Tyler Green Modern Art Notes

For her ninth birthday, Cathy Opie got a Kodak Instamatic camera. One of the first things that Cathy figured out about her new camera was how to use the timer. She decided to photograph the subject of greatest interest to any nine-year-old: Herself.
Cathy headed out to the backyard of the family home, looked through the viewfinder and composed her picture. First, she decided to fill the foreground of the picture with lush lawn. Then, on the right-hand side of the picture she placed her family’s single-story house, complete with its shiny, white aluminum siding. On the left was Cathy herself. She set the timer and walked a few steps backward. She flexed her biceps, grinned, and the camera took the picture. It was Cathy Opie’s first self-portrait. Almost four decades later, Opie’s ‘continuing’ series of self-portraits is one of the greatest, most important series in contemporary art.
This is Opie’s 1993 self-portrait, often misidentified as her first (professional) self-portrait. (That would be this 1992 pic: Bo.) Opie’s self-portraits are evidence of a changing America and of a changing subculture: They mirror changes in what gays and lesbians have wanted and in change that they have been able to assert. From an art history point of view, I love them because they’re smart self-portraits. Artists aren’t much interested in that old rubric anymore.
So am I nuts for saying that a Kodak Instamatic image from 1970 is Cathy Opie’s real first self-portrait? Well, think of it this way: That 1992 self-portrait, titled Bo, is a picture of Cathy as her alter-ego. In Cathy’s mind, Bo was an aluminum siding salesman from Sandusky, Ohio.

(Sorry for the Friday delay — I managed to screw up publishing before getting on a plane this AM…)
This is Bonnard’s Open Window, one of the most popular paintings at Washington’s Phillips Collection. I’ve been visiting Washington since I was knee-high-to-a-lobbyist and I’ve lived here for about a decade. I’ve seen Open Window at least 100 times. It still makes me swoon.
It’s a classic Bonnard: The color is rich and soaks up every candlewatt in the room. It has film-still-like action going on at the edge of the canvas — in this case a woman feeding or greeting a cat. It has signs of domesticity and, in a reminder that Bonnard liked his little psychological games, a tamed animal. After all, outside, beyond the open window, nature lurks and looms over the interior scene, hinting at wildness.
Open Window was probably one of Richard Diebenkorn’s two favorite Phillips paintings too. His Girl with Plant (1960)is a clear homage to the Phillips Bonnard.

Today the Smithsonian announced that chief curator Kerry Brougher has been the Hirshhorn’s acting director since Dec. 22. Olga Viso, the former Hirsh director who is on her way to run the Walker, finished at the museum on Dec. 21. (In a related story, today is, uh, Dec. 27.)

Continuing my list of ten favorite paintings… This is Clyfford Still’s 1957-D, No.1, the headliner of the Albright-Knox’s Still collection.

My favorite experience with the painting came a number of years ago: As I walked out of a series of narrow galleries into the Albright’s cavernous main hall, I sat on a bench near Still’s 1957-D, No. 1. I stared. It was as if I was seeing a Still for the first time.

Three high school kids came noisily skipping through. This kind of thing annoys me and I prepared to shoot them a stern look. But when they entered the hall in which Still’s painting was hung, the kids stopped. They had all seen the painting at the same time, and fell quiet.

Finally, one spoke: “Let’s go sit in front of it.”

“Yeah, I bet we can feel it,” came the reply.

And like monks approaching an apse, they walked toward the painting. When they were six feet from it, in unison, they sat on the floor. For several minutes none of them said a word. As the kids were being baptized, I was being converted. In a few minutes of careful study, I saw things I’d missed in years of looking at Mr. Still’s paintings.

The painting felt like this: When I was in college, two friends and I drove to the Grand Canyon. We found a lonely place on the South Rim, away from the crowds, and looked at this massive gash in the earth. Feeling a little bolder, we moved to a rock that jutted out into the canyon. Under the rock, there was nothing for 1,000 feet. A little beyond that there was nothing for 5,000 feet. As my eyes moved down into the canyon, my stomach moved up into my throat. When you look at a Clyfford Still painting, you feel like you are on the precipice of irrelevance.

A couple of months ago, fired up by Dave Hickey’s declaration of ten favorite paintings in The Believer magazine, I resolved to post my own ten favorite paintings. In keeping with the more-or-less focus of this blog, they’ll all be from about 1880 forward. Here goes…
This is Alma Thomas’ 1972 painting Evening Glow. It’s in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it’s been on near-constant view for the last 10 years. (I think it’s a little lighter than this JPEG, but so it goes.) The BMA is full of paintings that rank among my very favorites — all those Matisses! — but ever since I briefly lived in Baltimore this is the painting that I’ve most looked forward to seeing there.
Everywhere I’ve seen Thomas on view in the last few years I’ve thought her work has held up well. About a year ago the Hirshhorn installed a gallery of Thomas and Agnes Martin. If I had a list of ‘best permanent collection installations of 2006,’ it would have been at the top of the list. Works by both artists — and the Hirsh has superb Thomas and superb Martin — stared each other down, holding their ground.

Welcome back from the holiday weekend.
One little newsy bit to get us started: LACMA confirmed to MAN that the Sonnabend Gallery Collection is loaning the museum four paintings for the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA. One of them, Robert Rauschenberg’s Canyon (1959) had been on loan to the National Gallery of Art for the better part of the last decade. It’s been replaced by an Elizabeth Murray. (Advantage: LACMA.)
The others are: Rauschenberg’s Interior (1956), Hymnal (1959), Magician (1959) and John Baldessari’s Everything is Purged… (1967-68).
Bit by bit, news about the first BCAM installation is trickling out: MAN already told you that LACMA’s big, new Andrea Zittel will be on view.

Because I’m taking a long Xmas weekend and because there ain’t much at the top of the site, here are some recent faves:

No posts today or Monday. On Tuesday — that’s Xmas — we’ll wrap up our DonorsChoose campaign and thank donors. Normal posting resumes Wednesday…

Admin note: I looked at the stats at lunch today and realized Xmas has begun. Matisse-in-Baltimore discussion resumes in 2008.
MAN readers have now funded six of six challenges and have donated $1,200. Number Seven comes from Baltimore: A high school that needs funds for art supplies for sculpture and print-making. They need $354 $178 $153 to help 80 students. This could be our last challenge, so this might be your last chance. Let’s close out strong! Check it out here.

Too much public art is decoration. (Kind of like this hot mess.) Here in Washington, public art is a synonym for “dead white guy on a horse.” Few organizations have figured out public art as well as NYC-based Creative Time.
Earlier this year the Princeton Architectural Press published Creative Time: The Book chronicling CT’s projects. For anyone interested in what public art can be — and we’re not talking about painted styrofoam elephants here — this one is a must-read.
Related: Creative Time’s blog.