George Condo: Mental States

George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum

I won't beat around the bush: George Condo's survey at the New Museum doesn't live up to the hype (see also 1, 2).

The portraits hung salon-style on the fourth floor (seen at left) are akin to an ambitious BFA exhibition--the overall effect was impressive until I started examining individual canvases.

A few jewel-like, multi-layered moments of promise stand out, such as the Goya-esque Three-Armed Man (unfortunately, given its placement on the wall and the highly reflective coat of varnish, it was hard to get a good angle to see it),  but overall these paintings are derivative and underworked.  Picasso, Francis Bacon, and yes, the "Old Masters" that Condo so wants to emulate have all done it before, and better.  Backgrounds are unconsidered, often scribbled in with a single color and left that way, pigments are muddy, and brushstrokes careless, even lazy.  (I won't bother to discuss his ill-conceived and forgettable sculpture busts.)  Note to the curators: "prolific" painters should not get a pass when they sacrifice quality.

I felt the same way about many of the canvases on the third floor as well, with the room off of the elevator being the notable exception.  The large multi-figure compositions in this area occasionally share the problems of haphazard strokes and muddy pigments, but given the difference in visual language, they are more aesthetically pleasing.  Some, like Female Figure Composition and Washington Square Park, are as simultaneously delicate and gritty as well-crafted graffiti, and Dancing to Miles, a richly woven tapestry of glowing colors, is a pure delight.  Condo's talents shine brightest in this work--it's a shame that the rest of the exhibition doesn't measure up.

Guerrilla Marketing in the Snow

When my 9 a.m. interview was canceled because of the monumental heaps of fluffy white crystals blanketing the city, I found myself on the Upper East Side with nothing to do.

My friend Kate, who teaches in the neighborhood, was similarly free thanks to Cathie Black's fortuitous announcement, so we decided on the only logical course of action: a snowman-sculpting contest in the Park.

Kate shaped a paired sculpture of a rotund gentleman with walrus mustache and bow tie, holding the leash of an adoring puppy seated at his feet.  I chose to create a Daumier-style caricature bust of an elderly man with a large hooked nose, bushy eyebrows, and sunken cheeks.  Our efforts attracted a crowd of onlookers, eager to snap pictures and admire our handiwork.    

After about 45 minutes, I added my tag to the sculpture, and we went on our merry way.  If by chance this inspired you to google my website, please let me know in the comments section below!  I will mail you a cookie.

Rethinking the Museum Tour

Isamu Noguchi, Core (Cored Sculpture)

This month, I've been participating in a tour training program at the Noguchi Museum under the auspices of Rebecca Herz, head of education for the museum and formerly the senior education manager of Learning Through Art at the Guggenheim.

So far, the focus has been on conducting meaningful tours for adults, a challenging and thought-provoking endeavor. 

During our conversations the majority of the participants, including me, copped to the fact that we generally avoid museum tours when we visit our peer institutions.  Most of us, as artists and art historians familiar with the process of critical analysis, prefer not to be spoon-fed the information that stereotypically constitutes such an encounter.  Our collective goal in the training, therefore, was to explore what a tour informed by current best practices would look like.  In a nutshell, the aim is an open-ended discussion in which the tour guide serves more as a fellow learner and conduit for visitor experiences than as a teacher.

To this end, we've observed tours by expert educators Georgia Krantz at the Guggenheim and Rika Burnham at the Frick Collection, as well as reading articles on the subject by leading voices in the field, including Burnham, George Hein, and Cheryl Mezaros.  Today we had the opportunity to field-test some of our new techniques, albeit for an audience of fellow museum educators.

Personally, I found it tough to break out of "instruction mode," especially after working with children for so long, but I'm confident that practicing these techniques will be worthwhile.