The Boulevardiers — ~Perspectives on the Language of Culture~

06 Monday Aug 2018

PETER HUJAR: Speed Of Life

by Kim Steele

Lynn Davis: Portrait of Peter Hujar

If the camera lens is the portal to the soul of the photographer, then this one is fuzzy – intentionally. Peter Hujar often bragged about being on the margins of society, in his life style and his image making.

Hujar had a brief stint as a magazine photographer, the last assignment shooting the Gay Liberation Front (the Stonewall demonstrations) included in the exhibit.

Peter Hujar: Gay Liberation Front, 1969

Hujar left that world to pursue personal work the rest of his abruptly shortened life. He suffered from a difficult childhood and essentially taught himself the craft of photography. If fact, the prints in the exhibit, organized by The Morgan Library in New York, were all printed by him. As a master printer myself, they are gorgeously executed, and lovely to behold.

I had the unique opportunity to meet him in the mid-seventies in New York. Hujar is infamous as a retiring artist and often sabotaged his opportunities with incendiary behavior. I was curating an exhibition for my Seattle Gallery, The Artist Space, on The Nude. I visited New York to gather material for the exhibit. I was introduced to him by Robert Mapplethorpe, after which I visited his studio and obtained a print. Hujar offered me an image of a very well endowed man blowing himself.

This caused quite stir in Seattle, in fact the exhibit ran the same time as the King Tut show at the Seattle Art Museum, and my exhibit garnered more press ink than that show!

His work is very eclectic both in subject choice and perspective. But there is a piercing vision and unabashed directness, that informs his work. Hujar bonded with David Wojnarowicz, twenty years his junior, a performance artist, early on, and they collaborated on many shoots. In fact Wojnarowicz is experiencing a renewed interest in his work now at the Whitney Musem of American Art until August 28th.

Both were very active in the HIV-positive political movement. Unfortunately both succumbed to the affliction. But this ‘outsider’ mentality brought a gestalt to the work for both of them. When viewing the exhibition, on first glance, he photographed many seemly-unrelated subjects from animals, to buildings to landscapes and most importantly, people. Hujar intended this approach, because of his eclectic interests and probably his lack of formal training. It bode him well.

Peter Hujar: Nude Self-Portrait Series #2 (Avedon Master Class), 1966

Hujar’s education was at a high school in Manhattan, then titled School of the Industrial Arts, where he learned the fundamentals of photography. He commented that his varied work was bound together by “Beauty and Smell.” He did attend a Master class by the infamous Richard Avedon.

Peter Hujar: Susan Sontag, 1975

Hujar ran into Diane Arbus who said, “I know who you are,” inferring that he was encroaching on her visual territory. He befriended Susan Sontag, the thinker who wrote the seminal book, On Photography that influenced all shooters. She claimed, “Photography was Death.” Hujar was influenced by her thinking, and also took a very revealing portrait of her clothed, lying on a bed. Equally revealing, his portrait of Fran Lebowitz, unclothed but covered, in bed.

Peter Hujar: Fran Lebowitz at Home in Morristown, 197

From this writer’s perspective, the portraits are by far the most compelling images in the exhibit. They seep sexuality and intimacy. One can see his obsession with light, both natural and artificial, and how it shapes the faces of his subjects.

William Burroughs, 1975

William Burroughs’ image is riveting. He took many hours to capture the intent he sought. Hujar was reported to have visited Saint Patrick’s Cathedral every Easter to study the light playing on the façade. His most famous portrait was of the dying Candy Darling, a downtown icon. She posed in many ways, in many outfits, but the result is stunning, very posed and contrived. There was not the intention of catching a ‘candid’ image as did many of his contemporaries: Mapplethorpe and Nan Golden. Candy Darling was “camping” up. The glamour Hujar found was in Candy’s final reach for sublime artifice; he later wrote that she was “playing every death scene from every movie.”

Peter Hujar: Candy Darling on Her Deathbed, 1973

‘As Mapplethorpe’s reputation grew in the art world, Hujar became dismissive of his work: “Well, it looks like art,” he would scoff.’ From Peter Hujar: Eros, C’Est La Vie, essay by
Philip Gefter, in Peter Hujar: Speed of Life, the catalog published by Aperture and Fundación MAPFRE that accompanies the exhibition. A very handsome catalog indeed. There was icy competition between these artists that were tilling the same ground, but uniquely.

In fact, it was Hujar’s arched approach combined with his ‘marginal’ subjects that probably restricted Hujar’s success in the art world. He described his images as, “uncomplicated, direct photographs of complicated and difficult subjects,” capturing moments, individuals, and subcultures passing at the ‘speed of life.’

Peter Hujar: Ethyl Eichelberger

Hujar’s fascination of the camp and drag culture, now very much in vogue, was then not as welcomed in the scene. Hujar shot his dear friend and renowned drag queen, Ethyl Eichelberger, titled, ‘Ethyl Eichelberger’ which is very striking and masculine. Another of his most famous images is of his collaborator, David Wojarowicz, in a pose and lighting reminiscent of Irving Penn. Here we see Hujar’s ability to light with artificial sources just as skillfully, as he does with natural light. No an easy task.

Peter Hujar: David Wojnarowicz, 1975

Peter Hujar: Rabbit, Westown,1978

I do not respond to his animals, nor his landscapes. The thinking goes that he expressed this interest due to his childhood on a small New Jersey farm, but they seem distant and uncommitted. His buildings are very compelling, especially the shot of upper Sixth Avenue, which I have been drawn to as a photographer and avid architectural fan. Those buildings around the fifties, Time & Life, Exxon, McGraw Hill, etc. have always rung with corporate power and modernism. Hujar captured that feeling of supremacy by “the Man.” It is truly the portraits where Hujar’s skills and insights shine brightly, despite their coming from the underground East Village. They are as prescient today as they were in the seventies and eighties.

Peter Hujar, New York–6th Avenue, 1976

In the long run, though, “Peter got exactly what he wanted,” his friend Steve Turtell said. “He once said to me, ‘I want to be discussed in hushed tones. When people talk about me, I want them to be whispering.’” (From Peter Hujar’s Downtown, essay by Philip Gefter, in Peter Hujar: Speed of Life)

It is truly a remarkable exhibition and well worth a second visit.

Photographs courtesy of Peter Hujar Archive and the Berkeley Art Museum.

by: Kim Steele

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

Silver Spoons & Syringes

by Sally Steele

It’s high time to pull my head out of the dark clouds and celebrate Boulevardiers, flâneurs, strollers, loungers, saunterers, loafers, and of course, Faire du Lèche-Vitrines everywhere.

I’m smiling inside and floating away thinking about Gwynnes, Vanderbilts, socialites, and princes…

The Federalist: “The Boulevardier cocktail has a romantic origin tied to a particularly heady period in cocktail history. According to most sources, it was invented in the 1920s by American expatriate Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr. Gwynne was a sort of Prohibition-era Kardashian who ran off to Paris to gad about, be mistaken for the Prince of Wales, get into fights in cabarets, and start a literary magazine to ape The New Yorker. It’s not clear that his Boulevardier magazine had any lasting impact on the world of literature, but Gwynne did lend the name to the fantastic drink he shared with Harry McElhone (of Harry’s New York Bar, located in Paris), who recorded it in his book Barflies and Cocktails. Gwynne went on to die a broken and forgotten man, but this drink, his true legacy, is by my lights the most enduring success he might have hoped to achieve.”

Edward Erskine Gwynne Jr., Boulevardier, on the right

theesotericcuriosa: “Young Mr. Gwynne is a member of the rich Vanderbilt clan by marriage, his mother being a cousin of Cornelius Vanderbilt. For many years he has made his home with his mother in Paris and has become one of the best known and best liked figures in the large American colony which plays such an important part in Parisian life.

“Although possessed of considerable means Gwynne ostensibly works for a living. His job is that of right hand man to Henri Letellier, the immensely wealthy French newspaper publisher.

“But the duties of his position are not arduous or confining enough to keep Mr. Gwynne from being nightly at the fashionable clubs and the most exclusive restaurants and dancing resorts. Nobody knows better than he the proper hour for dropping into Ciro’s for a cocktail or when the correct time is for ordering dinner at the Ritz.

“Everybody likes this good looking young blond man – except the loud mouthed South American whom he knocked out the other evening, and doubtless that gentleman will when he becomes better acquainted with his fistic conqueror. In spite of his youth Gwynne is already famous in Paris for his wit and for the spirit of gayety which he breathes into every party he attends.”

ca. 1925, Deauville, France, left to right, Jack Pickford, Erskine Gwynne, Mrs. Pickford (Marilyn Miller) and Mrs. Frieda Rossen, on the sands at this most fashionable summer resort. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

The family is one of nature’s masterpieces… George Santayana

Paul-César Helleu, Portrait de Kiki Preston (Alice Gwynne), 1900, pastel drawing on wove paper

Kiki Gwynne

theesotericcuriosa: “Alice Gwynn, Edward Erskine Gwynne Jr’s sister, was described as a rich, charismatic beauty all shot through with scandal who even seduced the anti-American snob, Evelyn Waugh (and Rudolph Valentino).

“Society traces kicker extraordinaire, Alice “Kiki” Gwynne, who was later more commonly known as “Kiki Preston,” was born in 1898, in Hempstead, Nassau County, Long Island, New York. Alice was the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. (1869 – 10 May 1904) and his wife, the former Helen Steele (d. 4 January 1958).”

Prince George, Duke of Kent

Wikipedia: “Alice Gwynne…the alleged mother of a child (Michael Temple Canfield (1926 – 1969) born out of wedlock with Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V. Known for her drug addiction, which earned her the soubriquet “the girl with the silver syringe,” she was a fixture of the Paris and New York high social circles, and a relation to the powerful Vanderbilt and Whitney families. Her life was marred by several tragic losses and her own mental problems, which eventually led to her suicide at 48.”

Michael Canfield (with Jacqueline Kennedy), son of Alice Gwynne, and alleged son of Prince George, Duke of Kent

theesotericcuriosa: “Born far out upon the fringes of American royalty, Alice’s father Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr., was the nephew of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife, socialite Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, more commonly known as “Alice of the Breakers” the name sake of the younger Alice Gwynne. Although far from what would be termed American gentry, the Gwynne’s themselves were a firmly placed, comfortable upper middle class family, Edward’s father, Abraham Gwynne of Cincinnati, was a lawyer and judge, while his mother Rachel “Cettie” Moore, née Flagg, was known as a very pious home maker. Rachel was descended from the Trowbridge family, one the first English families to land in the new world. The Trowbridge’s first arrived in America in 1636 when Thomas Trowbridge, a wool merchant from Taunton, England, and his family settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay colony. However, Thomas, finding the political and religious climate intolerant, moved his family to New Haven, Connecticut Colony, a few years later. Following the death of his wife, Elizabeth Marshall, he returned to England in the 1640s, where he would later participate in the English Civil War, on the side of the Parliamentary forces known as the “Roundheads” against King Charles I of England.

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt–“Alice Of The Breakers!”

“One of the more glaring falsehoods about Alice Gwynne, is that even today she is often mentioned as a “Whitney heiress,” a point that is patently not true since she was not a Whitney by descent, only by marriage and distant at that.

“Greatness tended to blossom more on the maternal side of her family tree. Alice’s mother, Helen, was a great-granddaughter of Justice Samuel Chase, one of the signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as a granddaughter of Joshua Barney, Commodore of the United States Navy during the American Revolutionary War. Further down the trunk, her Dutch roots were more apparent with her descent from Jean Paul Jaquett, the second Dutch governor of Delaware. Jaquett was a French Protestant who had fled from France to Holland to avoid religious persecutions; before his arrival in Delaware, however, he had resided in Brazil. The Jaquett’s lived on a farm, holding it from Jean Paul Jaquett, the first ancestor until the time of the celebrated Major Peter Jaquett, the last surviving officer of the revolution belonging to Delaware. This land was granted to Jaquett soon after the capture of Delaware by the Dutch, and it is now called Long Hook.

“On the surface of things and according to appearances, when Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr., and Helen Steele were married in Washington D.C., on March 25, 1896 both families seemed pleased with the match. Married from her parent’s home, there were but few guests, with a cousin of the bridegroom, Archdeacon MacKay Smith officiating. The bride was attended by her sister, Miss Annie Steele in the role of maid of honor, while the groom was supported by his friend, Mr. Carroll Brown, of Baltimore. Helen wore a Parisian gown of ivory and white satin. At her throat she wore a magnificent sunburst brooch of diamonds, a gift of her husband’s Aunt Alice. Atop her golden hair, was a beautiful diamond tiara, a gift from her new husband. After the ceremony and wedding breakfast, attended by various Vanderbilts, Gywnnes and Shepards, the bridal couple left for a year of foreign travel, which included a journey to the Far East, before they made their home in Paris.

However, it was not long after that it became apparent all was not well. In fact, the marriage soon became a rocky one; with Edward and Helen quickly disillusioned with the other, separating at some point, before eventually reconciling.”

“Putting aside their differences and misunderstandings long enough they began to raise a family. Besides Alice, the Gwynne nursery also consisted of two sons, one being Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr. (1899 – 5 May 1948). Erskine Jr., the publisher of the magazine Boulevardier, and a columnist for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Their other son, Edward C. Gwynne, joined the U.S. Air Force in his early youth, and was killed when his plane was shot down. As was typical for their time and position, Alice and her family resided at different times in Paris, France, Lawrence, Nassau County, New York and Park Hill, Yonkers in New York, especially between the years 1898 to 1904.

“As it turned out, although related by blood to many of the wealthiest families in the nation, Edward Gwynne was a socialite without regular employment. Never a good position to be in, especially if you were Alice’s father, whose apparent lack of a steady income, coupled with him being described as a man that “had extravagant tastes, expended money lavishly and was without business employment,” produced disastrous results which led his family to legal troubles. Whereas he might be known as a famous cross country rider, an expert golf player, member of the Calumet and Rockaway Hunt Clubs of New York and general social favorite, cash poor was cash poor!

“At the close of the century, the family’s financial situation started to unravel when in 1899, while in Paris, Gwynne obtained a loan worth several thousand dollars from Perry Tiffany. In February 1901, Gwynne transferred the interest in his property to his mother, Louise Gwynne. Sensing a ruse, the Parisian money lender filed suit against Gwynne in the fall of 1901 for an unpaid loan of nearly $50,000 for diamonds. Shortly afterwards, with his mother’s untimely death in June 1902, Edward Gwynne was forced to file a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities of over $56,000 and assets of $57.00.”

The New York Times reported on June 4, 1902:

EDWARD E. GWYNNE
BANKRUPT
_________

Nephew Of Mrs. C. Vanderbilt
Has $56,403 Liabilities & Assets of $57

“Edward E. Gwynne of Park Hill, Yonkers, who formerly resided at Lawrence Long Island, until May 1, has filed a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities of $56,403 and assets of $57, due him by Perry Tiffany for money loaned. Mr. Gwynne is a nephew of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt.

“The petition was filed chiefly to get rid of a judgment which was obtained against him by Leopold Grinberg for $47,911 in Nassau county on September 18, 1901 on four drafts made by A. Reinac, a Paris jeweler, on November and December 1897, which were accepted by the petitioner and guaranteed by his wife Helen, when they were in Paris. Mr. Grinberg also obtained another judgment against Mr. Gwynne for $1,182 on a similar draft. Mr. Gwynne it is said purchased diamonds, pearls, and other jewelry from Mr. Reinach and the drafts were given in payment. Mr. Reinach was unable to collect the money in France, and the claim was assigned to Mr. Grinberg, who brought suit in Nassau County and obtained judgments.

“Mr. Gwynne owes the Baron St. Aubanat of Paris $4,000, balance on a note made in Paris in May, 1899. He owes $384 to four doctors for medical services; for shoes, $248; board, $141; food and drink, $100; wines $28; harness, $296; clothing, $750; haberdashery, $60; riding habits, $80; trunks, $30; coal, wood and hay, $317; and plumbing, $34. Mr. Gwynne, farms at Bellefontaine, Ohio and Linneua, Mo. and some land in Cincinnati, the value of his interest being unknown.

Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. obituary

“Two years later, on May 10, 1904, Gywnne died of acute kidney problems at the age of thirty-five, ironically on the very day that the case of the suit was to be brought upon the court. Alice was only five at the time of her father’s death.”

The Cincinnati Star Times Reported: “The news of the death of Edward Erskine Gwynne, a nephew of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and a grandson of Judge Abraham E. Gwynne, one of the prominent attorneys of Cincinnati years ago, reached this city Tuesday. Mr. Gwynne, who was married in 1896 to Miss Helen Steele in Washington, had a rather strenuous career, having been at one time separated from his wife and passing through bankruptcy proceedings, in which he alleged that his liabilities amounted to $56,403, while his only asset was a loan of $57 to Perry Tiffany. His grandfather, Judge Abraham Gwynne, was one of the prominent lawyers of the West at one time and lived on Pike street in this city. He was the author of a work reference, Gwynne on Sheriffs, which was for years a standard. Mr. Gwynne was about 35 years of age. He had a small reversionary interest in property at Fourth and Main streets in this city and other property in Missouri, along with other heirs.”

Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr., Boulevardier & musician

by: Sally Steele

01 Sunday Oct 2017

Chemicals, Casks, Crowns & Corks

by Sally Steele

Cork Trees in Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Depending on your perspective, as a Boulevardier, one of these might come to mind as a place to start perusing this post…

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? ~W. Clement Stone

His heart danced upon her movement like a cork upon a tide. ~James Joyce

What you learn after you are 40 is that it is just about plugging up holes in the boat. You just hope you have enough corks to plug enough of the holes. ~George Clooney

I, of course, have a totally different cork profile–my spouse, Boulevardiers Publisher, Kim Steele, has many square feet of glorious cork in his studio. My appreciation for cork has always been abundant, I now further associate it with being able to share productive times, in Kim’s studio, looking at oh-so-beautiful images. (note: all images in this cork post are by photographer & Boulevardiers Publisher, Kim Steele, from a recent visit to the country where he spent 4 years of his childhood with his family, his father as U.S. Military Attaché)

Cork Trees in Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Back to business, and history.

Cork Harvesting in Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Cool Cork Facts & History from Wikipedia:

~Cork is used in musical instruments, particularly woodwind instruments, where it is used to fasten together segments of the instrument, making the seams airtight. Low quality conducting baton handles are also often made out of cork.

~Cork can be used to make bricks for the outer walls of houses, as in Portugal’s pavilion at Expo 2000.

~Cork’s bubble-form structure and natural fire retardant make it suitable for acoustic and thermal insulation in house walls, floors, ceilings and facades.

~The Cork Oak is unrelated to the “cork trees” (Phellodendron), which have corky bark but are not used for cork production.

~On November 28, 2007, the Portuguese national postal service CTT issued the world’s first postage stamp made of cork.

Cork Tree Harvesting, Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Cork is the outer bark of an evergreen oak known by the Latin name Quercus (oak) Suber (cork). Today, the center of the world’s cork oak forest is concentrated in Southern Europe; Portugal, Spain, Italy & France, which accounts for 67% of the cork oak production. North Africa has the remaining 33%. The total land surface occupied by this oak is 2.2 million hectares (5.434 million acres), of which Portugal and Spain represent 56%.

The sale of cork and cork products by producers, to the European and United States market, exceeds $1.5 billion annually. Of this value, the cork stopper is $1.1 billion, while the sale of agglomerated cork, cork flooring, and other related products is $400 million.

Cork Tree Grove, Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Wikipedia: The rare cork tree can live for 2,000 years. The cork industry is generally regarded as environmentally friendly. Cork production is considered sustainable because the cork tree is not cut down to obtain cork; only the bark is stripped to harvest the cork. The tree continues to live and grow. The sustainability of production and the easy recycling of cork products and by-products are two of its most distinctive aspects. Cork Oak forests also prevent desertification, are a particular habitat in the Iberian Peninsula, and the refuge of various endangered species.

Cork is extracted only from early May to late August, when the cork can be separated from the tree without causing permanent damage. When the tree reaches 25–30 years of age and about 24 in (60 cm) in circumference, cork can be removed for the first time. However, this first harvest almost always produces poor quality or “virgin” cork (Portuguese cortiça virgem; Spanish corcho bornizo or corcho virgen). Bark from initial harvests can be used to make flooring, shoes, insulation and other industrial products. Subsequent extractions usually occur at intervals of 9 years, though it can take up to 13 for the cork to reach an acceptable size. If the product is of high quality it is known as “gentle” cork (Portuguese cortiça amadia, but also cortiça secundeira only if it is the second time; Spanish corcho segundero, also restricted to the “second time”), and, ideally, is used to make stoppers for wine and champagne bottles.

The workers who specialize in removing the cork are known as extractors. An extractor uses a very sharp axe to make two types of cuts on the tree: one horizontal cut around the plant, called a crown or necklace, at a height of about 2-3 times the circumference of the tree, and several vertical cuts called rulers or openings. This is the most delicate phase of the work because, even though cutting the cork requires significant force, the extractor must not damage the underlying phellogen or the tree will be harmed. To free the cork from the tree, the extractor pushes the handle of the axe into the rulers. A good extractor needs to use a firm but precise touch in order to free a large amount of cork without damaging the product or tree. These freed portions of the cork are called planks. The planks are usually carried off by hand since cork forests are rarely accessible to vehicles. The cork is stacked in piles in the forest or in yards at a factory, and traditionally, left to dry, after which it can be loaded onto a truck and shipped to a processor.

Old Cork Tree, Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Cork stoppers were found in tombs from ancient Egypt, tombs dating back thousands of years. In the Mediterranean, cork was used to make buoys to float fishing nets. The Romans, made beehives out of cork, because of its low heat conductivity. The Romans employed corkwood planks in the construction of their homes, a tradition to today in North Africa. Fishermen used cork to create life jackets.

Though the material seems simple in the sense that it needs no additives outside of its natural chemical compounds, cork is actually a highly complex material in its makeup, a complete package in and of itself. Cork has an incredibly unique physical makeup, as it is composed of closed cells containing air, suberin, and ceroids. This makes cork impermeable to gas and liquid, heat and impact resistant, hypoallergenic, and incredibly light weight. Cork’s closed cell structure gives it great versatility.

Cork Trees and Cow, Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Corkforest.org: Despite its many different uses, for centuries the most faithful ambassador of cork to the world has been the natural cork stopper, that seal of exceptional quality that is still today preferred and demanded by the great wine producers. However, throughout History there have been numerous references to this product and its varied applications. In 3000 BC, cork was already being used in fishing tackle in China, Egypt, Babylon and Persia. In Italy remains dating from the 4th century BC have been found that include artifacts such as floats, stoppers for casks, women’s footwear and roofing materials. Also dating from that period is one of the first references to the cork oak, by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus who, in his botanical treatises, referred in wonder to “the ability that this tree has to renew its bark after it has been removed.”

Vintage Cork Cooler, made in Portugal, photograph by Kim Steele

Wine and cork are two products that have long been companions. Proof of this is an amphora from the 1st century BC found in Ephesus: it was not only was sealed with a cork stopper, but also still contained wine. Later, in the 1st century CE, the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder made extensive reference to cork oaks in his celebrated Natural History. He explained that in Greece, the trees were adored as symbols of liberty and honour, only priests were allowed to cut them down. In the same work, he notes that cork oaks were consecrated to the god of Olympus, Jupiter, their leaves and branches were used to crown victorious athletes. In Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by the brutal eruption of Mount Vesuvius, wine amphorae sealed with cork have also been found.

In the 18th century, while in England, the physician Robert Hooke obtained the first microscopic images of cork using a microscope that he designed. In France, the monk Dom Pierre Pérignon, treasurer of the Hautvillers Abbey, began to use cork to seal bottles of his famous Dom Pérignon champagne.

Portugal has been a pioneer in environmental legislation, the first agrarian laws protecting cork forests were enacted in 1209. Later, during the Age of Discoveries, the builders of the Portuguese ships and caravels that set sail in search of new worlds used cork oak wood for the parts most exposed to inclement weather. They claimed that the “sôvaro”, as it was called then, was the best wood for masts and yards–besides being exceptionally strong, it never rotted.

by: Sally Steele

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Venice 2017 and the Biennale

by Jeffrey Bishop

No matter how many times one is fortunate enough to visit Venice it is impossible to be blasé about the wonders of this most liquid of cities. This is especially true when, every two years, significant cultural capital is expended staging what is still the most venerated of Biennales, in an all out effort to expand art’s multifarious impact on global culture. In addition to the major venues at the Giardini and the Arsenale, and the many national pavilions scattered around the city, there are the ever increasing ancillary mega-exhibitions staged in spectacular palazzi by billionaire tycoons and art-loving luxury super-brands.

The 57th International Art Exhibition called “Viva Arte Viva” was curated this year by Christine Macel who comes to Venice from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In introductory interviews she emphasized her desire to spotlight artists over the more usual emphasis on the thematic and the curatorial, all while acknowledging the overwhelming pressure and urgency of issues on the planet. As she said, “with artists by artists for artists.” Many reviewers felt she fell short in achieving some of these aims. Nonetheless my wife Jill and I saw flashes of brilliance everywhere.

To this viewer however, the Italian Pavilion in the Giardini, now simply called the Central Pavilion, which has traditionally been the kick-off curatorial stage for the Biennale, was a significant disappointment. The architectural interior of this pavilion is in dire need of a makeover or even a rebuild. It takes an extraordinary installation to overcome its now tired structure. This was not it.

As one enters under a lively exterior draped painting by Sam Gilliam honoring Yves Klein, among the first works encountered are installations by Dawn Kasper and the provocateur Franz West that confront assumptions about our hyper-active lives and our propensity to see work-production as the only way to assess or validate our selves. They suggest, instead, the value inherent in moments of rest or idle repose. Kasper set up a studio for a six month stay and included musical instruments. As she says, “I brought all these different clothes, I might learn Italian.”

Interesting options no doubt but a rather slack way to engage an anxious audience in anxious times. I love Franz West’s furniture and his offer to be lazy and hang out but had no time to rest, first thing in the morning.

Somewhat more along the expected lines of social practice and activist themes was a large workshop installation by the now ubiquitous Olafur Eliasson where a group of immigrants and asylum-seekers were being trained to assemble lamps. The lamps were for sale, in order to help fund the project.

Anne Imhof, Faust, Installation and Performance in German Pavillion, 2017, photograph by Jana Harper

Back out in the Giardini grounds, the deserved winner of the prestigious Palme D’Or was the German Pavilion, which featured a powerful installation and performance by Anne Imhof called Faust. Above and below a powerfully elegant double-thick glass surface, perhaps four feet above the pavilion ground floor, a handful of performers moved among the assembled attendees, sometimes awkwardly parting the now complicit audience, moving sometimes with athletic grace, sometimes displaying menacing aggression. The glass divided but made transparent the conditions between actors and spectators. Outside, two large dogs, Doberman Pinschers I think, circulated in a caged area assessing the line of spectators waiting to be ushered inside. I heard tell of very raucous and rude behavior on this very long line, during the opening days. So many polarities of power were in play here.

Many other national pavilions impressed; too many to enumerate. As anyone who has attended one of these now everywhere global art affairs can attest, it is impossible to see and take in everything or anywhere close to it.

That said the Swiss pavilion, curated by Philipp Kaiser, featured a compelling doubled narrative video by Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler touching on Alberto Giacometti’s reluctance to represent his home country in International exhibitions. The double video narrative thread presents on one side the rather desolate figure of the son of one of Giacometti’s Parisian lovers who, on leaving Paris, began a long slow decline, in sad circumstances in Los Angeles. On the other side, and remarkably with the same shared sound track, an actress acts out scenes from the same woman’s life.

In Venice the exterior of the US Pavilion was, I assume, deliberately and fittingly left worn, tired, shabby, while in the first room a heavy gargantuan foot-like form weighed down and impeded the progress of the visitor. It was said that the shape might also suggest the hull of a slave ship. More simply installed were three huge, beautiful paintings.

Mark Bradford, Tomorrow is Another Day, mixed media, 2016, photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

As a painter I have long admired this year’s US representative Mark Bradford. Early on in his extended stay in Venice he opened a shop called Process Collettivo where incarcerated people make products while aiming to transition to self-sufficiency.

This project parallels an enterprise in his native South LA called Art + Practice, which reaches out to neighborhood youth at risk.

On this first of three days allocated to the Biennale we bailed on the Giardini in the late afternoon and hopped a vaporetto to the Gallerie Dell’ Academia to take in the superb Philip Guston among the Poets show, staged by the uber gallery Hauser & Wirth. I admit I can never get too much of Guston and this show’s touchstone was not only his deep connection with poetry, but also his time spent in Italy and his reverence of masters, from Pierro and Masaccio to de Chirico. We ended a satisfying first day by meeting up with artist friends for a very impressive seafood feast at Corte Sconta. I will mention a few restaurants for Boulevardier readers largely because we have eaten so poorly in past visits and finally came prepared with some well-considered recommendations.

Philip Guston, Pantheon, 1973, photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

Day two began at the Arsenale, a daunting, imposing space, once home to Venetian assembly-line shipbuilding and rope making, an imperative function of Venice’s centuries-long maritime dominance. Dating to the 14th C. it is one of the earliest examples of assembly-line construction, as ships in progress moved up and down the adjacent canals awaiting parts. Part of the Arsenale is still shared with the Italian Navy and one occasionally sees warships, in jolting contrast to the contemporary art.

The Arsenale is home in this Biennale to more than a hundred artists and many overlapping themes prevailed in many forms. Macel divided this huge space into seven areas with titles such as Pavillion of the Common, Earth Pavilion, The Dionysian Pavilion, Pavilion of Time and Infinity, and so on. As one might expect in our increasingly fraught world, migration, displacement, climate and environmental themes dominated and there was strong sourcing from, and reference to, colonial and post-colonial issues, as well as queer and gender critique.

Charles Atlas, The Tyranny of Conciousness, multi-channel video installation, 2017, Charles Atlas is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery

In Charles Atlas lament The Tyranny of Consciousness, the protagonist is drag star Lady Bunny who bemoans the vanishing voice of peace. As Atlas states: “I grew up with the hippy generation…so they were all about peace and feeling good. But there is no voice for peace anymore.”

Strategically positioned at a midpoint of the interminable 316 meter long Corderie, the ever present Brazilian star Ernesto Neto offered a tent-like oasis within which millennials could be seen resting, nesting, and texting. Earlier in the run he had brought indigenous Brazilian rainforest Huni Kuin tribe members to Venice to occupy this enclosure in the Pavilion of Shamans.

Nearby, the theme of species elimination and extinction was treated in a powerful but neutral fashion by Marie Voignier in her film Les Immobiles, wherein a big-game-hunting guide reminisces winsomely as he flips through a memory book of client trophies, massive tusks and the like, with no voice-over or commentary. The images and voice speak for themselves in this sad bi-product of colonialism, where the clients were invariably white, while the helpers were always black.

Marie Voignier, Les Immobiles Film 2013, photograph by Marie Voignier

A favorite encounter for me was the section devoted to Michelle Stuart, highlighting environmental work from four decades of her career. She was an important influence for me in my early 70’s art school days. Flight of Time, a gridded body of photo-based work showing landscape, birds, flowers, fauna, etc. reminded me a bit of the Robert Smithson of Incidents of Mirror Travel in the Yucatan. Stuart’s work was among many powerful statements about the fragility and grace of our anthropocene world.

Michelle Stuart, The Flight of Time, archival inkjet photographs, 2016, (detail), photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

Nearby Huguette Calland, Born in 1931 in Lebanon, showed extraordinarily delicate, intimate ink drawings of female genitalia.

Huguette Caland, Self-Portrait, 1971

Leaving the Arsenale, we made our way to one of the super-sized shows that dominated the advertising on the sides of the palazzi and the buzzing vaporetti that cruise the Grand Canal, picking up and depositing the never-ending flow of visitors. Tourists in Venice are estimated at 20 million per year and growing, compared to the plunging number of 55,000 residents. This ever-increasing stress on the architecture and infrastructure of the city and the lagoon is a micro-metaphor for larger stresses in the world.

Only touristic profit can excuse allowing gargantuan cruise ships into the fragile Lagoon. The ugliness of these bloated vessels that drop off thousands of day trippers daily, insults the integrity and dignity of this ancient but still vital maritime city.

Nothing was more bloated, however, than the Damien Hirst extravaganza in, astoundingly, both the Palazzo Grazzi and the Punta della Dogana, once a customs house, now elegantly restored by Tadao Ando. At a cost of some $65m and apparently ten years in the making, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable proposes, quite preposterously, a recently discovered shipwreck yielding a fabulist’s trove of historical artifacts from every conceivable culture and time. So ludicrous and spectacular was this monstrosity of an exhibition that we were left flabbergasted at the Spielbergian absurdity of it all even in our own time of excess and exploded veracity.

Heavily publicized everywhere and perhaps more popular with tourists than the Biennale in the somewhat distant Giardini and Arsenale, this show seems too easy to dismiss as simply a grand obscenity, courtesy of an ostentatious billionaire, François Pinault and the mega-ego of Mr. Hirst. Some new marker has been laid down in the annals of spectator entertainment and cultural upheaval.

Damien Hirst, photograph, Mickey Carried by Diver, photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

I heard one young visitor say, without irony, how “real” some of these glittery coral-encrusted artifacts seemed, many of which found reiteration in replicant copies with a wink and a nod to so many ideal copies, think Roman iterations from the Greek. How then to navigate history as you return as you will to your favorite Met, Prado, Louvre and reflect on the multiple artifices upon which their canons have been constructed. (Many not incidentally by force of cannon!)

Damien Hirst, Demon with Bowl, painted resin, photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

I look forward to more erudite deconstructions/critiques of this exhibition that reach beyond mere easy dismissal by art world cognoscenti. The back-lit underwater photographs were undeniably gorgeous. And Hirst surely had a blast concocting this barrel of laughs with a virtually unlimited budget. Are these items for sale then? Of course! Do these items need to belong together? Is it art even? Does it matter? Do we care?

Shaking our heads and feeling more than a little puzzled, bedazzled and over, or more likely, underwhelmed, we retreated to our hotel way out in Sant Elena but en route made note of the comparatively humble and barely visible sculpture at the edge of the Lagoon, by artist Augusto Murer dating to 1968 – on a base by the revered Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa – of a reclining woman with waves gently lapping over her draped figure. Inevitably this brought to mind so many unfortunates who have drowned in their attempts to navigate the Mediterranean to flee the impoverished or war torn shores of their homelands.

Carlo Scarpa / Augusto Murer, Partigiana, 1968, photograph by Jill Baker

In fact the site commemorated the Partigiana, the partisan anti-fascist women of WW II. Interesting how time and context can shift meanings in the eyes of an uninformed viewer. More on Scarpa in a moment but not before mentioning a simple but superb dinner at Osteria da Gino which sits on a small canal in a quiet neighborhood in Castello.

We began our third and last day by battling the selfie-taking hordes near San Marco and the Bridge of Sighs to find the Taiwanese Pavilion featuring a look back at the astounding work of Tehching Hsieh. In the late 70’s and early 80’s Hsieh embarked on a series of year-long performance pieces requiring extreme deprivation, severely testing human survival limitations. In One-year Performance 1981-82, for example, the artist remained outside in a then much harsher New York City for an entire year without ever taking shelter of any kind. Yet again these intense gestures put one in mind of the dire circumstances facing so many people now on the move.

Tehching Hsieh, Poster, 1982, photograph by Jeffrey Bishop

We next made our way to the very quiet Campo Santa Maria Formosa where the ground floor of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia was restored by the aforementioned Carlo Scarpa in 1963. This unique jewel-like space in an elegant palazzo was this year given over to the eighty-four year old Italian Arte Povera artist, Giovanni Anselmo, whose work subtly spoke of the slow passage of time, geological and constant, while yet rhythmic, fluid, and transformative.

This was a welcome but brief pause of serene, minimal perfection before proceeding to the Palazzo Fortuny, always one of the more idiosyncratic experiences of a Biennale visit. This Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, dark and cluttered, was the sixth and last to be curated by Axel Verroodt. These Fortuny installations have always included works spanning centuries, packed, salon style, and invariably there are bizarre and startling juxtapositions.

Our next stop involved crossing the Grand Canal at the Rialto Bridge to make our way to the Fondazione Prada for its tour de force exhibition, The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied, curated by Udo Kittelmann, featuring “three giants of German culture,” film maker Alexander Kluge, artist photographer Thomas Demand, and the stage and costume designer Anna Viebrook. The title comes from a Leonard Cohen song. Occupying multiple floors and labyrinthine chambers, the show referenced all manner of global insecurities – in its own large spectacle way an intellectually inverse mirroring of the Hirst/Pinault extravaganza, as a friend who is a German scholar pointed out. Kittelman quotes Shakespeare from Julius Caesar “Why, now blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark! The storm is up, and all is on the hazard,” and goes on to suggest the collaboration was generated out of a “shared awareness, both on an emotional and theoretical level, of the critical aspects of present times and the complexity of the world we live in.” But the impressive Kluge film clips were overwhelming unless one was deeply familiar or had volumes of time to decipher the intricacies and references. I was fascinated however by a quote from Kluge, read elsewhere, that seemed apt to much of the experience in Venice:

“Human beings are not interested in reality. They can’t be; it’s the human essence. They have wishes. These wishes are strictly opposed to any ugly form of reality. They prefer to lie than to become divorced from their wishes…(they) forget everything except this principle of misunderstanding reality, the subjective…If this is real, then the media industry is realistic in telling fiction, and the construction of reality founded on this basis can only lie. This is one of the reasons why history isn’t realistic: it’s not documentary, it’s not genuine, and it’s not necessary.”

Alexander Kluge, The Soft Makeup of Lighting 2007; Anna Viebrock, Runners 2009, Four Doors 2017, photograph Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti / courtesy Fondazione Prada

This quote put me oddly back in mind of the Hirst. So much art in Venice now seemed to me in dialogue with aspects of the liquid, the oceanic, the fugitive, the pirated…

Thomas Demand, Photograph, Patio, 2014 (on the right); Thomas Demand, Photograph, Backyard, 2014, photograph by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti / courtesy Fondazione Prada

I have long loved Demand’s constructed photographs and I recognized some themes in his work from previous encounters, especially his sinking ship video called Pacific Sun. I was reminded of the cruise ship Costa Concordia which memorably capsized and sank off the Italian coast in 2012.

The show at the Prada site was wonderful if overly dense. We could easily have stayed longer, we absorbed what we could and moved on…

After a hasty but requisite run through the invariably crowed but always pleasing Peggy Guggenheim collection, which this year featured an elegant Mark Tobey survey, we found ourselves back at the Accademia for a closing dose of old Masters favorites, especially, for me, Giovanni Bellini, who always impresses with his delicacy and clarity. And to view his student Giorgione’s enigmatic The Tempest, considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of landscape painting in European art, is always a special treat. The added bonus at the Accademia this year was a superb small selection of work by Hieronymous Bosch that had a Venetian provenance. One triptych, of a crucified bearded female Saint Uncumber, another of Saint Gerome and two other saints and a series of four panels with “hybrid animals and scenes of witchcraft.” The backs of these four panels were painted to imitate marble but reminded me of the Tobey’s seen earlier. The Saint Encumber triptych has a wild back-story: A teenage noblewoman named Wilgefortis, promised in marriage to a pagan king, took a vow of virginity and prayed she could become repulsive. Her prayer was answered; she grew a beard, and her father had her crucified. I was also intrigued by the right-side panel which showed multiple ships sinking in a harbor while one very oddly shaped ship floated high in the water under oar. The nearby information suggested this ship represented the Catholic Church.

Hieronymous Bosch, Altarpiece of Saint Wilgefortis (Liberata): central panel with Martyrdom of Saint Wilgefortis, photograph Jeffrey Bishop

This old master finale seemed the appropriate way to end an art-packed three day Venice visit. We were too late in the day for a visit to the Basilica San Marco but we did have time to squeeze in one last stop, at the recommended show at the Louis Vuitton store. Climbing the stairs to the third floor, we passed three resplendent and a bit too well sited Candida Höffers and entered an ample gallery space, on this occasion screening Pierre Huyghe’s video, A Journey That Wasn’t, from 2005, another fabulist conjoined story – on the one hand a search in the Arctic for an elusive albino penguin and on the other the foggy spectacle of a symphonic sound piece staged in Wollman Rink in New York’s Central Park.

Exiting the store, past the pumped up Jeff Koons old master bags and an impressive model of the Frank Gehry LVMH building in Paris, I asked an attractive young saleswoman if many Louis Vuitton stores now had art spaces. She said she thought not but that this might change. I wondered, given the Hirst extravaganza, etc, and the changing NY gallery scene – where the middle seems to be increasingly eviscerated as many mid-level galleries are unable to compete with the super galleries that gobble up rising star artists – if the default venues of the future would increasingly become luxury-brand sites. As the pretty attendant remarked, “We are no longer just fashion, now we are culture also.” At a time when so much artistic and intellectual capital struggles to cope with the issues of our in-crisis and agitated world, this new polarity of privilege versus everyone else, seems all too well-defined in 2017 Venice.

by: Jeffrey Bishop

Ivan Karp: An Eye for Talent

July 11, 2017

Wearing sunglasses indoors is a pretense. Except if you are Ivan Karp. He paired this affectation, which he pulled off with aplomb, with an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth all day long. Ivan Karp lorded over one of the most prestigious and long lasting galleries in New York, situated in SoHo before it […]

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