Category: art

Speaking of Donald Judd chairs, a copper armchair was ordered, and produced by Lehni in 2006. It was sold at auction for some reason in 2007. It was sold at auction again in 2011. It is now, in 2023, up for sale again.

The copper armchair is sort of the archetypal piece of Judd furniture. In a project about seriality and variation, it is a single statement chair. And in its relatively brief, 16-year existence, this single chair has clearly seen some stuff.

In 2007, it looked pristine, practically new. In 2011, it had clearly been polished for sale. And in 2023, wow, dawg, you live like this? Beyond the overall patina, which is substantial, there are two holes [?], vertically aligned, on one side where, I don’t even know what; they seem too low for a cupholder?

I was trying to remember where I got the idea that Judd insisted that his metal objects, particularly his bronze and copper works, be either perfectly maintained or left undisturbed to accrue the physical rewards of the passage of time. So I googled it, and it turns out I was told that by a Judd person, and I’d blogged about it 10 years ago when bronze kitchens were a thing.

And so it is that this one, exceptional chair is in perfect harmony with its creator’s intent, and it is also able to tell its own thrice-flipped material story, while reminding me of my own.

Previously, related: On Metal And The Passage of Time
Previously, also related to patina and the passage of time: Untitled (Joan Collins Toile de Jouy), 2015 [h/t @jfrigg]

Ben Street posted this image of an extraordinary reverse painting on glass by Giacomo Ceruti, which is being offered via private sale at Christie’s. I’m sure if you ask them, they’ll tell you all about it, or you can read the extensive description at Sotheby’s which sold the painting in 2018, from the collection of Otto Nauman. [It went for $615,000, btw, twice the high estimate.]

This portrait is part of a group of four glass paintings, known in German, at least, as Hintglasmalerei (painting behind glass), in a collection in Brescia, where Ceruti worked in the early 18th century.

Beyond the fascinating technique—it had to be painted in reverse order, starting with highlights—and the way he left so much glass unpainted, and the rarity of it surviving at all, it just absolutely pops.

My bandwidth atm is sporadic, so I can’t do a all-out, tab-filling dive, but Ceruti’s other paintings do not inspire interest. Neither do most reverse glass paintings. The way this feels like neither of those is truly exceptional. Whether that’s a reason to spend half or a million dollars for it, I cannot say.

The similarity of this Rembrandt being protected from heavy rain leaking into a bucket right in front of it to David Hammons’ abstract paintings covered by used street tarps is immediate and gratifying to everyone who is familiar with this work.

Hammons showed these works for the first time at L&M Arts’ townhouse gallery in Manhattan in 2011. Most of the tarps were opaque, with only corners and edges of the madcap AbEx paintings peeking out underneath. One of the biggest, though [above], was covered in cloudy, still-translucent plastic that allowed the painting to be seen through a fleeting, new landscape of light reflecting on the draped plastic surface.

I found the image of it above Frances Richard’s Artforum review. Richard considered the works in relation to the history of postwar painting, while the Gemäldegalerie’s installation at once reaches back to the Renaissance of Rembrandt and projects forward to the institutional failings in response to the global climate emergency.

Contemplating Grubbs’ anxiety during what should have been a pleasant visit to the Rembrandt Room renewed Richard’s conclusion:

“An almost-palpably rustling audience—though who would care enough about this scene to observe it, and yet be so removed?—breached the building’s hushed solidity to watch us (critic, guard, staff, artist, collectors, historians, etc.) act our pantomime of ‘judgment’ and ‘value.’ Walking away down Seventy-eighth Street, I thought,’This is all a David Hammons.'”

And so did I.

Previously, related: Hammons All Around Us
Meanwhile, at the Ludwig: Untitled (After Isa Genzken), 2017

Truly one of the most baffling exhibitions I’ve ever seen. I’m not even sure if I saw it, and if it’s an exhibition.

Les Baux, a medieval hilltop fortress ruin in Provence, is hosting a retrospective of Piet Mondrian. The exhibition is comprised of several info panels scattered around the gardens approaching the fort. There is no original art, or anything even close; and no explanation for why Mondrian or why here.

It apparently took eleven people from the government’s attractions management contractor, Culturespaces, to decide to print Mondrian’s wikipedia page on enamel panels and plant them on the lawn.

Meanwhile, the site’s trebuchet demonstrations and crossbow gallery, operated by medieval cosplayers, have apparently been discontinued in favor of art-related content.

I’ve been thinking about painters and textiles lately. Here are some details of three Velázquez paintings of fabrics and Infanta Margarita.

The white dress with the cross hatch marks was made while he was working on Las Meninas. The blue one, made three years later, was one of the last two paintings Velázquez completed. That is apparently a fur muff in the Infanta’s left hand. TBH I read it as translucent, at least on top, with the silver trim of the dress extending under it, like it was a platter of tinted glass, and I was confounded by it. The pink one also has a vase of flowers, which is after the jump. 1654. Amazing.

The whole Degas bronze situation is annoying, and I thought I was done with it in 2010 when I wrote about reading about Norton Simon’s bulk purchase of the modèle bronzes, which had been forgotten in the foundry after being used to cast 1400 “authentic” bronzes. [The modèles were master bronzes cast from wax figures cast from gelatine molds made from Degas’ wax/clay/detritus originals. They were used to make the molds from which all the authorized, posthumous editions were cast. So all the authorized Degas bronzes are technically surmoulages, copies of copies, or molds of molds. Of molds.]

But then a set of plasters turned up in another foundry, and those were supposedly made from Degas’ figures before his death or immediately after. And now those plasters, or rather, the bronzes cast from them, are trying to elbow their way into the market as closer to Degas’ originals. Or whatever the bronze edition equivalent is. A letter to the editors of ARTNews claps back at an earlier article questioning the history and validity of the undocumented molds and casts. [It was written by art historian Patricia Failing, who has been publishing on Degas’ bronzes since 1979.]

This second batch of bronzes appeared in 2010, and has been the subject of scholarly and curatorial skepticism ever since. I was happy to sit this out until the guy complaining to ARTNews, the guy with the exclusive rights to market the unexplained batch, dissed the original batch like this: “Such second-generation bronzes, known as surmoulages, are not usually accepted in the art world. Why? Because casting a bronze from another bronze would be like making a photograph from another photograph—a generation of details would be lost.”

First off, these earlier bronzes have certainly been accepted by the art world—as the authorized products of Degas’ heirs. Their relationship to Degas’ intentions has been the subject of study and debate for a hundred years. But to diss them by saying they’re “like making a photograph from another photograph”? Don’t threaten me with a good time, buddy. I have been pulled off the sidelines and onto the field, for Team Surmoulages.

We Need To Talk About Purdue’s Newly Donated Degas Sculptures [artnews]
Letter to the Editor: What the ‘Inconsistencies’ Among Degas Bronze Casts Really Mean, According to a Sculpture Specialist [Who Sells Them] [artnews]
Previously: How To Make A Degas Bronze Modèle