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miro books at art and culture center
Post #491 • March 11, 2005, 9:53 AM • 12 Comments
There's an important and handsome show of Miró books up at the Art & Culture Center of Hollywood that opened last weekend, and it's worth a visit. It turns out that books provide a well-suited format for Miró's abstracted critters, and that printmaking media lend his surfaces an air of resolve that one doesn't always see in his paintings. Mostly he supplied images to accompany texts by surrealist poets (Prévert, Tzara, et al.) but there is also a copy of his rendition of St. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Sun for which his friendly geometries and primary colors are apropos.
Images courtesy the Art & Culture Center.
2.
March 12, 2005, 5:22 AM
I love them all. They look like fun to make too.
3.
March 13, 2005, 2:36 AM
Has anyone read this article on The Goldman Warehouse?
Designing Wynwood
Developer Tony Goldman has made a big investment in a small neighborhood
4.
March 13, 2005, 4:06 AM
yes.
I subscribe, ever-so casually, to Metropolis magazine. Now, the most ten-years-ago, uninteresting cliched stuff that pops up in that magazine seems to be about the level at which the Goldmans are at. Philosophy their forté is not. I suppose that we count on real-estate tycoons for urban development, not grand ideas, so this is all good enough. Wynwood a pedestrian district? Sounds like a 5-10 year plan, if anything. I hope it happens.
WRT the art part of the conversation, Olitski lovers take note: the reason Goldman is showing him is because they're pals.
Those among us who like to complain about stuff should find a lot to dislike here. Not I, though, Momoko.
5.
March 13, 2005, 8:18 PM
Well, this Sunday Elisa Turner labored mightily and brought forth a two-page spread on the great Christo phenomenon as represented by selections from some German collection of plans and photographs and a few wrapped doodads in the Bass Museum.
The show was not curated by the Bass, has little actual art in it (unless you want to define anything in a museum or made by Christo as automatically "art"), and has nothing to do with Miami (except for a big color shot of the pink islands project they did in Biscayne Bay 22 years ago).
Whether or not you think the Olitski show is jam packed with great art or not - I think I have made my position clear enough by now, and so have others - it is a spectacular new installation of "challenging" art, together with other art that is thematically related, in an undeniably terrific space organized by a major developer and art-lover who has literally exploded on the Wynwood scene.
Leaving aside my feelings about the art altogethe the Goldman/Olitski happening remains infinitely more newsworthy in every way than a second-hand exhibit of second-hand artifacts of third-rate art over in Miami Beach.
The Herald desperately needs to reform its arts coverage.
6.
March 13, 2005, 9:21 PM
. . . not to mention (or, perhaps "more importantly") that -damn- the Bass needs to get its shit together. I can't even imagine less worthy stuff then what they've been showing (at least from what i hear - i haven't been there since the new building's opened, and I may never need to go). Who the hell do they think they're "serving," anyway? Picasso rejects, Christo drawings . . . what's next? Hey, I know . . . how about Andy Warho's grade-school drawings!
7.
March 13, 2005, 10:47 PM
Oldpro, it is firmly established that the Herald, when it comes to art coverage, either doesn't know or doesn't care, quite probably both. They can promise the occasional disgruntled letter writer "expanded coverage," but obviously this is meaningless unless they actually deliver--and I mean deliver better, not just more of the same.
The Bass may or may not have rented this Christo show to jump on the "Gates" bandwagon, which would be shabby opportunism, but even if that was not the motive, the whole business is painfully lame, and the lameness reflects squarely on the Bass. In essence, the Bass, Christo and the Herald apparently deserve each other. It's all consistent.
8.
March 14, 2005, 12:21 AM
I usually try to steer clear of conspiracy stuff, Jack, and I know shows are booked way in advance, but the ooincidence of the Christo shows is almost too much to give them the benefit of the doubt for. If the Christo event was a Miami one it would at least have had some justification.
Or maybe Warhol's shoe ads, Potato. Anything to keep things second rate. Small time is this town's middle name.
9.
March 14, 2005, 3:52 AM
Well, Oldpro, regardless of why the Bass booked this show, it's quite clear why the Herald would go for it. They don't care about the work as such, of course, good or bad; they're looking at the tie-in with a massively hyped New York event that got tons of national and international coverage. Merit is irrelevant here; it's all about buzz and publicity. Olitski, by comparison, is an esoteric niche item of essentially no interest to such people. Now if Britto landed another national advertising contract with some fancy beer brand or other, THAT would be news.
10.
March 14, 2005, 4:20 AM
My decision to drop the roundup seems additionally justified.
I'm with Tater on the Bass these days. I didn't see their last show either.
11.
March 14, 2005, 4:36 AM
I'm sure the last show at the Bass, which I believe was "Paris Moderne," included at least some pieces of far greater merit and interest than photos of Christo's grandiose landscaping projects. Of course, it also included things like Art Deco furniture and such, but I would certainly have gone to see it if the Bass hadn't doubled its entry fee for the occasion, which I resented.
12.
March 14, 2005, 7:54 AM
hey, the one time i DID go to the Bass, they were showing fourth-rate prints by some 20th century master (maybe picasso . . . i forget it was years ago); it was before the new building opened. i want to see the neo=wing, but nothing worth the visit has come around. it's shocking to me that they increased their admission for a show. this is the sort of crap I thought was restricted to establishments north of Dade county. Not like i need another reason to hate the Bass, but now i've got it.
Bythe WAY, i visited their web site. It claims to be under construction... WELL actually it's all up and running (including some ArtCrowd crap that wants $75 of my money), EXCEPT a schedule of their upcomming exhibitions. Now, I'm a resident of Mia Bch, so probably i'm paying more of these people's salaries then any of the rest of you. But I'm starting to think their new wing would make a nice new Gap.
Stopped by the MAM this afternoon. The BG show was even better then I remembered it. The figurative show was lame lame lame; the same crap i've seen over and over Jack-esquely in numerous other collection-shows before. Notable exception was an amazing Carrie Mae Weems photo. Pathetically, a Christo GATES sketch hung in the entry area (along with the MAM's Ana Mendieta photos. I'll gladly look at them as often as they hang them up - they're some of the most beautiful art Miami can lay claim to of all time (and by the way, they're ALL looking warped . . . does Peter Boswell hang them in his garage between shows?!? The MAM really DOES need a new building if they can't store photos properly.))
I was really really impressed by the Rauschenberg pieces. (Franklin~ the suggestion of indicating sizes of the original pieces should be reconsidered. i was shocked by the scale of the pieces, which i'd assumend (somehow?!) were around 16x20" from the recent post.) They were laugh-out-loud funny, super-great super-serious art stuff. Not at all what I expected after reading about them here. Gee . . . funny what a difference seeing something in PERSON makes. I'll say more after i've read the hand-out, which I took.
1.
Jack
March 12, 2005, 1:35 AM
Child-like, but not childish. Nice. My favorite is the middle piece.