Edinburgh Castle

Cannonballs from the Edinburgh Castle. As seen summer 2007 when I traveled to Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales.

Ric Burns - Ansel Adams

A rousing audience was treated Thursday evening to a showing of the documentary film on Ansel Adams made by Ric Burns to commemorate the 100th anniversary (in 2002) of Ansel Adams. The screening was shown in conjunction with the Corcoran's recent opening of an exhibit showing 125 pictures from the Lane Collection.

Burns (younger brother of Ken Burns) is a documentary film maker in his own right. Born in Baltimore, Ric (aka Eric) studied English at Columbia and Cambridge. He told us he worked for more than a dozen years on his PhD, but I suspect never finished his dissertation. He said he learned everything he knew about documentary film making from his brother.

Burns has been interested in making films about artists. I have not seen either the one on Andy Warhol or Eugene O'Neill, but look forward to them. I also hope to see Ken Burns new documentary to be shown this Sunday night on PBS on World War 2.

More on Jacob van Ruisdael

Yesterday I posted a brief mention of van Ruisdael as representing the Golden Age of Dutch painting. Tuesday, September 18, New York Times, first page of The Arts section, reproduces a beautiful painting of Wheat Fields, by van Ruisdael. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has just opened a new show called the Age of Rembrandt that includes 5 van Ruisdaels, as well as paintings by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, van Ruysdaels (not to be confused with Ruisdael), and 8 by Gerard ter Borch.

For you Corcoranites, we own a lovely pair of wedding portraits by ter Borch.

According to the Times, the Met has "packaged" the show with a theme: money. Rather than sorting the works by artists and dates, it is sorted by the names and dates of the collectors who bought and gave the paintings to the museum. So you will recognize names like J. P. Morgan and Vanderbilt.

Jacob van Ruisdael

One of his landscapes from the 1650s. A magnificent Dutch landscape painter, van Ruisdael was considered one of the best of the Dutch Golden Age.

Monolith - Face of Half Dome

Ansel Adams. Adams caught this picture with his last plate, using a dark red filter. That is what created the very dark sky in the upper leftmost portion. The Corcoran Gallery of Art has two of these in its show. The first is somewhat smaller, printed in 1927 and on cream colored paper. The next, printed quite a bit later, looks very different, in part because of the different paper used.

Ansel Adams opens at the Corcoran

Some 125 images from the Lane Collection opened on Saturday, September 15, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Blake Gopnik provided a very favorable review in The Washington Post. And judging by the crowds that were there on Sunday, the audience liked it as well.

Adams was certainly a genius--in his own time and today. Adams was born in 1902 and tutored privately. He was actually preparing to be a concert pianist, but when he was 14 he took a hiking trip with his family and was hooked with his first camera. I wonder what he might have been had his nose not been broken in the San Francisco earthquake. Supposedly, he was sensitive about his looks and became somewhat of a longer, losing himself in exploring the beautiful Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The exhibit is beautifully hung and the public clearly was drawn to the various images.

Symposium at The Phillips Collection

On Saturday, September 15, The Phillips in conjunction with the University of Illinois, hosted an all day symposium on the topic of Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art Today. Benjamin Buchloh from Harvard began the discussion. His thought provoking lecture raised many issues, among them "Does the museum stand for nothing?" Following was Suely Rolnik who addressed the issue of cultural capitalism through the metaphor of Lygia Clark and the struggle museums face in representing works, especially during a time of military and political unrest. Borja-Villel, head of the museum of contemporary art in Barcelona illustrated how his museum has moved from a classical model of the white cube, through various post-modern ideas, to an explanation of how his museum operates in a democratic milieu where the museum serves as the custodian of the work of art that ultimately belongs to the people.

The afternoon included a panel with Neal Benezra from SFMoMA, to Lisa Phillipos from the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, to Kathy Halbreich, late of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and Jay Gates from the Phillips.

So what were the issues raised:

* judgment and expertise--who decides, what role do curators and "experts" play, to what role is played by the audience

* diverse audiences -- those in the "know" and all others

* funding and staying afloat

* collecting art that is ephemeral, happenings, performance pieces, conceptual

What was not discussed:

* globalization of art

* representation of the other

* the death of museums as we know them

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Weiwei's sculpture blows down during windstorm

How tragic. The beautiful Weiwei sculpture constructed from wooden doors and windows and located at documenta 12, blew down in a windstorm. You can read more about it here. You can see some photos as well as read about how Blake Gopnik, from The Washington Post, concluded that the art work at all the sites is directionless. Well, a little heavy handed for my taste.

Monet's Home at Giverny

Maril is posed in front of Monet's house. You can see the gorgeous, lush gardens.
This is a wonderful view of the Japanese gardens that inspired so many of his water lily paintings. If you have not seen the reopening of the water lily paintings at the Orangerie in Paris, make sure to put it on your next stop.