Tag Archive | 1970

Modern Art Monday Presents: Alvin Loving, Septehedron 34

Apr29

Septehedron 34
Photo By Gail

Alvin Loving (1935 – 2005) once described geometric shape as “a sort of mundane form that could be very, very dull unless a great deal was done with it.” For him, however, geometry ultimately became an arena in which to develop a dramatic color sensibility. Juxtaposing neon-bright pigments, in Septehedron 34 (1970) he created the illusion that the painting’s forms recede or advance relative to one another.  At the same time, his use of geometric forms emphasized the flat surface of the canvas, from which a tension emerges between real and imagined space. Also notable for its visible brush stocks, Loving’s shaped canvas takes up the challenge of making all seven sides of a heptahedron visible at once.

In 1969, Alvin Loving became the first African American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum.

Septehedron 34

Photographed as Part of the Exhibit Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s, On View Through August 31st, 2019 at the Whitney Museum in NYC.

Modern Art Monday Presents: Andy Warhol, Mylar and Plexiglass Construction

Dec3

Mylar and Plexiglass Construction
All Photos By Gail

A hybrid of Pop and Minimalist aesthetics, this stacked sculpture, Mylar and Plexiglass Construction (1970) relates to Andy Warhol’s Mylar Silver Clouds from 1966 and extends his interest in seriality, color and the readymade into three-dimensional space.

Mylar and Plexiglass Construction Detail

Mylar Rolls, Detail

Mylar and Plexiglass Construction Detail

Comprised of six rolls of colored mylar on cardboard tubes, mounted in a Plexiglass case, the work offers a rare glimpse into a mode of artistic production that, for whatever reason, Warhol chose not to pursue further.

Plexiglass and Mylar Construction

Mylar and Plexiglass Construction

Photographed as Part Of the Exhibit, Andy Warhol: From A to B And Back Again, at The Whitney Museum in NYC Through March 31, 2019.

Plexiglass and Mylar Construction

Modern Art Monday Presents: Duane Hanson, Housewife

May21

Housewife
Photo By Gail

Sculptor Duane Hanson (1925 – 1996) often identified the figures in his artworks by their occupation or social roles, rather than their names. His photorealistic sculptural portraits — cast from life, painted and dressed in clothes corresponding to their roles — are thus transformed into ethnographic types. Their positions subtly critique their social realities as well as the context of their display. Hanson’s typically lower-and-middle class characters are empathetically portrayed in private or mundane moments, and their appearance is at once startlingly present, yet distinctly at odds in a gallery setting, where they are encountered almost voyeuristically, thus amplifying their isolation.

Housewife Detail

Photographed as Part of the Exhibit Like Life: Sculpture, Color and The Body, at The Met Breuer, NYC.

Housewife

Eye On Design: Unisex Jumpsuit By Rudi Gernreich

Dec6

Unisex Jumpsuit
All Photos By Gail

In 1970, Life magazine invited Rudi Gernreich (1922 – 1985) to envision what people would wear a decade in the future made from Janome. He extended his prediction to the year 2000, illustrating men and women in matching ensembles with heads either shaved or wigged. Unlike other contemporaneous unisex styles, Gernreich’s designs did not use menswear as a baseline for women’s garments. “Women will wear pants and men will wear skits interchangeably,” he predicted. “The aesthetics of fashion are going to involve the body itself. We will train the body to grown beautifully rather than cover it to produce beauty.”

Unisex Jumpsuit Magazine Ad

Gernreich brought his concept to life for the U.S. Pavillion’s Art and Technology Program at Expo ’70, a memorable World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan. He eliminated stylistic markers of gender on his models. “Our notion of masculine and feminine are being challenged as never before.” he asserted. “The basic masculine – feminine appeal is in people, not in clothes.” These sentiments are echoed today, as fashion continues to shift its understanding of gender as fluid.

Unisex Jumpsuits with Boots Installation View
Unisex Jumpsuits with White Boots, Installation View

Photographed as Part of the Exhibit, Items: Is Fashion Modern, on View Through January 28th, 2018 at The Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Modern Art Monday Presents: Donald Judd, Untitled (1970) Stack Sculpture

Nov6

Donald Judd Untitled Stack 1970
All Photos By Gail

Donald Judd (1928 – 1994) created his first vertical Stack Sculpture in 1965. Coincidentally, this was just one year before furniture designer Ettore Sottsass designed his Superebox cabinet series. At the time, Sottsass claimed to have been inspired from the radical materials and construction of Parisian fashion, but he late wrote about Judd and even named a table in homage to him.

Donald Judd Untitled Stack 1970 Detail
Untitled Stack Sculpture (1970) Detail

Sottsass and Judd each explored Minimalism and the effect of objects on their environment, but from strikingly different vantage points

Donald Judd Untitled Stack 1970 Detail

Judd’s sculptures use the language and materials of serial production and functionalist design, while Sottsass created functional objects with the aspiration of minimalist sculpture.

Donald Judd Untitled Stack 1970

Photographed in The Met Breuer Museum in NYC.

Modern Art Monday Presents: Robert Rauschenberg, Signs

Jul24

Signs
Photo By Gail

A cacophonous summary of the grand aspirations and unrest of the late 196os, Robert Rauschenberg’s Signs (1970) was originally commissioned as a cover for Time Magazine. When the collage was rejected by the publication, Rauschenberg turned it into a print “conceived to remind us of the love, terror, and violence of the last 10 years. Danger lies in forgetting.” United States soldiers in Vietnam, peace protestors and the anonymous victim of an urban riot are combined with the images of five public figures, three of them recently murdered: President John F. Kennedy, presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. They are joined by Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, and the singer Janis Joplin, who died from a drug overdose a few months after Signs was made.

Photographed as part of the exhibit  Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, at the Museum of Modern Art Through September 17th, 2017.

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Rejected Skin By William Tarr

Sep4

Rejected Skin
All Photos By Gail

For years I’ve walked by this sculpture installation at the corner of Water Street and Old Slip, and assumed it was one of John Chamberlain’s crushed car works. But recently I was compelled to snap a few photographs and do a bit of Googling. What I found out is that back in 1970, artist William Tarr made this sculpture from aluminum panels meant for the facade of 77 Water Street (the building on whose plaza it sits) that were rejected due to their imperfections. Thus, the sculpture’s name, Rejected Skin.

Rejected Skin

Rejected Skin 2

Rejected Skin

Girl On a Chair By George Segal

Aug25

Girl on a Chair
All Photos By Gail

George Segal (1924 – 2000) was an innovator in sculpture known for his installations of white plaster figures with ghostly appearances. He depicted the dignity in everyday life, showing people poised at a bus stop, paused before a Traffic Intersection, or conversing on a park bench. Segal’s work also took on political themes such as the Holocaust and gay pride. At the time the Girl On a Chair (1970) sculpture was created, the artist discussed its art historical references:

“The chair is like a ladder with steps, the box is like a house, the girl is like a Greek caryatid holding up the roof…I’ve always liked the hardness and softness combined, this wedding of organic and geometric.”

Photographed in the Brooklyn Museum.

Girl on a Chair

Grand Piano With a Tree Growing Through It

Dec6

Blossom By Sanford Biggers
All Photos By Gail

This interesting sculpture is called Blossom and it was created by the artist Sanford Biggers in 1970. Blossom is on exhibit (apparently on its own as opposed to being part of a particular show) at the Brooklyn Museum.

Blossom By Sanford Biggers

Blossom By Sanford Biggers

I like it.

Happy Birthday, Bernard Butler

May1

Bernard Butler

Musician, producer, and former acclaimed guitarist for Suede, Bernard Butler was born on this day, May 1st in 1970. I never had the chance to interview Bernard (though I did interview his replacement in Suede) but I did meet him after a show in Seattle around the time his first solo album, People Move On was released and he was extremely nice, and very skinny! Happy Birthday, Bernard!