The Whitney Museum of American Art

I visited The Whitney Museum of American Art (http://whitney.org/) when we went to New York in July. I was curious to know about this museum since Dustyn mentioned it quite often in class. The Whitney focuses mostly on 20th and 21st century American art. We first went to pay respect to the World Trade Center Memorial Park.  Then the Whitney!

One of the reasons I wanted to go to the Whitney was to see the display by Yayoi Kusama's Fireflies on the Water.  However, we got there around noon, and our appointment time was 4.  We had other plans that day in New York, so I couldn't see it.


I did get to see other permanent displays and special displays.  One floor was covered by all the signs for the presidential elections.  Another floor was full of video displays.  I assume all these are installation arts.  One floor was closed to public since it was under preparation for another display by a Japanese artist (!).

The Whitney is going to move to near the Highline in 2015. http://www.thehighline.org/  Hope I can visit the new Whitney!

Museums in 2012: Crystal Bridges

This summer of 2012, I visited Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum, SF MOMA, De Young Museum, Legion Museum, and Asian Art Museum.  If I count San Antonio museum I visited in March, so far I have visited seven major museums this year.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art http://crystalbridges.org/ was established by Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton.  It has a good range of American art, from colonial, 19th century, modern, and contemporary art.  The exhibition rooms are well divided by gallery bridges and little libraries.  It is amazing she and her group collected so many arts.  In most museums each room displays arts donated by a certain family, but not entire museum like Crystal Bridges.

It is wonderful to have a world class museum in Arkansas.  Hopefully it will include artists from Arkansas, too.  Somehow the museum buildings didn't fit in the surrounding nature.  When the materials used for the building weather out, they might look nice.  The pond looks nice in the brochure, but not so great in the drought; it just looked dirty.  It is their policy not to use chemical to clean the water.  Fountains might do some magic, though.

The guide was really knowledgeable and friendly. 

Higashiyama Kaii

Another Mt. Fuji by Higashiyama Kaii (1906-1999).  He was a traditional Japanese artist, but he did study in Germany 1n 1933.  While studying at the University of Tokyo University of the Arts, he won Nitten, the highest art competition in Japan.

He is known for simplicity.  The picture below is one of the most famous ones.



I do like his Mt. Fuji.  It looks so simple and almost identical on both left and right sides.  But the clouds that occupy lower half of the picture make us think the mountain top is just a part of Mt. Fuji; we Japanese know this part of Mt. Fuji is only top 10 % of the mountain.  Mt. Fuji looks transparent in his drawing; to him Mt. Fuji is not a massive object. This painting reminds me of why we have so many legends based on Mt. Fuji.  One of the old sayings is that Fuji means immortal; people worshipped Mt. Fuji for its immortality.  Kaii's white does show this immortality.
Higashiyama Kaii also likes blue.

Frame

This is my first time to make a picture frame.  I didn't know it involved so much muscle work; buying materials (it was not heavy, but they were so long it was awkward to carry them), cutting them (thank you, Dustyn), using wood glue (I have never used so much wood glue!), staple gun (this is my first time to use it), and nails and a hammer.  American tools are made for big people with big hands and feet, so I have so much trouble using them.  Of course, I am just too small for American tools!

Because I could not hole the staple gun properly, each wood part moved slightly; as a result, all the edges didn't match in spite of the fact that Dustyn cut them so precisely.  I just hope I can put the canvas.  Sean said putting the canvas much harder.  I will train my muscle in two days.

Ota Akira: Artist who draws Mt. Fuji

Since my theme for the rest of this semester is Mt. Fuji, I decided to find artists who have used Mt. Fuji as their theme.  There are many well-known artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai, but I wanted to find more well-known artists.

Born in 1936 in Shizuoka Prefecture where Mt. Fuji can be seen, Akira Ota has been drawing pictures of Mt. Fuji with watercolor.  He received many awards.  His depiction of Mt. Fuji is very dream like with lots of bright colors.  It is very interesting how he perceives Mt. Fuji.  I like "full moon and Mt. Fuji."  The contrast of yellow moon, blue/maroon trees, gray surface of the mountain, and the sky with full of stars is amazingly beautiful.  Swirling clouds give a quiet and bright night a movement.  I like this picture!



http://www.kaiga-afuto.com/contents2.html

Oil painting

It has been a couple of years since I learned oil painting so I forgot a lot of techniques that I had learned.  I could spend a lot of time in painting skulls, so I felt OK about the result; I feel I could have done better if I had spent more time even though I was not really interested in skulls.  Skulls would be the last object of my choice to paint; however, while I was painting them, they became just a simple object, not a living or dead being.  When I look at skulls, painted or photoed, they look alive and breathing, making me feel very uncomfortable.  I think that is why I don't like to look at the skulls.  It was quite a challenge to put aside this uneasy feeling and to try to paint, but it was very interesting to try to paint the shades of gray.

As for the quick paintings of the sunset in two methods, it was much harder since I really didn't have enough time.  First I painted all in one color and tried to add different colors.  When I was painting the base color, I thought it was much lighter and close to the color I wanted, but when it was dry it became pretty dark.  As a result when I tried to paint different colors, I couldn't really paint over the base color.  The second one is the same.  I thought the paint was dry the next day, but it was not really dry, so I had a strange mix of colors several times. 

The sunset oil painting project reminded me of my struggle to learn watercolor last semester.  I had to try many times to produce colors that I wanted.  I wasted many papers as I could not really paint over watercolor.  But I learned to like watercolor.  Hope I get used to oil painting soon.

Art in San Antonio

I visited San Antonio from February 9 to 12. I have been there several times, but this time I became very interested in their art.

JW Marriott where we stayed had southwest decorations everywhere. I was most interested in the color combinations of the floor carpet.   Blue, orange and tan are the main colors, representing sky, sand, and flowers (or sunrise/sunset).  Each color changes from light to dark with a few green and brown shapes here and there in a sutle way.  Somehow I was very impressed by the way the colors were mixed.  Shades of blue even reminded me of Hiroshige's blue.  Then I saw a sunset which was just like this carpet.

The hotel was also decorated with pottery; I learned the pottery is called Mexican Talavera pottery.  Talavera pottery was introduced to Mexico by Spanish people in the 16th century. About the same time the Spanish came to Japan and introduced their art to the Japanese.  By the way the first western people who came to Japan was the Portuguese in 1492.  Then Spanish and the Dutch.  As Talavera was Mexicanized, so are all the European potteries in Japan.  However, at the museums in Japan we can often find pottery which is just like original Talavera.

Japanese pottery is influenced by Chinese and Korean pottery, especially Korean when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea in the 16th century.  They brought back Korean pottery makers so that they would make Korean pottery for them.  Korean pottery makers were forced to stay in several places in Japan, and eventually influenced Japanese pottery.

Hokusai and Hiroshige influenced the impressionists in the west.  Any culture does not stand by itself; they influence each other producing better art.

I also visited San Antonio Museum of Art. It has an extensive collection from around the world.  Their permanent collections include Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, Asian art, Latin American art, American paintings and contemporary art.  I really enjoyed visiting this museum although I always wonder how these precious items from all over the world have become their permanent collections.  I wonder who donated them, how these people (foundation) used to own them. Did they purchase them while they were in foreign countries?  Right after the WWII when Japan was suffering from poverty, a lot of art items were sold by Japanese to Americans.  I have seen some of these arts at several museums. I enjoy visiting museums, but I cannot but think how and why these foreign art items have come to the possession of the museums.