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Calder Boomerang On Table Mobile/Stabile

Alexander Calder, *Boomerang on Table*, 1949, 29 x 38 x 11 in. or so, to be sold at Sotheby’s NY in the Modern Day Sale, Lot 109, on 14 Nov 2023 from the Collection of Richard and Kathy Feld [sic?]

A hundred years ago or last February, who can even say at this point, Pace had a show of little platform/companion/interventions Richard Tuttle made for a series of Alexander Calder sculptures. My favorite from that show was a little pile of cubes Tuttle made for Little Mobile for Table’s Edge, a c. 1939 work with an unusual stabile/mobile dynamic of perching on the edge of a table.

Richard Tuttle enactment [?] for Alexander Calder’s *Little Mobile for Table’s Edge*, 2022/1939, as seen at Pace LA in early 2023.

However rare it was, it turns out Calder used this hanging-off-a-table mechanism at least one more time than I thought: in Boomerang on Table, a 1949 work that was acquired by Nelson Rockefeller. In the undated photo Sotheby’s published of Rockefeller’s modernist house in Seal Harbor, Maine, Boomerang is on the glass coffee table—perched on a tiny little stick. Maybe any Calder can hang off the table, if you try, and vice versa.

*Boomerang on Table* on a stand on a table, in Nelson Rockefeller’s Seal Harbor house, photo: Lee Bolton via Sotheby’s

One thing I wonder about in the Sotheby’s sale: this Calder is listed as from the “Collection of Richard and Kathy Feld,” who bought the work at Rockefeller’s estate auction in 1980. And I’m sure that’s exactly who is selling it, not Richard and Kathy Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers and longtime MoMA trustee, respectively. There was a children’s clothing wholesaler and contemporary collector Richard Feld who gave the Times a couple of quotes about buying art in a bubble, and that was about it. No mention of his wife. But the catalogue’s been out a month; if Sotheby’s really had misspelled their own prominent client’s name, someone would have corrected it by now. Right?

Lot 109, 14 Nov 2023: Alexander Calder, Boomerang on Table, 1949, est. USD500-700,000 [update: sold for just $635,000] [sothebys]
Previously, related: Little Mobile for Tuttle Pyramid

Olafur Eliasson Extension Cord, 2004

Olafur Eliasson, *10 Meter Cable For All Colours*, 2004, ed. 4/100, at Bruun-Rasmussen 14 Nov 2023

This custom woven, 10-meter extension cord in an edition of 100 is absolutely one of my favorite Olafur Eliasson editions, because it is an extension cord.

*360° room for all colours* *[including the bisexual ones]*, 2002, installed at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2004, photo: Jens Ziehe via olafureliasson.net

I haven’t ever asked why it exists, but the title, 10 Meter Cable For All Colours and the date, 2004, suggest a connection to Olafur’s 2002 work, 360° room for all colours. This curving spatial structure is filled with red, green and blue lights that shift through all the colours. It was first shown in Paris in 2002, and then in the 2004 Your Lighthouse: Works of Light, 1991-2004 at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, which opened in the glare of Olafur’s Tate Turbine Hall project.

installation view zoomed in on lightbulbs and cables at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2004, image: Alexander Krauss via olafureliasson.net

This unusual top-down installation view of a work which typically had a scrim ceiling shows not only the tightly packed lightbulbs in the wall, but also a thick bundle of extension cords to power them, running up and out of site.

While this work might account for why Olafur had several kilometers of electrical cable lying around the studio, it still doesn’t explain why there’s an edition. My guess would be that a few spools of leftover cable were transformed from surplus into artwork by whatever that mysterious process is, and they were given to employees, friends, and whoever. There is a whole body of this kind of small, interpersonal edition that grows out of the studio’s practice and relationships, and I think it’s just neat.

This example, for sale in a couple of weeks at Bruun-Rasmussen in Denmark, is ed. 4/100, perhaps from someone at the top of the artist’s list. [B-R offered ed. 1/100 in 2012, which was somehow not deluxe enough to reach the DKK 30000 estimate. The current example is expected to sell for DKK6000, under USD1000, which feels like the right balance of reasonable and ridiculous, but most importantly, not too expensive to put it right to actual use.]

FEAR EATS THE SOUP

“A rotating menu of soups served to Glenstone’s visitors” is a phrase that sticks with me from the text Glenstone director/co-founder Emily Wei Rales contributed to Fear Eats The Soul, a 2023 publication from the private museum in Potomac, Maryland.

In 2011 Rirkrit Tiravanija’s exhibition of the same name at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise did not seem like the type of project to be easily collected. When the whole thing turned up in the older, smaller private museum building at Glenstone in 2019, I had to recognize “easily collected” was relative.

This book is a documentation of Glenstone’s 2019 installation of Fear Eats The Soul, including those elements of it which went unrealized [a performance of Rirkrit breaking through a cinderblock wall to reveal a stripped down Peugeot] due to the early pandemic shutdowns of March 2020. The full-scale plywood recreations of Gavin’s original Broome St. storefront were intact. Rather than leave their Gwathmey building unsecured and open to taggers, like on Greenwich St., the Raleses invited graffiti artists from the DMV to execute work in the space. Rather than sell T-shirts screenprinted to order—with proceeds paying the art students Rirkrit recuited for the show—Glenstone offered T-shirts in exchange for donations to local non-profits.

General Idea, Test Patterns, Trinitron

three white guys in dark suits sit in three steel and black chairs, backs to the camera, and facing a large, 12 by 12 grid of rectangular porcelain plates painted with the ebu color bars test pattern for calibrating video signal. a row of spotlights along the top edge of the image identifies the space as a gallery or exhibition. a photo by tohru kogure of general idea, 1988 — General Idea in front of *Test Pattern: T.V. Dinner Plates from the Miss General Idea Pavilion*, 1988, installed at Spiral (Wacoal Art Space), Tokyo, 1988, photo Tohru Kogure via ACI-IAC

General Idea made hundreds of handpainted porcelain sushi plates with the TV test pattern on them for their 1988 show at Spiral in Tokyo. They made 432 plates, in three grids of 144. [The work turned up at Miami Basel in 2019.] They also made an edition [MoMA says ed. 238; this guy explains it started as 300, but there was a lot of breakage.] which came in a cardboard box. The Stedelijk image is the best for getting a sense of what gorgeous objects these are, though it does make it easier to not read them as paintings.

a shallow rectangular porcelain plate that looks more like a tray has the vertical solid colors of a tv test pattern painted on it, and a glazed silver edge. it sits on a very blonde wood tabletop, an image of general idea's test pattern tv dinner plate, 1988, from the stedelijk museum — General Idea, *Test Pattern: T.V. Dinner Plate*, 1988, collection: Stedelijk

Which is all useful context, I think, for this thick little painting, Black Trinitron #5, being sold next week at Doyle in New York. Sony had just introduced a Trinitron color TV where the screen was actually black, not grey, when it was turned off.

a general idea painting of a tv test pattern in seurat-like pointillist style includes a line or two of each of the seven vertical columns of color interwoven with its adjacent color. the border of the painting is black and traces the slight convex rectangle of a crt monitor — General Idea: *Black Trinitron #5*, 1987-89, 9 x 12 x 3 in., acrylic on canvas, at Doyle, 1 Nov 2023

But that may not be important now, or then, for that matter. In 2020, another test pattern painting, Trinitron #15 (1987), turned up at Sotheby’s in Milan, that was not black.

a general idea painting of a tv test pattern in pointillist style, perhaps a reference to the pixels of the image, or the tiny red green and blue points that make up the tv image. the convex edge of the painting echoes the curved rectangle of a tv screen, and the canvas is stretched on thick bars, and it is standing upright, as if it is a tv itself. though in 1987, there was no tv this thin, can you imagine? anyway this one sold at sothebys in milan in 2020 — General Idea, *Trinitron #15*, 1987, oil and acrylic on canvas, 9 x 12 x 3 in., sold at Sotheby’s Milano in 2020

These Trinitron paintings really get the collapse of painting and screen, the slight convexity of the cathode ray tube on the surface of the canvas, and the objectness of both painting and TV (though TVs were much deeper obv). But what they give is sushi plate edition, and the box the sushi plate edition comes in.

the cardboard box for general idea's test pattern tv dinner plate has a test pattern sticker label on the top half. the lower half has the plate itself nested right inside, extremely tightly fit. which might be why so many were reportedly broken in shipment, that the edition size dropped from 300 to 238. this one is intact, though, and it is at moma — General Idea, *Test Pattern: T.V. Dinner Plate*, 1988, porcelain in original box, 9 x 12 x 3 in., collection: MoMA

[a few minutes later update: If it hadn’t been prompted by seeing the Trinitron paintings, I could have titled this post, “General Idea Dishes?”]

Robert Gober Has Seen Some Stuff

And bought some stuff. And made some stuff. The press release discussed it in the context of hashtag collector, and Roberta Smith called it “a resonant portrait of the United States.” But Robert Gober’s exhibition at Demisch Danant, “Cows at a Pond,” felt like the self-portrait of an artist trying to live and work ethically in a present where the injustices and suffering of history repeat themselves. So I guess they’re both right.

I sat in Gober’s chair to read his notes—unfinished and unpublished, except, of course, for putting them in a show—of attending the art forgery lawsuit against Knoedler Gallery. One important observation was the purported shock at the naked fraud perpetrated by the “venerable” gallery, a term Gober remembered from the 2000-2001 coverage of the price-fixing crimes of two “venerable” auction houses: Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Forbidden Colors

[via gagosian, philadelphia, hara]

Waderunner

Enhance 224 to 176

Enhance. Stop. Move in. Stop.

Pull out. Track right. Stop. Center and pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop.

Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop.

Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute, go back. Stop.

Enhance 57 19. Track 45 left. Stop.

Enhance 15 to 23.

Give me a hard copy right there.

Let’s Review The Tape

There has been surprisingly little written about Cady Noland’s show at Gagosian’s Park & 75th Street storefront space. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know quite what to make of it all, either. All the years of absence and anticipation just end, and people maybe don’t quite know what to do or say. In the last 20 years, Noland’s practice has been understood as a harbinger, coming from the past, with relevance for the present. In the 80s and 90s she threw the dodgeball of prophecy about American violence and celebrity politics and art world commodification at our heads, and every disclaimer, auction record, and lawsuit of this century was another hit.

As Noland’s first show of new work, and a lot of it, in decades, it’s easy to want it to be important. But now that means figuring out what it’s doing now; is it relevant in this moment, or is it yet another harbinger?

Charline von Heyl Painting Wall

Charline von Heyl, 58 little paintings on burlap, installation view, via petzel.com

How I missed this, I cannot even imagine, but you and I still have four days to get to Petzel in Chelsea to see this wall of 58 smaller paintings by Charline von Heyl.

They range from 10×8 to 24×18 inches. And though a couple have oil or charcoal, too, they’re acrylic on burlap, so they must be a distinct painting experience from the 7-ft tall, (mostly) oil on linen ones. There are 15 of those in the show, too, ofc.

[a few hours later update: why are so many of these little paintings titled “Paradoxical Lamb,” and did it come from a BYU Religious Studies analysis of the symbolism of Revelations? The mind reels.]

Barbara Walters American Icon

6 Nov 2023, Lot 112: A Georgian-Style Silver-Plated Warming Stand from the estate of Barbara Walters American Icon est $1500-2500, no reserve [update: sold for $1, 024] [bonhams]
Meret Oppenheim, Traccia Table, 1939/1981, bronze, gold leaf, wood [vam.ac.uk]
Claude Lalanne, Choupatte Géante, 2015/2016, bronze, in an edition of 8
plus 4 APs[!], exhibited at Ben Brown Fine Arts in 2017 [benbrownfinearts]

Kerry James Marshall Dishes?

Kerry James Marshall, *Untitled (5 relief prints)*, 1998, installation view, Renaissance Society

In his 1998 exhibition at the Renaissance Society, Mementos, Kerry James Marsh paid unsettled homage to the historicization of and nostalgia for the US Civil Rights Movement, and for the Black experience of living through it [sic].

All The Vermeers In Bloomfield Hills

While ZillowGoneWild went wild for the sunken living room in this Bloomfield Hills, Michigan house, I’m obviously freaking out over the presence of Vermeer’s most famous painting, Girl With A Pearl Earring, over the woodburning fireplace. The Mauritshuis didn’t even say anything.

Which can only mean that is Vermeer’s The Concert, stolen in 1990 from the Gardner Museum in Boston, poking out from under the sectional sofa cushion. Case solved!

Richard Rogers Tomigaya Exhibition Hall, 1990-1992

Tomigaya, Richard Rogers, Project Partner: Laurie Abbott, 1990-1992, unbuilt. images via RHSP

Just as the bubble was popping, a developer asked Richard Rogers to make a building on a tiny, triangular lot in Tomigaya, on the southwest corner of Yoyogi-Kōen. The zoning permitted a 45m height, but only three stories. And project partner Laurie Abbott came up with this all-glass, wedge-shaped exhibition space with movable mezzanines and an external crane to lift yachts and helicopters and such into place.

earlier iteration of Tomigaya exhibition hall concept with adjustable mezzanine heights and external elevators, made from Erector sets or whatever, 1990-1992, Richard Rogers/Laurie Abbott

Obviously, it was never built, because if it existed, I would have already reconfigured my life to have bought it in the overlapping window of post-bubble malaise and dotcom bubble madness, and I’d be living in it today. Probably with a crossfit studio or something renting out the lower level.

Google Maps looking east: I think the site is the triangular bldg on the right with the white marker? Obviously they got a zoning variance to build more than three floors of vanilla condos

Shoutout to Philip Oldfield for identifying the Tomigaya tower as his favorite unbuilt high-tech building on social media, and for Kate Wagner for the tip.

Tomigaya [rhsp]

Miss Lucy’s 3 Day (Doll) House Party

It is not clear the specific circumstances during his study abroad in Rome in 1988 under which rich, Southern twink Douglas Bassett Andrews met Cy Twombly, then 60, but they became close friends. “I think it was the Southern connection,” Andrews once told The New York Times.

Lou Stovall’s Sam Gilliam

Sam Gilliam, *Untitled*, 1979, acrylic and metallic paint on polypropylene fabric, swagging dimensions vary, being sold at Swann on 19 Oct 2023 for an est. $150-250,000

A gorgeous 1970s swag given by Sam Gilliam to one of his longtime friends and print collaborators, that fits perfectly in a modest domestic setting? Sign me tf up.

Artist/printmaster Lou Stovall and Sam Gilliam were tight for decades until they weren’t. With Stovall’s passing earlier this year, maybe they’re reconciling in the beyond. Meanwhile, in the here and now, Stovall’s estate is selling this intensely saturated drape painting, which Gilliam gave to Stovall in 2006. RIP to those resting, and happy bidding and swagging to everyone else.

19 Oct 2023 | Lot 111: Sam Gilliam, Untitled, 1979, est. $150-250,000 [update: sold for $197,000, nice, reasonable, not out of control] [swanngalleries]
Previously, related: Color in the Landscape: my Sam Gilliam article for Art in America