Two days to go

If you're in New York you have until Monday to catch Van Gogh and Expressionism at the Neuegalerie. One of the first pieces in the exhibition is an 1890 rendition of the Farms hear Auvers that could practically have been signed by Cezanne. Then there are twin boat paintings, one a small ink study and the other the final oil on canvas that are sheer joy to behold. Soon after we are brutally thrown out of this mood and into the Klimts from the permanent collection. And somehow the moods of the Klimts just doesn't match the rest of the show. In all the shows I've seen over time at the Neuegalerie the Klimts seem to interrupt this one the most. But we move on to other things in the smaller room. There is lots of color and beauty in the exhibition even in the non-Van Gogh bits. But something about it just doesn't hang together. I walked away perplexed and trying to put my finger on why it doesn't work. If the purpose of the show is to display the Noldes and Kirschners and Schmidt-Rottluffs that mirror Van Gogh's style it achieves it. But there is something strangely unsatisfactory about walking through the rooms and rooms of mirrors, I felt there was no movement. The mad red splats of paint the "others" used often felt heavy. While so many works worked individually and mirrored the Van Gogh influence they remained static. Maybe the pieces were all too obvious. Though I don't think it was the obviousness that bothered me. I am agreed with the New York Times article (link in this blog heading) that one of the more successful couplings is Schiele's bedroom (see above) beside Van Gogh's. The real problem was that seeing the paintings that had been influenced by Van Gogh I felt I wasn't seeing anything essential by the "other" painter (whether the "other" was Nolde, or Kirschner). Schiele can hold his own anywhere but Kirschner would have been dwarfed but for his woodcuts at the very end of the exhibition. I could not help but think of the recent exhibition of German portraits from the 1920s at the Met that had been brilliantly curated or for that matter a Kirschner exhibition a few years back that came from London to NY. Despite the curatorial hiccups the works here are lovely so line up in the sun tomorrow!

On a bleaker note I'm reading Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi. Despite claims that this 1940s novel was an earth-shaking event I'd not heard of him before. I'm wondering if his legacy in India is less known than in Pakistan where he went after Partition. Ali quotes sublime passages of Urdu shayiri in the book. Delhi is palpable though the few mentions ever made of non-Muslim Delhi are condescending or snide or bitter. But it doesn't really matter since we don't often get to read from this perspective about Delhi. One of his characters Mir Saheb reflects upon the illness of his mistress: His wife was there, no doubt; and so were the children. But the world they lived in was a domestic world. There was no beauty in it and no love.

A minute at the MoMA

Richard Serra is on at the MoMA. I first saw his Torqued Ellipses at DIA in 1997. On view at the MoMA are several new pieces including Sequence, Band, and Torqued Torus Inversion. Speaking of Band, Serra said: I wanted the speed of skin to configure the volumes as you walk them. I leave you to decipher that one.

Serra is an artist who has generated much controversy over the years. After a public hearing his commissioned work Tilted Arc which was installed at the Federal Plaza was voted to be removed by a jury. It was carted off to a scrap metal yard. Serra might well be right that art is not democratic and it's function is not to be pleasing. But Serra's work emphasizes experience over image; that combined with the costs of these huge pieces (Tilted Spheres by Serra at Toronto's Pearson Airport apparently cost $1.5 million) and their dimensions which necessitate the use of public spaces for their installation means tension is inevitable. On the one hand Serra has said that art is not for the public. On the other, the idea of infra-structural sculpture weighing 70 tonnes is hard to imagine outside of the public realm. These ideas in the end just might not be compatible.

The MoMA has put out a beautiful free pamphlet of Serra's work and the photos of his massive swirling shapes of steel as I look at them right now far exceed the experience of them earlier today*. This would probably be problematic for Serra who wants to get away from "the imagistic value of an object." The "psychological impact" of the sculpture which is what his work is about was unfortunately a little paltry for me.

*My moment at the MoMA was rather these two shadow lines of space and negative space.

Fondation Henri-Cartier Bresson

The Fondation Henri-Cartier Bresson is located in a small impasse in Paris near the Gare de Montparnasse. Following my visit there yesterday I've added it to my list of favorite museums in Paris that include the Rodin and Maillol museums and the Musée de la vie romantique. These museums all share one thing in common: they are small and personal. They afford you the physical space and quiet needed to really spend time with an œuvre d'art. The FHCB is like these other museums except for its modern accents. The art deco roof as the director pointed out to me is all glass and luminous.

Each year the foundation holds a competition and names a laureate. This year's winner Fazal Sheikh is also a MacArthur fellow. The foundation presents (until 26 August 2007) two series of Shaikh's work "Moksha" and "Ladli."

Moksha portrays widows in modern day Vrindavan and bears testimonies to their lives. The photographs are accompanied by text that presents these women's stories. Sheikh's touch is both light and tender at the same time. The photos are intimist, a little like being inside one of Bonnard's domestic scenes (minus the color). They suspend time. Lingering over the image of one old lady after another one senses the weight and thickness of their lives, the passing of time that marks their faces. It is this aspect of Sheikh's photography and engagement that reveals the touch of a master.

© Fazal Sheikh from Moksha

The subject of Sheikh's series Ladli is no easier, bearing witness as it does to the status of the girl child. In this series, exhibited in another hall, Sheikh's narrative texts take on a different distance. He plumbs into the causes and deep-rooted sociological and psychological reasons that contribute to the suffering of these children. The stories are always hard but Sheikh's photographs allow us to see these young girls and women without the infliction of a third person.

Fazal Sheikh's works will be on display at the Pace McGill Gallery from October 18 -November 24, 2007