415. La Montserrat - Julio González - 1935 - Stedelijk Museum

La Montserrat greeted visitors to the Spanish Republican Pavilion of 1937’s Exhibition Nationale, Paris. While on its face a modernist sculpture proclaiming worker-class and modernist values, it’s also a religious allusion. Montserrat is not only a common name for Christian women, it is a holy mountain site in Spain, famed for its church and black Madonna. There’s an obvious connection between Gonzalez’s subject and medium and the black Madonna image. It updates the religious icon and recreates it as a worshipful icon of secular republicanism.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

419. Farm Family from Kahlenberg - Adolf Wissel - 1939

Adolf Wissel was an official painter of the Nazi party. Farm Family is supposed to be an ideal, but its figures all look so sad. Its like Regionalism purified--and probably took influence from modern art despite Nazi aesthetic enforcement--but equally sad. What a weird propaganda piece. It is more a summation of the Third Reich's havoc than its genocidal promise of prosperity.

438. Butcher's Stall with Flight into Egypt - Pieter Aertsen - 1551 - Museum Gustavianum

Seriously, Butcher's Stall is a little grotesque. And upon encountering it for the first time--context free--I maybe immediately related it to Hirst-while shock art. As in his cow heads in embalming fluid or whatever the heck he does. My bad. Once I got over the opulence of the butchery and charcuterie I flipped again upon realization that it was a delivery box for a Jesus story. A classic too. Its miniaturization is almost comical. I love it though. The Jesus story and the meat.

440. Cloud Gate - Anish Kapoor - 2006 - Millennium Park, Chicago

The Bean, as Cloud Gate's known, is a terrific playground. One gets to stand around and look at himself in various reflections of funhouse quality. It's perfect. It's also an example of really functional, engaging, enviable public art. Sweet home, Chicago.

442. Warren Cup - 5-15 CE - British Museum

The Warren Cup was recently accused of being a 1900-made fake. I won't weigh in because I haven't read the argument. For a century it was considered real though, and fake or not various definitively Roman objects (vases, cups, etc.) share the Warren Cup's motifs.

443. Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California Ansel Easton Adams - 1927 - Met

Adams is one of our most iconic photographers. If you didn't know, you've never been to Yosemite. They bomb you with his legacy upon visitation. It's for good reason though, because Yosemite's gorgeous, and I can't imagine a greater, grittier, deeper distillation of Yosemite. Same for Taos, or any other landscape Adams focused on.

444. Garçon à la pipe - Pablo Picasso - 1905 - Private

Like the rest of the free world I'm a Picasso fan. This, despite the fact that I'm hardly a fan of cubism. Pablo's so much more than cubism however, as Garçon à la pipe attests. Although initially a minor piece in Picasso's vast oeuvre, Garçon à la pipe sold at auction in 2004 for over $104 million, surprising many. Of the Picassos I'm dying to see but never will, Garçon à la pipe is top of the list. It's so charming, I want a reproduction in my pretend smoking parlor.