ARTS
October 25, 2012
Page 17
Bernini? Warhol? Art-lovers must visit MET before these great exhibits depart Zoe Dostal
Guest Reporter
A
little birdie told me that it’s about time all of you Art History 105-ers take a trip down to the city to examine a work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in person. Now, having been there and done that, I know a lot of you are going to cheat on this one. With Google Images, ARTstor and Wikipedia at our fingertips, who in their right mind would go all the way to the Big Apple just to look at one lousy painting? Well, me. And I am going to try my darndest to incite you to do the same by bribing you with two temporary exhibits currently at the MET. The key to a fun and memorable museum visit is temporary exhibits. Short and sweet, they provide narratives, context and perspective that is usually lost in permanent galleries. Sometimes they bring together seemingly disparate objects from all over the world, like Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years. Other times it’s the first and only time an artist’s works will all be in the same place, as is the case in Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (at the MET through Jan. 6). Let’s go from smallest to largest. Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, located just outside the cafeteria, will take you just twenty or thirty minutes. But don’t let the size fool you—this exhibit packs a powerful punch, raising questions of authorship and originality while offering insight into the process of one of the worlds most revered sculptors. Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) is known for his breathtaking marble sculptures of religious, mythological and allegorical figures in Rome, Italy. This exhibit takes you behind the scenes with sketches, wooden and clay models that have the thumbprints—literally—of Bernini. This is the first, and possibly only time, that all of Bernini’s clay models (bozzetti) are displayed in one location. Sculptures that adorn Roman landmarks such as the Four Rivers Fountain and Ponte Sant’Angelo all began as roughly sketched thoughts. Then Bernini grabbed a slab of earthy goodness to quickly mold and shape his ideas into
Campus Canvas
three dimensions. Since the final version of his Saint Teresa or any of her giant, marble friends could not visit New York, the museum provides gorgeous black and white photographs to transport us to Italy to see the marble masterpieces ourselves. And as the exhibit continually reminds us, Bernini’s prodigious students in his workshop carved the marble. The clay models at the MET are the genius of Bernini himself, pure and true. I found the explanation of his particular process and the scientific analysis of his work to be the most remarkable part of the exhibit. Diagrams eloquently show how his thumb moved across the clay, and whether his fingernail made a particular indentation. Invisible to the untrained eye, these are the details that imbue the work with the spirit of Bernini. The bigger, more exciting exhibit for many museumgoers is Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years (at the MET through Dec. 31). This show brings together the glitterati of the contemporary art world to delight and dazzle viewers with every media possible, including but not limited to video, photography, painting, sculpture and installation art. The point is to encourage a debate about the extent and nature of Warhol’s influence on the following generations of artists. For such an enormous topic, it is very well organized and easy to follow, divided into themes such as celebrity portraits, American consumerism and queer identities. I honestly don’t know where to begin in describing the art at this exhibit from giants like Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Ai Weiwei, Matthew Barney and Takashi Murakami. I can tell you about some of the most memorable, like Jeff Koon’s Michael Jackson & Bubbles, 1988. Bigger than life, a radiant gold and porcelain white Michael surveys the crowd, cradling his monkey, Bubbles. Ai Weiwei painted a Coca-Cola logo onto a Neolithic vase (5,000-3,000 B.C.), committing what some consider a sacrilegious act of bravado. A video exploring gender relations that I know will appeal to fellow Vassarites was
A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists
Kalup Linzy’s hysterical piece Conversations wit de Churen V: As da Art World Might Turn, 2006. Kalup Linzy’s drag persona Katonya is a young artist, moaning on the floor about her obscurity until she finally gets the opportunity for a solo show—a reality that is not so far from our own post-graduate lives. By far the most arresting was Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (Portrait of Rossin L.A.). Shiny, individually wrapped candies are piled in the corner with a sign declaring “Please Take Only One Piece of Candy”. Snatching the sugary treat, few people actually read the accompanying label, which explains this rare phenomenon of audience participation. Ideally, the pile at any given time will weigh a total of 175 lbs, the weight of the artist’s lover Ross Laycock before his AIDS-related death in 1991. By taking candy, the viewer is complicit in his demise. But at a certain point, the candy will be replenished, implicating us in his resurrection as well. This is an effective artwork that I found haunting long after I’d left the exhibit. Normally, I don’t really like contemporary art—we just don’t get along. But Regarding Warhol manages to bring together the fringe, the kitsch and the political into a completely accessible arena. The wall labels are exceptionally clear and helpful, explaining the context of the art, the artist and the relationship to Warhol’s work. Oh, and don’t worry, there is also plenty of iconic Warhol, from Marilyn and Mao to cow wallpaper and celebrity screen tests. And I won’t spoil the ending for you, but it is the closest you will get to experience Warhol’s legendary Factory for yourself. There are other temporary exhibits currently up at the MET, most notably Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop (which all end before February 2013). And I certainly don’t mean to discount the permanent collection. But the key words here are “temporary” and “permanent”. So gather a group of friends and head down river—I promise that everyone will have fun and find a Saturday well spent.
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“Game of Thrones.”
—Jalilah Byrd ’15
“Atlas Shrugged.”
—Julian Hassan ’14
“An article about how Obama betrayed the anti-war movement.” — David Quispe ’16
“A Denver tourist brochure.”
— Sue Jin Baig ’14
I
took this photograph with my dad’s old canon film camera while on a walk with a friend on the Vassar farm. She had paused to dance amongst the falling leaves and I thought it was a nice moment. I suppose part of what makes photography such an attractive medium is its ability to capture the ephemeral, fleeting moments in time such as these. This transient nature of photography I think is what made it difficult for me to choose just one photo to publish on here, as it forced me to privilege just one moment out of many I’ve documented through my photography. I personally prefer viewing/exhibiting photographs or artworks as a series. Through a series it is possible to present fragments in time that, when grouped together, compose a collective memory or experience. I’m sure one day when I’m older and feeling corny and sentimental, I’ll look back on the photographs I took in college and think back fondly to the golden era of my youth. For now it’s pleasant enough to contemplate just one afternoon at the farm, a then and there that recedes into the here and now just as autumn recedes into winter.
“Love in the Time of Cholera.”
—Erika Nakagawa ’15
“American Psycho.”
—Elijah McDonnaugh ’16
-Jaclyn Neudorf ’13
—Adam Buchsbaum, Arts Editor — Jiajing Sun, Assistant Photo Editor MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE