Showing posts with label installations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label installations. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Substantial

Master Heinrich of Constance
The Visitation
ca. 1310-20
painted and gilded walnut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


Master of the Kremsmünster Diptych
Virgin and Child
14th century
ivory
British Museum

Mino da Fiesole
Virgin Annunciate
ca. 1455-60
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Master Pertoldus
Triptych with Scenes from the Passion
1494
silver (partly gilt & partly enamelled), mother of pearl, bone
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Antonio Minello
Mythological Scene
ca. 1525
marble relief
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich

Ottavio Miseroni
Bowl
ca. 1600
carved agate
(enameled-gold mount on rim added in 19th century, imitating early mounts)
British Museum

Master of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
Hercules and Achelous as Bull
ca. 1670
ivory relief
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giuseppe Mazza
Bust of Adonis
1692
marble
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Master of the Agrafe Forgeries
Diptych with Magi and Crucifixion
18th-19th century
ivory relief
(forgery purchased by the Museum in 1856)
British Museum

Master of the Agrafe Forgeries
Group of Apostles
18th-19th century
ivory relief
(forgery purchased by the Museum in 1885)
British Museum

Master of the Agrafe Forgeries
Holy Family
18th-19th century
ivory relief
(forgery purchased by the Museum in 1856)
British Museum

Amedeo Modigliani
Head
1911-12
stone
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Paul Manship
Portrait Study of John Barrymore
ca. 1918
plaster
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Barry MacDonald
Bottiglia Barrocco
1994
rosewood, ebony and brass
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Juan Muñoz
Shadow and Mouth
1996
cast polyester resin figures and wooden furniture
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

David Nash
Pyramid, Sphere, Cube
1997-98
installation
(charcoal drawings on canvas with charred-oak sculptures)
Tate Modern, London

Dwight Marica
Space Object
1999
metal, polystyrene, wax and cable
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

    His body is but a mass of discording humours, composed and elemented by the conspiring influences of superior lights, which, though agreeing for a trace of time, yet can never be made uniform and kept in a just proportion.  To what sickness is it subject unto, beyond those of the other sensible creatures! no part of it being which is not particularly infected and afflicted by some one; nay, every part with many, yea, so many that the masters of that art can scarce number or name them.  So that the life of divers of the meanest creatures of nature hath with great reason by the most wise been preferred to the natural life of man; and we should rather wonder how so fragile a matter should so long endure, than how so soon dissolve and decay. 
    Are the actions of the most part of men much differing from the exercise of the spider, that pitcheth toils and is tapist to prey on the smaller creatures, and for the weaving of a scornful web eviserateth itself many days; which when with much industry finished, a little puff of wind carrieth away both the work and the worker?  Or are they not like the plays of children, or (to hold them at their highest rate) as is a May-game, a masque, or what is more earnest, some study at chess?  Every day we rise and lie down, apparel our bodies and disapparel them, make them sepulchres of dead creatures, weary them and refresh them; which is a circle of idle travails and labours, like Penelope's task, unprofitably renewed.  Some time we are in a chase after a fading beauty; now we seek to enlarge our bounds, increase our treasure, living poorly, to purchase what we must leave to those we shall never see, or haply, to a fool or a prodigal heir.  Raised with the wind of ambition, we court that idle name of honour, not considering how they mounted aloft in the highest ascendant of earthly glory are but tortured ghosts, wandering with golden fetters in glistening prisons, having fear and danger their unseparable executioners in the midst of multitudes rather guarded than regarded.  They whom opaque imaginations and inward thoughtfulness have made weary of the world's eye, though they have withdrawn themselves from the course of vulgar affairs by vain contemplation, curious searches, think their life away, are more disquieted and live worse than others, their wit being too sharp, to give them a true taste of present infelicities and to aggravate their woes; while they of a more shallow and blunt conceit have want of knowledge and ignorance of themselves for a remedy and antidote against all the grievances and encumbrances of life. 

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)

Friday, August 1, 2025

Nauman

Bruce Nauman
Self Portrait as a Fountain
1966
dye transfer print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra


Bruce Nauman
Eye-Level Piece
1966
painted cardboard
Dallas Museum of Art

Bruce Nauman
From Hand to Mouth
1967
wax
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
The true artist helps the world
by revealing mystic truths

1967
neon
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Bruce Nauman
Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square
(Square Dance)

1967-68
film still
Art Institute of Chicago

Elayne Varian
Bruce Nauman
ca. 1969
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Perfect Door - Perfect Odor - Perfect Rodo
1972
neon
Dallas Museum of Art

Bruce Nauman
SUGAR / RAGUS
1973
lithograph and screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gianfranco Gorgoni
Bruce Nauman
1975
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Bruce Nauman
Malice
ca. 1980
neon
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Diamond Africa with Chair Tuned D E A D
1981
steel and cast iron
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
Human Nature / Life Death
1983
neon
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
White Anger - Red Danger - Yellow Peril - Black Death
1984
acrylic, pastel and collage on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
Self Portrait
1990
drypoint
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Installation of Animal Pyramid at Des Moines Art Center
ca. 1990
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Hand Circle
1995
Polaroid
(wax patterns for bronze sculpture)
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Hand Circle
1996
bronze
Indianapolis Museum of Art

from Horace His Art of Poetry, Imitated in English

Should some ill Painter in a wild design
To a mans Head an Horses shoulders joyn,
Or Fishes Tail to a fair Womans Waste,
Or draw the Limbs of many a different Beast, 
Ill matched, and with as motly Feathers drest;
If you by chance were to pass by his Shop;
Could you forbear from laughing at the Fop,
And not believe him whimsical or mad?
Credit me, Sir, that Book is quite as bad,
As worthy laughter, which throughout is filled
With monstrous inconsistencies, more vain and wild
Than sick mens Dreams, whose neither head, nor tail,
Nor any parts in due proportion fall. 

– Horace (65-8 BC), translated by John Oldham (1681)

Saturday, May 10, 2025

Picasso

Pablo Picasso
Le Moulin de la Galette
1900
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York


Pablo Picasso
Le Quatorze Juillet
1901
oil on board
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Pablo Picasso
Bust of a Woman
1907
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
Italian Woman with a Book
1919
etching
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Pablo Picasso
Decoration for Mardi Gras Ball
1923
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Pablo Picasso
Mandolin with Guitar
1924
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Pablo Picasso
The Bird
1928
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Pablo Picasso
La Demoiselle
1929
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
Woman with Yellow Hair
1931
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Pablo Picasso
Reclining Figure
1934
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Pablo Picasso
Head of a Woman (Dora Maar)
1939
oil on panel
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Pablo Picasso
Woman with Green Hat
1939
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Pablo Picasso
Woman with Black Eyes (Dora Maar)
ca. 1941-43
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
Composition
1948
lithograph
Modern Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
The Departure
1950-51
lithograph
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pablo Picasso
Faune et Marin
1956
lithograph
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Pablo Picasso
Déjeuner sur l'Herbe
1962
sandblasted concrete
Modern Museet, Stockholm

More Enterprise

A sideways flicker, half headshake of doubt –
Meaning, confusingly, assent – fills out
The scant wardrobe of gesture I still use.
It clings by habit now. The old strait swank
I came in struts the town on local heirs.
Koula's nephew has the suit she shrank,
Andreas coveted my Roman shoes . . .
Into the grave I'll wear that Yes of theirs. 

– James Merrill (1969)