An art lover's must read

If you love anything about art, this is a fascinating excursion into the wild world of art.

The Devil in the Gallery: How Scandal, Shock, And Rivalry Shaped The Art World (2021) by Noah Charney is full of outrageous art, with detailed descriptions and reproductions in black and white and color, most from Wikipedia.

Nothing is sacred here. All art's scandals and controversies are included which build more traffic. (Natch)

And the more controversial, the better: “It is difficult to think of any artist who was involved in a scandal that proved their absolute ruin both in the short and long term.” (P. 45)

The book spans about five centuries, from Caravaggio in the 16th century to contemporary artists (Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei and more).

Caravaggio was a murderer which has not affected his long-term following:

“Being a bad person, even a murderer, does not seem to negatively impact an artist’s legacy.” (P. 44) 

And he wasn't the only one. 

Performance and body art which desecrates the body to shock and draw attention is nothing new. Hang yourself with nails, float in human waste. Invite onlookers to use tools to hurt the artist. It’s all been tried before.

Many of the depictions are too extreme to describe here.

What’s new?

“Shock has become the new norm.” (P. 87)

Washington's Museum of the Bible is included on page 127 about stolen art.

Charney, the author of The Art Thief and other books, founded the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, and has been a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize. He has taught at Yale, Brown, and American universities. 

It's a must read, must see book! How I wish an institution would mount an exhibition! Enough of the exclamation marks, but I can't resist.

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

I go da da for Da Da

George Grosz (1893-1959), The Guilty One Remains Unknown, 1919, pen and Italian ink drawing, collage on cardboard, the Art Institute of Chicago

What is dada?  It's everything in the name and...nothing! The creators desired it to implode and illustrate the absurdity of it all, with mechanical and complex machinery void of humanity but showcasing gibberish, confusion, and assault on everything modern in the time after the first World War. 

Early on Marcel Duchamp called Dadaism “anti-art.” Later, various artists argued over the origination of the name, more than one claiming credit.

NPR's Susan Stamberg quotes George Grosz who called Dada, "the organized use of insanity to express contempt for a bankrupt world."

The cover of Dadaism is a reproduction of George Grosz's, Republican Automatons, 1920, watercolor and pencil on paper, Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.

I loved the book, Dadaism by Dietmar Elger, published by Taschen (2022) which describes the movement in an introduction of several pages, followed by features on 12 of the most notable dadaists of the period between 1916 and 1924.

The movement is complex, confusing, and baffling, but it whets my appetite for the mysterious. 

I gathered through the pages that despite cultural and world upheavals, the artists still had fun while waging art war, concentrating on the "lost world," and the dissolution of systems, using art as their means to take out their anger, frustrations, and bitterness at what was happening around them.

Less than 100 pages, the book is printed on heavy coated stock, filled with full page color illustrations and on the facing page, a brief description about the artist of the featured work and his or her other renderings. (One woman, Hannah Höch, is included.) 

One of the two-page spreads with thumbnail photo of artist, Hannah Höch, a brief description of her life and works, and a sample of her art on the facing page which shows a detail of her Da Dandy, 1919, photomontage, private collection

In 2006 a Dada exhibition opened at the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and then traveled to Washington and the National Gallery of Art when it stayed for three months, enjoyed by a crowd of 175,000. Afterwards, it moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Some of the artists found in the book and the exhibition are Duchamp, Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray.

Multiple examples of their works are presented in Dadaism with those of Hans Arp, Johannes Baader, Johannes Theodor Baargeld, Max Ernst, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield,  and Kurt Schwitters.

For the 2006 National Gallery show, the Smithsonian carried an article about Dada, including this: "And for all its zaniness, the movement would prove to be one of the most influential in modern art, foreshadowing abstract and conceptual art, performance art, op, pop and installation art. But Dada would die out in less than a decade and has not had the kind of major museum retrospective it deserves, until now." 

Surrealism was its offspring.

Dietmar Elger (b. 1958), the author, has written many books about modern art and is considered one of the (if not "the") top experts on Gerhard Richter. Elger studied at the University of Hamburg and received his doctorate with a thesis on the art houses created by Schwitters.

Read more about dadaism at Artland Magazine. 

patricialesli@gmail.com

Women's Museum hosts art book fair July 7

One of the titles at the upcoming Art Book Fair at the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Attention:  art book lovers! Save the date; July 7, 12 - 5 p.m. for the third annual DC Art Book Fair to be presented in the Great Hall of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

More than 40 male and female artists, chosen by six judges, will have their independently published works available for browsing and sale at the family-friendly event. The formats range from zines (?) to books to comics to prints and more.

It's free admission day, too, which, since it's the museum's monthly no-charge "Community Day," means guests get six for the price of none!

At a DC Art Book Fair in the Great Hall at the National Museum of Women in the Arts/Photo by Emily Haight, NMWA

The collection and exhibition galleries of the museum's current shows will all be open for viewing including Ursala von Rydingsvard,  More is More: Multiples, and in the library, Power in My Hand: Women Poets, Women Artists, and Social Change.

And, don't forget what's outdoors just beyond the museum's entrance: the New York Avenue Sculpture Project, the only public art space with changing installations by contemporary women artists in Washington, the NMWA is proud to claim. 

The DC Art Book Collective organized the fair.

What: DC Art Book Fair

When: Sunday, July 7, 2019. Usual open hours at the museum are Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Sundays, 12 - 5 p.m.

Where: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005
 
For more information: 202-783-5000 or visit nmwa.org.

Metro stations: Metro Center (exit at 13th Street and walk two blocks north) or walk a short distance from McPherson Square.

patricialesli@gmail.com