Gone Too Far?

I know some of you thought that the banana taped to a wall where neither tape nor banana was permanent was absurd https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2024/12/hard-to-believe.html

But wait ... you ain’t seen nothing yet ... and I mean that literally ...

Taylor Defoe writes in Artnet News that “An Italian Artist auctioned off an “Invisible Sculpture” for 15,000 Euros ($18,300). The sale took place in May at the Italian auction house Art-Rite. The 67-year-old artist Salvatore Garau sold an “Immaterial Sculpture”. Yes, no it doesn’t exist! Garau titled it “lo sono” (I am). In his defense, the artist quotes the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that nothing has a weight. It goes on but I will let you read that for yourself. Sorry, there is no illustration!

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/italian-artist-auctioned-off-invisible-sculpture-18300-literally-made-nothing-1976181

The buyer did get a certificate of authenticity and a set of instructions: the work, according to Garau, must be exhibited in a private house in a roughly five-by-five-foot space free of obstruction. The estimate was 6,-9,000 Euros and I wonder if there was a reserve, (a price below which a work of art at auction will be bought-in). Who is crazier, the artist, the buyer or me for writing about it?

It did, however, get me thinking about the absurd in art. I found an article by the editors of Artland Magazine titled “10 Controversial Artworks That Changed Art History”. Believe it or not Édouard Manet’s, “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” of 1863, now in the Musée d’Orsay, scandalized the public by showing a nude woman in a public park with well dressed men, then scandalous, but hardly absurd.

Let us continue, what about Andy Warhol’s arguably most famous work of Campbell Soup cans showing every flavor on the cans. The original was painted in 1962 and can be found at the Museum of Modern Art. Later Warhol began to experiment with silkscreen prints and thus a number of these silkscreens exist.

Today this too is considered an iconic work.

Then there is an artist I continue to struggle with, Jackson Pollock. In his painting “Convergence” (1952), now in the Buffalo AKG Museum. For me it is at least colorful but his “Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)” from 1950 in the Metropolitan Museum is pretty much black and white and tan. Pollock is lauded today for these drip paintings but frankly if I had to live with one, I think I would go nuts. Where do they start and end? How can you step back from them or be enveloped by them such as Mark Rothko in the Rothko Chapel at the Menil in Houston.

Another work which we consider today to be art is a urinal which the artist, Marcel Duchamp titled “Fountain” (1917). Duchamp described it as "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice."

The original has been lost. However, a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz at 291 art gallery following the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibit kept the concept alive. In the 1950’s and 60’s Duchamp made 16 or 17 replicas, one of which can be found in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Returning to Garau’s “Invisible Sculpture” the concept is not new. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, “around the fifth century BCE in China, India, and Greece, philosophers turned from what is, to what is not (Sorensen 2022). Ever since, there has been commentary on omissions, holes, vacuums, and the possibility of an empty world.” Today’s astrophysicists tell us that there is dark matter which is invisible as it does not absorb, reflect or emit light. Far be it for me to say that Garau has not created a work of art!!!

The City Different

I was for most of my life a devoted and champion of New York. But I was back a while ago and could not understand living there. Manhattan streets are now so congested that one trip I took with an Uber cost me $45 to go less than 20 blocks. I used to ride my bike all over town, so I did not think about this when I lived there. A Congestion Pricing toll has just been imposed for cars entering Manhattan from 60th Street south. Whether it solves the problem remains to be seen.

A recent article in The New Mexican, our 175-year-old local newspaper, focused on the architectural ordinance that governs the style of buildings in what is called the historic district of Santa Fe. We do not live in the center of town but on the Old Santa Fe Trail, the original trade route that ran from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. We have been told there are original ruts from the wagon trains on our property (haven’t found them yet) and therefore we are subject to some provisions of the historic ordinance.

From the aforementioned article: “Looking down from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the rooftops of the stuccoed buildings below are noticeably flat. But the largely earth-tone structures in the city’s downtown area depict an array of architectural influences: Pueblo Revival, Territorial Revival, Mexican, Spanish and American”.

Santa Fe is a true melting pot of Native American (they were here first) Spanish (they took over in the 16th century) and Anglo American (annexed as a U.S. territory in 1848). It is home to Hispanics who trace their families back centuries as well as a major retirement and tourist spot. Last week within less than 24 hours I spotted License plates from 10 different states. Often there are cars with Mexican and several provinces from Canada as well. Not to mention ...

From the time New Mexico became a state (1912) there have been efforts to give Santa Fe its own character so it would not look like every city in the midwest.

According to an article in El Palacio, Spring of 2013, by Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Edgar Lee Hewitt founder of what today is the School for Advanced Research became head of a group convened by the Mayor Arthur Seligman to, among other things, restore the identity of the capitol city of the new state. They decided this could be done by developing a signature style of architecture which they dubbed the “New-Old Santa Fe Style”. It combined modern building materials, plumbing and electricity with the local traditions of low adobe structures and flat roofs. Promoted by the region’s leading architect, John Gaw Meem (1894-1983), the Santa Fe style was codified by a city ordinance in 1957.

To first-time visitors the universal brown adobe color of its buildings defines the city. Affordable housing is necessary but even outside the designated historic area most apartment blocks have been at least painted in adobe tones. However, the most recently built multi-story blocks are gray, green or black and white making them even less consistent the character of Santa Fe. But last week The New Mexican published something even more jarring, someone is trying to get permission to build a red house!

The question raised in the recent newspaper article is whether the mandated Historic District Ordinance has unduly stifled architectural innovation. Well, of course, it has, but it achieved its goal, giving the city a character all its own.

Is innovation in architecture necessary to the vitality of cities? I would say that in the case of many it is, but not always and not everywhere. To have some elements of yesteryear that define the character of a location is, in my opinion, always a good thing. Respecting the amalgam of local traditions defined by artists and architects in 1912 in the Santa Fe style is in the city’s interest. It continues to attract tourists who often become residents, as we did. With the bustling city called Albuquerque just an hour down the road where innovation can thrive, hopefully Santa Fe can retain its claim to being “The City Different”.

Christmas/Chanukah

A bit late, but there was such excitement that Christmas Day was also the first night of Chanukah that I wanted to look at it more closely. The holidays are really not so different.

Chrismukah is the term that has been used to identify this occurrence, taken from the TV show “The O.C.” where the character Seth Cohen created the holiday to represent his upbringing in an interfaith household. The event is so rare because, in the simplest terms, the Jewish calendar is based on lunar-solar while the Christian calendar is based on just solar.

My two sons live in interfaith homes, as do I, and along with their Christmas trees they like to light the Menorah. As Jewish holidays start in the evening the lighting of a single candle marks the first day of Chanukah. There is an extra candle in the center of the Menorah called the Shamash. It is used to light another candle each evening for the 8 days of Chanukah. In this image there is also a dreidel, a top spun in a gambling game where children play for “Chanukah gelt” coins, whether real or chocolate wrapped in gold foil.

We understand that Jesus of Nazareth was born Jewish and eventually Christianity drew away from Judaism. In a study published in the Biblical Archeological Review, Theodore H. Feder writes about a singular painting that dramatically illustrates the split of early Christianity and Judaism, Robert Campin’s “Marriage of the Virgin” (circa 1420-1430) in the Prado in Madrid.: “…the painting in question purports to show how the physical edifice of the Church literally encompassed the physical edifice of the Synagogue while sharing its foundations. The work is a marvel of architectural iconography, with many spiritual and religious connotations. Throughout, there is an unusual recognition of the debt Christianity owes to Judaism, even if its posture is one of supersession.”

Religion is, of course, a fascinating subject and I even took a course in it in college.

Too often we think about the differences when there are so many similarities. When the holidays of Chanukah and Christmas fall on the same day it just accentuates the fact that they are both celebrations of light at a time of the shortest, and hence darkest, days of the year. In Europe the practice dates to pre-Christian days and many other cultures have similar observances at this time of year. Priests and Rabbis have used this rare concurrence of dates to emphasize how both of their faiths celebrate the presence of God's light during darkness.

On a more secular note, I have a personal problem with presents. It seems very forced at holiday time. As an older person I feel I am lucky enough to have just about all the things I need or want and I really do not need another one. For the little folks toys will be opened excitedly and forgotten by the next day. The only difference is that for the Jews the presents are spread over eight days, one each night, while at Christmas they come all at once. As a child I was jealous of all those Christmas presents but looking back as an adult I think maybe spread out was better a single gift each night of the holiday, so that each gift could be appreciated. On the other hand, if there is one present you don’t like in a large group you quickly forget it, but if there is one unfortunate present among eight the disappointment can be profound and memorable!

Yet Another Envelope

The year is just about over and here comes Christmas, Chanukah and the New Year. What does everyone have on their mind, this is the U.S., so it’s money, of course. How many envelopes do you receive daily asking for funds for this or that cause, they probably outnumber the gift catalogs 3 to 1.

Sometimes you are thanked for a contribution over the year and an envelope is included for yet another contribution which really annoys me. Sometimes there is no acknowledgement of your contribution at all!

I have written about what to do with your collection and even your cold hard cash. But I thought this time I would look at it from a more personal point of view. So many not for profits are totally legitimate in their quest for funds. Can one put a limit on the money needed for cancer, Alzheimer’s or a myriad of other diseases that need endless resources to do the research.

My wife and I have had many discussions on this subject. I actually enjoy donating to worthy causes, but like most people, we have limits on what we believe we can give away. How does one make a decision on which nonprofits to contribute to? Like most people we give to those whose mission we believe in but we also take into account who is running the organization and where we can make a difference.

Our lives have been devoted to the arts. My wife was a curator, and I was an art dealer so our way of thinking is that art is important for everybody, and museums are the places that can introduce many of the arts to the public.

I remember that one of the founders of our art gallery said “Charity begins at home”. That can have many different meanings, and some might feel that means keep your money for your family but since we left New York I take it differently. While large museums such as the Metropolitan in New York and the Louvre in Paris might want to expand, hire another curator or enhance their collections no fewer people are going to visit if they do not do that.

In smaller towns they may need that work of art or additional space to fulfill their mission and attract more visitors and our contribution can make a real difference.

The southwest is Indian Country, Native American, if you like, and many of the pueblos and reservations are extremely poor. Poverty is a broad problem but it is easier to focus on one group than everywhere. I have written specifically about the Hoop Dancers several times. We give to the Lightning Boy Foundation not because we think everyone should learn hoop dancing but because it engages pueblo youngsters in a discipline that requires the ability to focus, care about improving, and working with others.

In New Mexico there is also a thriving branch of the National Dance Institute which goes into the schools and does the same thing for students of all denominations.

We also love theater and have watched the excitement of children when they see their first play, opera or concert. I have seen a 6 year old walk into a theater such as the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe for the first time and their eyes literally get wider and their jaw drops in wonder.

Our son who is today an actor, was from an early age a regular at performances of a young people’s theater in New York. He was so enthralled he would not leave before the stage set was struck. The other night at the Santa Fe Playhouse we watched a little girl try go up to the stage to high five an actor during the play. Her mother drew her back but during curtain calls the actor came to the edge of the stage to high five her. Those experiences are not forgotten.

If our donations can help institutions that engage people in the arts we love and value we are achieving our goal. What would yours might be?

Our Night Sky Is Disappearing

When we lived in New York City we did not think much about the night sky. Maybe, if we were near Central Park, we could get some idea of the night sky, but you were warned not to go through the park late at night. Walking through the city there are streetlamps everywhere and cars with bright lights.

When we moved to Santa Fe we marveled at the skies day & night, but after some years we realized we could enjoy the clouds during the day, but our night sky was disappearing very slowly but surely. We are destroying our enjoyment of the night sky. You don’t realize it at first, but it starts in your bedroom. The electric clock shines the TV or console or charging devise have a little colored light on them. It is however outdoor lights that are the issue.

We live on an arroyo where there are no streetlights but the Park Service, of all places, has bright lights over their parking lot long after office hours, presumably for security, if nothing else. There is also a glow from downtown Santa Fe but a much more wide-spread glow from Albuquerque 60 miles away. We have all read about the drones over New Jersey. No one knows what they are, but they give off light from time to time.

The Washington Post recently published an editorial on the subject of light pollution. It brought up something I had never thought about, astronomers are having a hard time finding places where night skies are dark enough to have effective observatories. Even in suitable locations, satellites can reflect the sun even after night fall and commercial communications satellites are multiplying.

The article goes on to say that the sky has grown brighter by 10% annually over the last 10 years which means that a child born a decade ago by the time they are off to college will be able to see 2 to 3 times fewer stars from earth. The number of stars we can see at night become diminished by at least 45% which is the lowest percentage I found.

Artists have been interested in the night sky for thousands of years and we have examples over centuries. One of the artists I particularly admire is Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610). This is his painting of the “Flight into Egypt” from the year before his death. You will find the painting today in Munich at the Alte Pinakothek.

Though our first thought of a painting with stars in a night sky might be “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh at MOMA, but a better example might be his “Starry Night Over the Rhone”, 1888, in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris‎. Here you can even see how the light from the houses can take away from the view of the stars so van Gogh accentuates the stars as brighter.

The other night I was looking at the full moon with the clouds. I didn’t catch the image with my camera, but art historian Antonia Bostrom did, and posted it on Facebook. Now is the photographer creating art or am I simply taken by the beauty of the subject? Well, I would not discard the photograph because it does remind us of the beauty we saw but it is not the original.

It also reminded me of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting in the Metropolitan Museum of “Two Men Contemplating the Moon” (1825-1830) which so effectively conveys the experience.

Maybe the best place to see a pure night sky is at sea and it is dramatically captured by J.M.W. Turner’s “Fishermen at Sea” (1796) in the Tate, London. In our technological age we forget that stars were essential guides to navigation on the ocean.

Death Valley in California is rated as one the best places on terra firma for star gazing. Far enough from the urban centers and their light pollution, it is debatedly as close as a mortal will get in the U.S. to a total view of the night sky. You might spend a night, but you can’t settle there!

Three Artists In Dialog

Last week I went to a talk at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. There were three Native Artists in dialog: a painter, Tony Abeyta (Navajo Diné); a Ceramicist, Diego Romero (Cochiti); and a Beader, Marcus Ammerman (Choctaw). The latter has an exhibition at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian that I wrote about earlier this year ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=amerman

Diego Romero I wrote about 8 years ago ...

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2016/09/diego-romero-1964.html

... and Tony Abeyta I have mentioned in miscellaneous Missives.

They have several things in common and the most important is that they are at the top of the chart in their fields of art. They have recognition from other artists as well as the collectors and museums that exhibit and acquire their work.

Something else they have in common is that they all attended The Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in the 1980’s and attribute much of their success to the school and the teachers who were seminal in their careers.

IAIA started out as a high school in 1962 and from 1975 offered college and post-graduate courses. In 1994 it was designated a land-grant college and by 2001 was fully accredited. Today 20% of the students art non-Native.

It could be compared to the French Royal Academy of the 18th century, the institution that oversaw the training of artists with hands on instruction by leading artists, lectures, access to prestigious commissions and opportunities to exhibit their work. All this is very similar to IAIA. However, instead of an annual Salon IAIA has a museum in the center of Santa Fe to exhibit the work of alumni and students.

The panelists talked about how IAIA also trained them in the business world and how to manage and sell their art, driving home that just saying you’re an artist does not put bread on the table.

All three of the panelists had degrees beyond their studies at IAIA. Diego Romero went to art school in Berkley before IAIA and then went on to Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles for his BFA and UCLA for a Masters Degree. Tony Abeyta received an Associate of Fine Arts degree from IAIA and later an honorary doctorate of humanities. He earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a MFA from New York University. Marcus Amerman earned his BFA at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington.

Diego Romero had debated whether to concentrate on making jewelry or pots. However, Ottelie Loloma, ceramicist and wife of the most famous Hopi jeweler, Charles Loloma, was teaching at IAIA and convinced Romero to concentrate on his ceramic work. In fact, Ottelie influenced many Native American artists who went to IAIA and not necessarily directing them towards ceramics.

The artists agreed that art was part of a narrative ie telling a story. Here is a pot by Diego Romero in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. The image depicts two soldiers, accompanied by a priest, executing a sentence imposed upon a number of Acoma men in 1599 in retaliation for the deaths of soldiers killed at the Pueblo months earlier.

I was surprised when Tony Abeyta talked about his education including travels to the South of France and to Florence. Abroad he learned from the work of Old Masters and contemporary European artists but did not try to copy them. He said of himself that, aside from being an artist, he is a collector and a curator and wants to understand the art of all cultures. Here is Abeyta at work painting a mural at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona to complement the exhibit,"Over the Edge: Fred Harvey and the Grand Canyon."

There were humorous moments in their presentations. When Romero said he looked at the work of Dan Namingha (Hopi Tewa) renowned painter and an IAIA student some years earlier, Marcus countered, that he too looked at the work of earlier artists, but in order to do something different!

Amerman also said something interesting that I did not think much about until I read my own notes. He said that Indian (Native American) artists get others to join their own cultures and not adopt that of others. That is probably one of the reasons that they are just recently joining the mainstream of the Eurocentric art world and are only now being incorporated in contemporary art collections. Amerman did this beaded work, “The Gathering” for the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. These Native American riders are represented against the Portland cityscape with Mount Hood in the background. It was inspired by a photograph of Nez Perce Chiefs of the Umatilla reservation in Oregon.

In the Q and A session one of the members in the audience asked, “How do you become an artist” and Tony Abeyta responded, “First you fill out the application ... ”

Hard To Believe

As I have said many times things always change and as communication becomes faster so does everything else. For centuries enormous effort was expended by artists on reproducing as accurately as possible the visible world. One radical change came when J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the Romantic painter known as the “master of light” which soon led to Impressionism. Then came Cubism and right on its heals Abstract Expressionism. Each change in style brought on scorn and criticism. When Abstract Expressionism came around, I too thought: What talent does that take? To me it often just looked like scribbling. I like the comment I heard in a recent television interview, “You can’t change the conversation without ticking a few people off". So here we go again ...

Maurizio Cattelan (1960- ) is an Italian Conceptual artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealism in sculptures and installations, Cattelan also is a curator and publisher. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him being frequently labelled the “jester of the art world.” He has had no formal artistic training and calls himself an “art worker” not an artist.

As you probably know by now a work of his has sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s. The original 2019 edition sold at Art Basel Miami Beach, for between $120,000 and $150,000.

In 2024 this is the entry from Sotheby’s catalog:

*****
Comedian
banana and duct tape
7 ⅞ by 7 ⅞ by 2 in.
20 by 20 by 5 cm.
(installation dimensions variable)

Executed in 2019, this work is number 2 from an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs.
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Provenance:
Perrotin, New York
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2019)
White Cube
Acquired from the above by the present owner
*****

Continuing with more than 25 bibliographic citations, the entry sounds to me like a send-up.

It’s not the Mona Lisa!

Prior to the sale, Sotheby's confirmed to CNN that neither the tape nor, thankfully, the banana are the originals. “'Comedian' is a conceptual artwork, and the actual physical materials are replaced with every installation,” an auction spokesperson said via email at the time.

Who would spend that kind of money on an ephemeral work? The answer turned out to be Justin Sun, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur who founded the block chain TRON. At a news conference in Hong Kong he followed in the “jester” mode and ate the banana. The “original” banana cost just 35 cents.

Defending his acquisition Sun said, “This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community. I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.” I would think that is a bit optimistic but, by its nature, we cannot predict the future of art.

Sun added, “To thank Mr. Shah Alam, I’ve decided to buy 100,000 bananas from his stand on New York's Upper East Side. These bananas will be distributed free worldwide through his stand. Show a valid ID to claim one banana, while supplies last.” Here is a recap of what I and dozens of others have written about.

This leaves the question of why would an individual, some people would say, waste their money this way. Mr. Sun’s net worth is estimated at 1.4 billion dollars, certainly more than one would need to live a good life. Including what the 100,000 bananas would cost him the total he spent on his project was $6,235,000. Please correct me if my math is wrong but I believe that it is the same as if someone had $100,000 spent about $445 or just under 1/2% of their money. For Mr. Sun it seems cheap for the kind of advertising he got for his company. Was he just trying to make himself seem important? Then again maybe he just found it fun to continue the “jester” meme.

It could be a bit of all these and more. Maybe you can think of other possibilities?