exhibit #1

PICASSO; KANDINSKY; OROZCO (Guggenheim)

PICASSO: Black and White.

Picasso believed that “color weakens”- “he purged it from his work in order to highlight the formal structure and autonomy of form inherent in his art.” This is the first exhibition devoted to his use of black and white.

SECTION 1: He had his Blue period- themes of poverty and loneliness- after the death of his friend Carlos Casanegas in 1901. His Rose period began in 1905, after he settled in Paris and met his companion, Fernande Olivier. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was completed in 1907- this set off a period, continuing up until the Great War, in which he engaged in a cubist pictorial dialogue with Braque. In the wake of that war, and with the birth of his son Paulo in 1921, Picasso turned to neoclassical figurative painting, portraits of mothers & children, lovers. His muted palette in this phase also alludes to the classical sculpture and painting he encountered in Rome, Naples and Pompeii.

The exhibit opens with Woman Ironing, one of the last major Blue Period canvasses. That sharp elbow, that tender, slim smile.

I love his sculptures, his busts. What a bold take on the works of antiquity- Bust of a Woman (Marie-Therese) '31, Head of a Woman (Dora) '41, Head of a Woman, Left Profile (Marie Therese)'31. Extraordinary pieces. Beautiful and also a little horrifying. Reverential and countercultural. Seeing his themes in 3D somehow makes the shock of them, the contradictions, more visceral.

Cubist pieces, some primitive figures- cubist portraiture. A dark, pained vibe. Shocking their time. Head of a Man (1908)- pitch black tears. Incredibly desolate.

Bottle and Wine Glass- love the newspaper element. The ad for the Gramophone within the clipping, combining art forms. The aged nature of wine and the disposable nature of news, a witty pairing. I think of old newspaper a lot when I think of '20s art; collage. I wonder what they were going for- perhaps a statement about the aggressive immediacy and modernity of their work, or a sly joke about the contradiction of what’s essential today and disposable tomorrow. Maybe it speaks to mass-production, or an effort to combine media streams, or to mock established orders, subjugate old media to new. Maybe it’s a commentary on how the urgencies of the times holds art hostage; and how art can strike back. Perhaps, being a history fan, it hits me more than it hit them; perhaps that’s the point.

Accordionist- arriving now at the 'Picasso or Braque?' phase. A cool work.

Seated Nude, winter 22-23. This is more how I think of his neoclassical pieces (than the following works.) That reflection in the mirror makes the whole work. So beautiful. The sweet dreamy melancholy of a young girl.

Man with Pipe- excellent. Olga in a Fur Collar, The Artist’s Wife (Portrait of Olga Khokhlova)- really magnificent. Picasso could paint in any way, any style. The fur coat piece is especially lovely- looks like Greta Gerwig to me. I have never seen any Picasso that looks quite like this. Beginning of the ‘20s. I knew he turned neoclassical after the war; didn’t realize those pieces got quite this realistic or clean, elegant. Thought they were more Romanesque, a touch cartoonier. But no, he can do it all.

SECTION 2: Picasso went into the ‘20s still interested in serene, neoclassical portraits. In 1927 he met Marie-Therese Walter, a chance encounter that flowered into a passionate relationship and inspired an extraordinary group of works, “a new visual language inspired by her curvaceous form.” In the mid twenties, he shifted away from neoclassical portraits and towards surrealism, distortion, organic forms- and The Milliners Workshop, with its curves, marks a breakthrough in that direction.

The Lovers- what a piece. Looks like it was made in Brooklyn last year. Nope! France ‘23. Such a subtle and varied background. Clean, intimate, realistic figures. Understated. Very pretty.

Bust of a Woman, Arms Raised- a classic. so beautiful. so tender. magnificently conceived.

Woman in White- A classic.

The Milliners Workshop- Sexy, dark. Looks like the audience in a dark cafe while (that famous picasso 3-piece band) plays. Seems somehow sad and dark- maybe a story of oppressive labor. The figure on the right- the boss coming through the door? Always watching…

Arabesque Woman- rolling lines, voluptuous shape, ambiguous figure. I like it. I Love these- Acrobat (1-9-30), Woman Acrobat (1-19-30), Female Bust and Profile on Gray and White Ground. So whimsical and strange and imaginative. The Acrobats fill the canvas at surprising angles. the central piece, evocative and idiotic at the same time, like a parody cologne ad. I really love it. Figure (1928)- so peculiar. I'm all about it. This is the stuff that really delights me, the whimsical, surprising, cartoony stuff. Standing Woman (summer '27) is absolutely delightful. Clean white background, clean black lines, she looks like a puppet N. Some parts discernable, others ambiguous. A naked turtle. Simply terrific.

SECTION 3: Very much influenced by Marie-Therese Walter. Picasso loved her youthful vitality, athletic physique, and love for swimming. She was his Muse and subject in this period (late 20s to mid 30s, pre-Guernica). Mostly sparse works on display here, though some of the pieces (Boats & Figures, Swimming Woman) hint at the themes and possibilities that erupt with Guernica.

Bust of a Woman- very pretty, more completely painted than the others. Overall this is a pretty, tender, reflective section. Sleeping Woman- beautiful. Only one piece at a time in this section- really makes the viewing experience meditative, tender. Head of a Woman, Right Profile (Marie-Therese)- an exceptionally beautiful and dashing piece. Romantic in that dreamy sentimental 19th century way. I love it. Marie-Therese, Face and Profile- Like the moon. fantastic. Marie-Therese, Pensive- love it. Love the texture of this one. This lady inspired some real beauties- would love to see a photo of her.

My goodness, Woman With Flower Writing- so clean, graceful, simple, intimate. Absolutely love it. Swimming Woman- horrifying, Dali-esque. But picturing her in motion, breaking the waves, truly adds a lot of energy to the piece- the title makes it leap a level, makes it dynamic, brave, exciting, when my first instinct was terror. Makes me think of how the body in intense athletic motion, watched in slo-mo, is fantastically ugly. Compelling piece.

Boat & Figures, cool drawing. A story of doomed poverty, really- the lazy, shiftless fisher.

I Love these: Woman With Joined Hands (Marie-Therese), the dainty, spiderlike, Gahan Wilson/Egon Schiele vibe of Portrait of Nusch Eluard, the dreamy, strangely real look of Woman (Ines Sassier) and Child. This piece reminds me of a realistic, humanized drawing of the Simpsons or somesuch. The butterfly in transition, between the human realm and Picasso.

Marie-Therese Walter committed suicide a few years after Picasso died. What a fascinating moral quandary- he immortalized her, made her beautiful, but also probably warped her world and fucked with her in some terrible ways too. He essentially squeezed the life force out of her like a sponge, and I don’t know much about how it affected her- I’d assume poorly- but what he squeezed of her on the canvas is immortal, beautiful, bigger than the individual or the pair. Her life vs. her life in his hands, which did she get to live? I'd like to see a movie about her.

SECTION 4: A bleak and dangerous time. His new love Dora Maar influenced some of his work. The misery of occupation did, too. Much of this section is devoted to sketches for Guernica. He completed 45 sketches for that piece- I can't imagine doing Anything 45 times before I make the 'official' work. Hard work. That's what makes the greats.

Woman Asleep at a Table- hip.

Composition Study, Sketch for Guernica- clean, beautiful little piece. Clean lines. The gentle face of the dead. The stoic, maybe sinister bull.

Mother with Dead Child II- Postscript to Guernica. Haunting, astonishing work. Man, the vivid nightmare face of the woman. Everything else except for that visceral, terrible shock fades into the background- time stops, only sheer terror and agony lives in that moment.

Man, I love his faces. Man With Ice Cream Cone is one of Picasso’s archetypal faces, the farmer. I’d love to see a list of Picasso’s facial archetypes. Farmer, Minotaur, Harlequin, Roman woman. I love the pretty and ugly complexity of Little Girl with a Pacifier Under a Chair.

Love the eerie midnight Dark Gray Face with White Hat- the glow on the face and the corner box implies, to the modern eye, a creature watching weird TV or conducting distasteful internet discourse. Head of a Woman (4-27-44) looks like an art student sketched an Easter Island site. I’d call Bust of a Woman on Gray Ground “Portrait of a Jerk.” Still Life with Blood Sausage- Creepy. Looks like stuff that Mr. White Hat would own.

SECTION 5: In this phase, Picasso’s primary motives and purposes: reacting against war, paying homage to the old masters, euologizing his friends, celebrating beautiful women.

Horned Head II- simple, cartoony, but a little grim, a little naked. sad. I like it.

The Charnel House- evocative of WW2. Looks like Guernica. Skull- dark, horrifying. Picasso was in occupied Paris during the war- didn’t realize.

Sylvette- a lovely, charming, quaint work. A slim and delicate lady, more angular, less curvaceous than I usually expect of Picasso. Woman Seated in an Armchair- very exciting. I love it. Clean lines, light strokes, the face curving in on itself. The Kitchen- looks like a weird, playful blueprint- precise, clockwork, indecipherable, alien. Faces in there? Whimsical, simple. More abstract, less figural than his usual. It almost seems like an unlabeled Rube Goldberg machine.

The Maids of Honor- (Las Meninas, after Velazquez)- Beautiful parlor room piece. Magnificent. Usually in Barcelona- wonder if JD ever saw it. You could divide it cleanly into six and you’d have six distinct and beautiful works. I wanna look at it, think about it more- the cubist left, stable center, sparse right. Strong verticals and horizontals, good balance. That apparition in the top left.

The Rape of the Sabines- Intense, horrifying, the woman flattened by the grinning horse. The idiotic, anonymous, small rider- makes me think of the petty sameness of a conquering soldier, just an asshole with the better weapon and sufficient cruelty to use it.

Reclining nudes, a go to. I like Reclining Nude with Flower Wreath. Lovely face, and that hideous fried face- a picture in her room? a mirror? I also like the cartoony strangeness of Reclining Nude (Nov 1 1969). Seated Woman, Left Profile- very excited by the face of this one. Such a cool and eerie effect, divided, unified, inward, outward. Reclining Woman Reading conveys a charming, easy leisure, almost comical. It could play in the New Yorker.

The Kiss- Looks like a classical homage, a Spanish nobleman, a young Romeo. The arm, the combined faces, the breasts- similar shapes. Woman Playing With a Small Cat- love it. Three Figures looks like a romantic tangle of some sort- an unexpected guest, an elephant in the room, a new and awkward bedroom configuration. The aftermath of an imperfect menage a trois. The Kiss- another one. I love the broad brushstrokes, and the way the figures connect. The attitude of the figures is a little unsettling- the man seems into it, the woman repulsed. Considering how much older the man looks- this could be a criminal scene.

Final thoughts: An extraordinary demonstration of his talents. Picasso really could be compelling, beautiful, scary, hilarious, in any style and with no color necessary. I did not expect to like this exhibit too much, I’m a huge sucker for color (I suppose my eye is weak, as Picasso would allege) but he makes it work. And it’s particularly intriguing to get to see this exhibit in tandem with Kandinsky, at the peak of his interest in color theory. Picasso is Jordan. That’s that.

Kandinsky, 1911-1913.

A small, intimate exhibit, mostly work I’ve seen before (but always worth seeing again)… discusses Der Blaue Reiter, the simpatico interests and values of Kandinsky and Franz Marc. I want to remember, reconsider Kandinsky’s different values that he assigned to shapes and colors. (per Marc, yellow is feminine, blue masculine.)

Lion Hunt and Sancta Francisca- beautiful tiny pieces. Oil on glass. Beautiful color; whimsical. Recognizable forms.

Franz Marc died “1916, Verdun, France.” Always weird to comprehend. Such a profoundly disruptive event.

The Yellow Cow- I’ve always enjoyed the dreamy curve of the cow’s figure.

Der Blaue Reiter- “united by a common interest in the Expressionist potential of color, symbolic associations, and (for Marc and Kandinsky) spiritual values.” I want to read Kandinsky’s book- On the Spiritual in Art- and Painting in Particular. It’s on display here. Cool sentence- “In the hierarchy of colors, green is the ‘bourgeoisie,’ self satisfied, immovable, narrow. It is the color of summer, the period when nature is resting from the storms of winter and the productive energy of spring.” It is neither warm nor cool, it’s calm- natural- regenerative, but boring and unchallenging over time.

Lovely Kandinskys on display- Landscape with Rain, Improvisation 28 (Second Version)- which looks like a stormier landscape with rain; and Small Pleasures, which is especially pretty. Looks like musicians jamming atop a pyschedelic hill. In this order they make me think of ‘the Stages of Empire,’ painted by a spiritual hipster madman. Love ‘em.

Cool little exhibit, I wish there was more. I should look up the Kandinsky exhibit I saw here once upon a time.

Gabriel Orozco, Asterisms.

Very pretty, I like it. Often I’m suspicious of appropriation, but the archaeological aspect- and the aesthetically pleasing effort of color and shape organization- really draws me in. It fascinates me to think that each of these objects had a use. Each object had a purpose, a use, and a user. There are human lives tied to this piece, woven into it, and they’ll never know they were a part of it.