Vik Muniz gives us a Rube Goldberg experience at MOMA

Four of the Print Collectors managed to make the final weekend of MOMA's Artist's Choice + Vik Muniz = REBUS (and we even managed to get one of the MFA's curators to take the spin with us). What fun! We're all Muniz fans, but this exhibition did not contain any of Muniz' art, rather it consisted entirely of pieces chosen by Muniz from MOMA's permanent collection. The individual pieces -- all interesting -- were not the point; rather the relationship between one piece and the next (and the next) created a logical adventure.

As an example, a photograph of a man on a subway holding a goldfish by Philip-Lorca di Corcia, was followed by a yellow-gold hued painting, by Ellsworth Kelly, followed by a "Yolk" sculpture by Kiki Smith, then an egg timer designed by Rodolfo Bonett0 -- (Goldfish -> Gold -> golden egg yolk -> egg timer).

Some of the transitions were easier to guess than others and I'll admit it took me a while to realize that Vija Celmins stone sculpture, followed by a pair of Henckels shears, then Martin Creed's sheet of paper crumpled into a ball translated to: rock, scissors, paper!

Muniz managed to keep us guessing through 82 works ending finishing up with Ed Ruscha's "The End" and finally an EXIT sign designed by Wamble, Finley and Thorne.

David Hilliard

I know, I know, the blog has been dark the last couple weeks, but hopefully the posts will start being more frequent and regular again. If art imitated (my) life, I certainly wouldn't want to buy it right now.
Anyway, some big stuff has been happening this month. David Hilliard, who currently has a show at Carroll and Sons in the South End, will be doing the Benefit Print for the MFA Summer Party in June (shown here). Although Hilliard's photographs are in major museum collections across the US (including the MFA, Boston), I was most impressed when I went to an Elton John concert in Boston about 5-6 years ago and Sir Elton John himself gave him a big shout out, saying that Hilliard was a "brilliant" Boston-based photographer and that he collects his work.
At the opening at Carroll and Sons last week, Hilliard said that he studied film and video at MassArt as an undergrad, but was drawn to photography because the images are longer lasting and viewers can look at them as long they like. He feels that his film background influences his photography, in which he creates multiple images to be shown together as diptyches, triptyches, etc. Each photo is taken separately and they can be separated by distance, time, and/or perspective. The result does seem cinematic- and quite beautiful.
If you are interested in buying the Benefit Print, do so ASAP. Last year the print sold out.

Shepard Fairey at the ICA

(Images from: www. images.google.com)

The ICA opened its Shepard Fairey exhibit last night and despite the snowstorm, hundreds of people were in attendance to hear him talk about his work at a standing-room only packed auditorium. Shepard has been an artist for the past 20 years, even though he appears to be no more than 30 years old. Shepard began his public style of street art while still a student at RISD; he has a strong belief art should be a part of the public landscape. He indicated his roots are humble, being a poor student, he had to buy rolls of discontinued wallpaper sheets to use as the background for his street art. His first iconic image was of a stamp of Andre the Giant. Since then, 20 years later, his style has evolved into what we recognize today (President Obama's official portrait is one that Fairey did during the campaign and the Smithsonian's National Gallery acquired the portrait). Something Shepard said about the nature and style of his work really resonated with us and that is that he utilizes the highly recognized Communist-style propaganda look for its easy visual identity and imagery. Given that his street art needs to compete with other bold advertising, he prefers this aesthetic which allows him to deliver benevolence in a sinister looking package, which he believes invokes a cautious cynicism for his audience to be wary of the sinister in a benevolent package. Take a close look at the pretty female images where there is a military element in the background or read the fine print in some of the more benevolent looking imagery and you'll see what he means. This is a "must-see" show for the art aficionados among us.


Given his show at the ICA opening this week, he has been in the Boston area creating new works. With the snow from the past 2 weeks, he indicated it was nice to be back in New England, snow at all..and that it was just like in the old days, the cold and possible police intervention, had him working at a faster pace again. For a map of where his outdoor works can be found, here is a link:

http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/fairey/outdoor/


As an aside, he also has an image on the 2004 Kenwood Vineyards 30th Anniversary Artists Series bottles , which they served at the reception (2,100 cases made and the wine retails for about $70)- this guy is H-O-T right now!

Given his overall success and hotness factor right now, I decided to ask a Curatorial friend at the MFA his thoughts and he replied he liked the artist's work but wondered if it was the artwork or the images that would have the staying power... an interesting question to ponder, as we all race to get a limited edition of Shepard's book and 4 signed prints....

Wow! Researching Prints in the MFA's Morse Study Room

The MFA's Morse Study Room for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs is an absolutely amazing resource available to collectors eager to learn more about their collection or potential acquisitions. When working with a dealer, it is often possible to have a print sent to the MFA on approval to allow you to compare the work to one or more similar ones at the MFA. Older prints in particular vary widely in terms of impression quality and condition -- which greatly impact value. Even prints within the same edition may have been produced inconsistently.
We had an appointment yesterday with Stephanie Stepanek, an expert in the area we are researching; and we were also lucky to have a chance to chat with the head of the department, Cliff Ackley.

We started our research with the catalogue raisonne, which describes what is known about each print -- typically listing trial proofs, working proofs and each edition -- documenting what is known about each round including paper, changes to the plate, number in the edition, etc. The MFA is a great resource for these are dealers and even the Boston Public Library. (Although...they are not always in English). (although we did benefit from additional hand annotations by MFA researchers). These books help you to identify the edition of the print you are researching.

The really amazing part of our visit was the fact that the MFA had 6 different versions of the print we were comparing to our potential acquistion, which they had out on display for our examination. In this case, we were able to see several that would be considered to be better, one worse and a few that would really depend on your personal preference.

Cliff mentioned that many people tell him that they don't stop by because they don't want to "bother" the staff, but that they really hope people utilize their resources so that they can make educated purchases.

J.

The Printed Picture

Ever wonder what a rotogravure is? Or how to do a pantograph etching? MacArthur Fellow and former Dean of the Yale School of Art, Richard Benson, published a book this fall that is a must have for print collectors, The Printed Picture. This book is a series of one-page essays on the techniques of printing reproducible images along with pictures of examples. MOMA in NYC also currently is doing a show based on this book, so you can go there are see actual examples up close (instead of looking at reproductions of reproduced images). The book retails for $60, but is only $37.80 on Amazon.