYN MUSEUM, BROOKLYN
-REVIEW: PIPILOTTI RIST: PIXEL FOREST, NEW MUSEUM, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: BRUCE CONNER:IT'S ALL TRUE, MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: ANTONY GORMLEY:CONSTRUCT, SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: LAURA POITRAS:ASTRO NOISE, WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: YOKO ONO, THE RIVERBED, ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: CHRISTOPHER KNOWLES: IN A WORD, INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, U OF PENN, PHILADELPHIA
-REVIEW: THE NEW WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART DESIGNED BY RENZO PIANO, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: PIPILOTTI RIST: PIXEL FOREST, NEW MUSEUM, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: BRUCE CONNER:IT'S ALL TRUE, MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: ANTONY GORMLEY:CONSTRUCT, SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: LAURA POITRAS:ASTRO NOISE, WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: YOKO ONO, THE RIVERBED, ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY, NEW YORK
-REVIEW: CHRISTOPHER KNOWLES: IN A WORD, INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, U OF PENN, PHILADELPHIA
-REVIEW: THE NEW WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART DESIGNED BY RENZO PIANO, NEW YORK
REVIEW OF Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty, 4 November-2 April, 2017, Brooklyn Museum, NEW YORK, NY
AESTHETICA MAGAZINE, P.130, ISSUE 75
Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty, is the artist’s first retrospective; it includes: painting, photographs and videos from 1968 to 2016. Smash (2014), is a large-scale video projection that draws from and expands on diverse source material – fashion editorials, beauty adverts and porn – and continues a focus on abstraction, realism, painting and photography. The connecting element is the representation of female sexuality by using water. In this particular work, a model wears silver high heels, embellished with beads, and kicks through a piece of glass as it explodes into a spray of water globules. Each scene is conceptually dripping – in the air, on the ground and across compositional backgrounds.
Glass was used in various ways in, Pretty/Dirty. In, Torrent (2013), Minter painted a close up of a woman's full red lips with pearls streaming out of them. The women's lips are is obscured by a layer of wet glass in front of her face. Similar to, Smash, both pieces allude to the fact that women have been held back by layers of societal attitudes, exposing the mental negotiations involved in expressing and indulging in physical beauty and sexuality for women. In the same way that steam lays on glass restrictive ideas lay on top of women and their freedom.
100 Food Porn (1989-1990), provoked feminist criticism due to the radical (at the time) inclusion of images from the pornographic industry. Minter refuted this criticism and continued exploring female sexuality using porn to shape the narratives in her paintings. In essence using one could say the problem – porn and recalibrating its intention.
100 Food Porn, depicts a dreamy, seductive world that uses women and female sexuality like advertising does. The meaning is embedded in the glass that is ultimately shattered in, Smash. Minter understands advertising as a force that imposes the constraint that women are imperfect the way they are and not enough. She in turn smashes and shatters that illusion.
Glass was used in various ways in, Pretty/Dirty. In, Torrent (2013), Minter painted a close up of a woman's full red lips with pearls streaming out of them. The women's lips are is obscured by a layer of wet glass in front of her face. Similar to, Smash, both pieces allude to the fact that women have been held back by layers of societal attitudes, exposing the mental negotiations involved in expressing and indulging in physical beauty and sexuality for women. In the same way that steam lays on glass restrictive ideas lay on top of women and their freedom.
100 Food Porn (1989-1990), provoked feminist criticism due to the radical (at the time) inclusion of images from the pornographic industry. Minter refuted this criticism and continued exploring female sexuality using porn to shape the narratives in her paintings. In essence using one could say the problem – porn and recalibrating its intention.
100 Food Porn, depicts a dreamy, seductive world that uses women and female sexuality like advertising does. The meaning is embedded in the glass that is ultimately shattered in, Smash. Minter understands advertising as a force that imposes the constraint that women are imperfect the way they are and not enough. She in turn smashes and shatters that illusion.
Kimberly Connerton, Review, Pipilotti Rist, Pixel Forest, The New Museum, New York, 2016-2017 Aesthetica Magazine, Issue 74, Dec./Jan. 2017, P. 128, UK
Swiss-born video artist Pipilotti Rist's exhibition at The New Museum is her first survey show in New York and comprises three floors of the museum The elevator ride up to the fourth floor sets the stage, revealing why museum-goers queue around the block in anticipation of seeing Pixel Forest. At each stopping point the elevator door opens to reveal floor-to-ceiling strands of light that transition continuously into vivid pinks, oranges, cool whites, yellows blues and purples.
Once on the fourth floor, audiences enter a dark small corridor that leads into a new work: 4th Floor to Mildness. Several beds, which viewers can lie on if they remove their shoes are positioned beneath two amoeba-shaped video projections on the ceiling. This is indicative of the artist's recent work, which contains lush, non-narrative videos of water or grass, with amplified colors ambient music and areas in which the audience can lounge.
The strongest work in the show, Ever is All Over, (1997), is an earlier immersive video and is set apart from, whilst also laying a foundation for, Rist's recent work. The artist performs in this video. Clad in a blue dress and red, glittery Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz shoes, she walks down a street in Switzerland with a long-stemmed flower that is in fact a cudgel, and proceeds to smash car windows. She smiles with abandon after smashing each window and at the end, a female police officer smiles and tips her hat and nods in approval.
Rist's particular strength is that she makes video art, a form which is often difficult to understand, accessible to a wider public while also providing a sensorial, layered and pleasure-filled experience.
Once on the fourth floor, audiences enter a dark small corridor that leads into a new work: 4th Floor to Mildness. Several beds, which viewers can lie on if they remove their shoes are positioned beneath two amoeba-shaped video projections on the ceiling. This is indicative of the artist's recent work, which contains lush, non-narrative videos of water or grass, with amplified colors ambient music and areas in which the audience can lounge.
The strongest work in the show, Ever is All Over, (1997), is an earlier immersive video and is set apart from, whilst also laying a foundation for, Rist's recent work. The artist performs in this video. Clad in a blue dress and red, glittery Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz shoes, she walks down a street in Switzerland with a long-stemmed flower that is in fact a cudgel, and proceeds to smash car windows. She smiles with abandon after smashing each window and at the end, a female police officer smiles and tips her hat and nods in approval.
Rist's particular strength is that she makes video art, a form which is often difficult to understand, accessible to a wider public while also providing a sensorial, layered and pleasure-filled experience.
Review of Bruce Conner: it's all true, 3 JULY-2 October, 2016, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
AESTHETICA MAGAZINE, P.133, issue 72
The Bruce Conner exhibition, It’s All True, reveals the prolific nature of Conner’s practice and includes: paintings, assemblages, films, collages, photographs, photograms, and happenings. Conner’s retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York spans his 60-year art career and happens posthumously after the artist’s death in 2008. His influences and contemporaries like Edward Kienholtz and Robert Raushenberg are evident in his assemblages. A glimmer of Joseph Cornell and his fascination with the Hollywood starlet can be seen in Conner’s repeated use of the femme fatale throughout his oeuvre. Yet, Conner’s fascination with the female starlet highlights a freedom and a kind of liberation in his photographs and filmic images of the women presented.
Conner’s films are the most powerful and mesmerizing part of It’s All True and are unique. Encapsulating the complexity and transformative nature of the 1960s.
In Breakaway, 1966, a film of choreographer and dancer Toni Basil dancing to her song, Breakaway. Conner used the camera to dance with her. Basil is an unstoppable force. If one word could be used to describe, Breakaway, it would be movement. Images of the free, 60s style of go-go dancing, and naked and/or provocatively dressed Basil are repeated. Set to the loud soundtrack of her upbeat song. The camera breathes with Basil. The camera repeatedly zooms in and out and doubles the movement happening as Basil performs thrusting dance movements. The close-up shots and technical movement of the camera and bodily movement cause many scenes to be blurry.
The space between the sharp and blurred scenes create a unified and abstract space.
After the 3rd time I watched Breakaway – my desire to watch it again only increased. Looking for Mushrooms, 1967, is another filmic visual landscape, aided by a pop song by the Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows, to become absorbed in.
Conner’s films are the most powerful and mesmerizing part of It’s All True and are unique. Encapsulating the complexity and transformative nature of the 1960s.
In Breakaway, 1966, a film of choreographer and dancer Toni Basil dancing to her song, Breakaway. Conner used the camera to dance with her. Basil is an unstoppable force. If one word could be used to describe, Breakaway, it would be movement. Images of the free, 60s style of go-go dancing, and naked and/or provocatively dressed Basil are repeated. Set to the loud soundtrack of her upbeat song. The camera breathes with Basil. The camera repeatedly zooms in and out and doubles the movement happening as Basil performs thrusting dance movements. The close-up shots and technical movement of the camera and bodily movement cause many scenes to be blurry.
The space between the sharp and blurred scenes create a unified and abstract space.
After the 3rd time I watched Breakaway – my desire to watch it again only increased. Looking for Mushrooms, 1967, is another filmic visual landscape, aided by a pop song by the Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows, to become absorbed in.
Review of Antony Gormley: Construct, Sean Kelly Gallery, new york, ny, 7 May - 18 June 2016
AESTHETICA MAGAZINE P. 128, issue 71
Although close to the conglomeration of galleries in Chelsea, the Sean Kelly Gallery is slightly removed by a few blocks. The traffic on 10th Avenue and bustling construction are continuous. The new show, Antony Gormley: Construct, contrasts this urban noise through its minimal curatorial approach and quiet uncluttered atmosphere. In each of the three high ceilinged gallery rooms up to four sculptures are displayed. Two new large-scale works, Bond I and Bond II, both made of rectilinear iron beams, are situated in the lower gallery, and act as an oversized reclining body that fully utilizes the horizontality of the space. And a tall standing figure that emphasizes the verticality of the space.
The echo of a larger built world – the same as the one that exists outside the gallery and that is transforming New York—is visible in Gormley’s Scaffold (2015) series. Again steel is used, but rather than in solid rectilinear blocks as in Bond (2015) series, thin lines of silver form squares and construct an upright free standing figure. The space in between the lines that comprise Scaffold is as important as the thin solid formed structure. The steel framed that provides strength is light and less dense. One of Gormley’s large installations Asian Field (2003) comprises 210,000 hand sized clay figures, made with 350 people from Xiangshan village, China, and is a stark contrast with the uncluttered approach in Construct.
Consistently, Gormley’s assembled bodies are a part of different urban environments. As such, each of his sculptural series suggest that the audience are able to transform the space around them while highlighting the body as a site of transformation.
The echo of a larger built world – the same as the one that exists outside the gallery and that is transforming New York—is visible in Gormley’s Scaffold (2015) series. Again steel is used, but rather than in solid rectilinear blocks as in Bond (2015) series, thin lines of silver form squares and construct an upright free standing figure. The space in between the lines that comprise Scaffold is as important as the thin solid formed structure. The steel framed that provides strength is light and less dense. One of Gormley’s large installations Asian Field (2003) comprises 210,000 hand sized clay figures, made with 350 people from Xiangshan village, China, and is a stark contrast with the uncluttered approach in Construct.
Consistently, Gormley’s assembled bodies are a part of different urban environments. As such, each of his sculptural series suggest that the audience are able to transform the space around them while highlighting the body as a site of transformation.
Review of Laura Poitras: Astro Noise, Whitney Museum of American Art, New york, NY, 5 February - 1 May
AESTHETICA MAGAZINE, P. 126, issue 70
The first room of Laura Poitras’s exhibition, Astro Noise, is dark and strangely seductive. A double-sided video screen, suspended from the ceiling in the center of the space, created a kind of theatre-in-the-round viewing experience. One side depicts Ground Zero shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The second screen presents two different videos of prisoners undergoing interrogation by American soldiers in Afghanistan, a recognizable scene often in the news.
The grainy, washed-out surveillance footage is captivating, and compels visitors to remain watching the films for prolonged periods, which, given the troubling content is surprising. One of the most provocative scenes depicts a US soldier standing in front of an Afghan prisoner who is sitting on the floor in chains. The soldier’s body blocks the camera. Audiences are not sure what he is doing to the prisoner on the floor. Videos of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by American soldiers flash through my mind. I feared for the prisoner.
As the scene unfolds, it becomes clear that the soldier was handcuffing the prisoner and afterwards walked away. This ambiguity or inference is one of the the strengths of the documentarian’s work and is prevalent in the videos exhibited. She employs a degree of pleasantness, the grainy footage softens and distances this tragedy. In this way, audiences digest and consider the reality and severity of life in the 21st century: fear fueled America, the war on terror, the drones, the prisoners, lack of humanity, and the phenomenon of being under constant surveillance. Ironically, the viewers of this exhibition are being watched. One can also see the details of Poitras’ own surveillance by the US government, in this exhibition, which she obtained by filing a lawsuit.
The grainy, washed-out surveillance footage is captivating, and compels visitors to remain watching the films for prolonged periods, which, given the troubling content is surprising. One of the most provocative scenes depicts a US soldier standing in front of an Afghan prisoner who is sitting on the floor in chains. The soldier’s body blocks the camera. Audiences are not sure what he is doing to the prisoner on the floor. Videos of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by American soldiers flash through my mind. I feared for the prisoner.
As the scene unfolds, it becomes clear that the soldier was handcuffing the prisoner and afterwards walked away. This ambiguity or inference is one of the the strengths of the documentarian’s work and is prevalent in the videos exhibited. She employs a degree of pleasantness, the grainy footage softens and distances this tragedy. In this way, audiences digest and consider the reality and severity of life in the 21st century: fear fueled America, the war on terror, the drones, the prisoners, lack of humanity, and the phenomenon of being under constant surveillance. Ironically, the viewers of this exhibition are being watched. One can also see the details of Poitras’ own surveillance by the US government, in this exhibition, which she obtained by filing a lawsuit.
Review Of: Yoko Ono, The Riverbed
Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 W. 24th Street, NY, NY, 10011
December 11, 2015 – January 23, 2016
Upon entering the opening of Yoko Ono’s exhibition The Riverbed at the Andrea Rosen Gallery I walked over to a pile of rocks on the floor. Many people were crouched down holding rocks in their hands in silence. Although, this may seem somber the atmosphere was one of celebration. The title of this work, StonePiece: Choose a stone and hold it until all your anger and sadness have been let go both exemplifies and extends Ono’s earlier conceptual art: performances, interactive sculpture, and event scores/instructions, which comprised her infamous book, Grapefruit. As I held one rock in my hand I did follow Ono’s instructions. For a moment, I focused on a resentment I held onto for a long time and I let it go into the rock. I was moved to tears and I did feel lighter. This has never happened to me before in a gallery.
The energy generated by Ono’s work and the audience’s participation was palpable and uplifting. I was definitely with the right friends for this show when I stood up and cried for a moment. Experiencing a collective energetic exchange was the most important part of The Riverbed. Ono’s work needed the audience to physically and emotionally engage with it and try it out. Her belief in her art as a vehicle for change and as also having the capacity to benefit people and the planet is actualized in The Riverbed.
Facilitating an energetic exchange is a hard thing to pull off. Yet, at 82, Ono is in her stride and pulls it off with ease. And it is a hard thing to describe because it is best experienced. Yet, performers have this gift – they can create an energy through gestures, sounds, words, objects, and their bodies. I am reminded of the first time I experienced this kind of magic when I attended a poetry reading by John Cale, who was a member of the Velvet Underground at the Drawing Center. Cale, read what seemed like an epic Greek poem with his Welsh accent, and filled the entire room with his own brand of psychic energy. The feeling generated teetered between - wanting to erupt with laugher and total despair. I was enthralled. I didn’t even know who he was and afterwards I started listening to the Velvet Underground. The second time I experienced this energy transference was when Ono performed, Primal Scream, in Central Park at Summer Stage several years ago. I was struck by her vigor, peace and ability to create a kind of harmony and unity within a large group. Ono's energy differed from Cale's emotive range, since she focused on a collective release as a strategy to create harmony and his rested between joy and pain.
Ono’s work has in some ways remained the same: peace and audience engagement are key. And it has evolved to speak to audiences in an even more experiential way to change one's self and the world through collective and individual efforts in art.
Ono has a concurrent exhibition at Galerie Lelong that runs through January 29, 2016
The energy generated by Ono’s work and the audience’s participation was palpable and uplifting. I was definitely with the right friends for this show when I stood up and cried for a moment. Experiencing a collective energetic exchange was the most important part of The Riverbed. Ono’s work needed the audience to physically and emotionally engage with it and try it out. Her belief in her art as a vehicle for change and as also having the capacity to benefit people and the planet is actualized in The Riverbed.
Facilitating an energetic exchange is a hard thing to pull off. Yet, at 82, Ono is in her stride and pulls it off with ease. And it is a hard thing to describe because it is best experienced. Yet, performers have this gift – they can create an energy through gestures, sounds, words, objects, and their bodies. I am reminded of the first time I experienced this kind of magic when I attended a poetry reading by John Cale, who was a member of the Velvet Underground at the Drawing Center. Cale, read what seemed like an epic Greek poem with his Welsh accent, and filled the entire room with his own brand of psychic energy. The feeling generated teetered between - wanting to erupt with laugher and total despair. I was enthralled. I didn’t even know who he was and afterwards I started listening to the Velvet Underground. The second time I experienced this energy transference was when Ono performed, Primal Scream, in Central Park at Summer Stage several years ago. I was struck by her vigor, peace and ability to create a kind of harmony and unity within a large group. Ono's energy differed from Cale's emotive range, since she focused on a collective release as a strategy to create harmony and his rested between joy and pain.
Ono’s work has in some ways remained the same: peace and audience engagement are key. And it has evolved to speak to audiences in an even more experiential way to change one's self and the world through collective and individual efforts in art.
Ono has a concurrent exhibition at Galerie Lelong that runs through January 29, 2016
REVIEW OF CHRISTOPHER KNOWLES: IN A WORD
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 118 S. 36th Street,Philadelphia, PA, 19104
SEPTEMBER 16 – DECEMBER 27, 2015
The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition... always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.
Roland Barthes
Christopher Knowles’ recent exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art was aptly named, In A Word. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect title for this show. Words and symbols employ a study in semiotics. Some works are personal notes and other works reference topical concerns like the current presidential debate and life with constant terrorist alerts. As I walked through the exhibition I immediately thought of the poetry of E.E. Cummings and John Cage, since both used words for their specific meaning and as a vehicle to build a design or pattern on the written page. Yet, Knowles, extensive and interdisciplinary approach, is so utterly visual and vast. His artistic range includes: performance, installation, painting, video, sound and drawing.
In, The Sundance Kid is Beautiful, a large scale installation and performance, Knowles covered the walls and floor with newspapers, the words are topical as, the news is current and one of the three life size paper cones brings Donald Trump into the conversation. Hand built alarm clocks, fold up chairs, and a suspended window frame furnish this installation. The clocks display random times. At certain intervals the lights go off and a bell rings – theatrical, idiosyncratic and playful. Knowles takes the bastard form of mass culture and reframes the repetition of material and meaning in newspapers by giving it a new and personal context and one that includes selections of a libretto Knowles wrote for the opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.
Roland Barthes
Christopher Knowles’ recent exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art was aptly named, In A Word. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect title for this show. Words and symbols employ a study in semiotics. Some works are personal notes and other works reference topical concerns like the current presidential debate and life with constant terrorist alerts. As I walked through the exhibition I immediately thought of the poetry of E.E. Cummings and John Cage, since both used words for their specific meaning and as a vehicle to build a design or pattern on the written page. Yet, Knowles, extensive and interdisciplinary approach, is so utterly visual and vast. His artistic range includes: performance, installation, painting, video, sound and drawing.
In, The Sundance Kid is Beautiful, a large scale installation and performance, Knowles covered the walls and floor with newspapers, the words are topical as, the news is current and one of the three life size paper cones brings Donald Trump into the conversation. Hand built alarm clocks, fold up chairs, and a suspended window frame furnish this installation. The clocks display random times. At certain intervals the lights go off and a bell rings – theatrical, idiosyncratic and playful. Knowles takes the bastard form of mass culture and reframes the repetition of material and meaning in newspapers by giving it a new and personal context and one that includes selections of a libretto Knowles wrote for the opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.
Review: The New Whitney Museum of American Art
Designed by Renzo Piano
Whitney Museumof American Art 99 Gansevoort Street NY,NY 10014
Speaking together is a form of acceptance and the beginning of tolerance, which is the secret of civic life.
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano
I was excited and immensely grateful to be walking around Chelsea at the start of the art season. It was a warm, sunny day in September in New York at dusk as I walked down Ganesvoort Street to check out the new Whitney Museum of American Art. The sun was setting on the Hudson River and the line of museum goers extended across the street to take advantage the pay what wish entrance fee on Friday nights. I had been living away from New York for over 8 years so this was a treat to be in New York at the start of the art season and to soak up the enthusiasm of new beginnings: the new Whitney, the new art season, and my own return to one of my favorite cities in the world.
This same atmosphere of connectedness, openness, and social pleasure is also reflected in Renzo Piano's design of the new Whitney Museum of American Art - no easy feat for a tall building - to create these kind of subtle interpersonal exchanges. Piano, said: “Speaking together is a form of acceptance and the beginning of tolerance, which is the secret of civic life.” The acceptance, he speaks of can be felt by sitting on the bright yellow, movable chairs, on the deck, outside by the entrance, at the front and side of the building that is situated in the anterior of the glass walls, which allows for full views into and from the bookstore and lobby. Its open, comfortable, easy, movable, welcoming and visible.
After a quick stop at a hotel bar nearby, for a few Camparis - to avoid the lines my friend and I came back to the museum. My friend had been to the museum previously and suggested taking the elevator to the top floor and then walk outside to the balcony. This was an excellent way to begin our visit. Walking outside on the many balconies and stairwells was a surprise. Piano's design allowed audiences to circulate through the building and connect to everything that is happening around it. The many designer apartment buildings that encircle the museum are in such close proximity that I saw people: naked, eating dinner, watching tv, laying on the couch -- there is something pleasing about accidental voyeurism and there is no shame in any of it. Windows are intentionally untreated for a mutual viewing fest. I like to perv and apparently so does everyone else.
At every step, on the balconies and outdoor stairwells, I felt a part of of both the Whitney and New York simultaneously. Previously, while teaching installation art to architecture students in Sydney - a beautiful, progressive city that is transforming its urban scape by the minute - I heard the term urban fabric used to describe how the architecture, urban design and city infrastructure work together. Yet, Piano's design of the Whitney Museum of American Art is the first time I actually experienced it.
The urban life in New York at night overflowed with bright lights, the Hudson river, the High Line, and an ever changing skyline. Similar, to The Pompidou Center, designed by the firm Piano & Rodgers, the glass encased, diagonal escalator gives museum goers a dynamic, expansive and delightful view of Paris, as the Whitney Museum of American Art offers museum goers a view of the lower west side in New York. Yet, Piano's design of the Whitney Museum of Art takes the seeds planted in The Pompidou Center and creates a more complete and integrated user experience - the people that walk through this building are the thread that pulls it together because such a large part of his design is the act of circulating through it. The body has license to move through this space and speak together with the art, the museum, and New York city.
Piano's ability to implement acceptance and tolerance in his design of the Whitney Museum made me feel, and this is a first, that I wasn't in an institution. The blonde, hardwood flooring, high ceilings, smaller galleries, exterior circulation, and front deck area created a more human and less confined feeling and experience. There are many museums I frequent and love. Yet, this is the first one I actually felt a warmth from. The shape of the building is a disconnect, it seems oddly ambiguous and doesn't carry the same sensitivity and warmth I experienced inside of the building. Revisiting many great artists work, including: Eva Hesse, Karen Kilimnick, Andy Warhol, and Francesca Woodman was the icing on the cake. I can't wait to get back to the Whitney Museum of Art.
This same atmosphere of connectedness, openness, and social pleasure is also reflected in Renzo Piano's design of the new Whitney Museum of American Art - no easy feat for a tall building - to create these kind of subtle interpersonal exchanges. Piano, said: “Speaking together is a form of acceptance and the beginning of tolerance, which is the secret of civic life.” The acceptance, he speaks of can be felt by sitting on the bright yellow, movable chairs, on the deck, outside by the entrance, at the front and side of the building that is situated in the anterior of the glass walls, which allows for full views into and from the bookstore and lobby. Its open, comfortable, easy, movable, welcoming and visible.
After a quick stop at a hotel bar nearby, for a few Camparis - to avoid the lines my friend and I came back to the museum. My friend had been to the museum previously and suggested taking the elevator to the top floor and then walk outside to the balcony. This was an excellent way to begin our visit. Walking outside on the many balconies and stairwells was a surprise. Piano's design allowed audiences to circulate through the building and connect to everything that is happening around it. The many designer apartment buildings that encircle the museum are in such close proximity that I saw people: naked, eating dinner, watching tv, laying on the couch -- there is something pleasing about accidental voyeurism and there is no shame in any of it. Windows are intentionally untreated for a mutual viewing fest. I like to perv and apparently so does everyone else.
At every step, on the balconies and outdoor stairwells, I felt a part of of both the Whitney and New York simultaneously. Previously, while teaching installation art to architecture students in Sydney - a beautiful, progressive city that is transforming its urban scape by the minute - I heard the term urban fabric used to describe how the architecture, urban design and city infrastructure work together. Yet, Piano's design of the Whitney Museum of American Art is the first time I actually experienced it.
The urban life in New York at night overflowed with bright lights, the Hudson river, the High Line, and an ever changing skyline. Similar, to The Pompidou Center, designed by the firm Piano & Rodgers, the glass encased, diagonal escalator gives museum goers a dynamic, expansive and delightful view of Paris, as the Whitney Museum of American Art offers museum goers a view of the lower west side in New York. Yet, Piano's design of the Whitney Museum of Art takes the seeds planted in The Pompidou Center and creates a more complete and integrated user experience - the people that walk through this building are the thread that pulls it together because such a large part of his design is the act of circulating through it. The body has license to move through this space and speak together with the art, the museum, and New York city.
Piano's ability to implement acceptance and tolerance in his design of the Whitney Museum made me feel, and this is a first, that I wasn't in an institution. The blonde, hardwood flooring, high ceilings, smaller galleries, exterior circulation, and front deck area created a more human and less confined feeling and experience. There are many museums I frequent and love. Yet, this is the first one I actually felt a warmth from. The shape of the building is a disconnect, it seems oddly ambiguous and doesn't carry the same sensitivity and warmth I experienced inside of the building. Revisiting many great artists work, including: Eva Hesse, Karen Kilimnick, Andy Warhol, and Francesca Woodman was the icing on the cake. I can't wait to get back to the Whitney Museum of Art.
Copyright Kim Connerton 2015-2021