Kenneth Snelson: World Trade Center With Jersey Shore (1980)

I beg your indulgence.

In order to present Kenneth Snelson’s full image, World Trade Center and Jersey Shore here, I needed to turn it on its side. 

I first saw this photograph in December at Gagosian Madision Avenue’s  exhibition of works from Robert Rauschenberg’s art collection.

It was a remarkable show – a real journey through the artist’s mind -- his enlivened, enlightened eye and other five senses.

I was planning on writing a survey of the collection’s high points, but  procrastinated; I thought it would be a boring (not to mention self-indulgent) imposition on readers planning their own holiday highlights.

But thinking about the show, I kept coming back in my mind's eye  to this remarkable photograph taken by the famous abstract sculptor and tensegrity/floating compression inventor Kenneth Snelson in 1980, using a 16” Cirkut camera.

I continued returning to the picture for its formal beauty, its "ordinary grandeur," and the 100% accurate memories it recalls of a world which was my world, Robert Rauschenberg's world, and the world of millions of Manhattan and metropolitan New Jersey residents: the way that world looked and we thought was always supposed to look.

Snelson has written: “My art is concerned with nature in its primary aspect, the patterns of physical forces in three dimensional space.”

His sculpture shows that “mission statement” in real time and spaces, but it’s fascinating and surprising to see it clearly and elegiacally revealed here in frozen time and space.


For me, this photograph is so real and beautiful, I could weep.  It makes Snelson’s other impressive work with the motorized Cirkut (an Eastman Kodak camera I remember from summer camp photos when a hundred or so campers and counselors would be lined up on several rows of risers, one sprinting kid always appearing at both ends of the top row) seem superfluous.

Kenneth Snelson, World Trade Center With Jersey Shore, 1980,  15.5 " X 74  ", Silver print, 16 " Cirkut camera 


Dedicated to Caroline on her birthday.

(Ideal) Madison Avenue Saturday Excursion: Exhibition of the Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg at Gagosian Gallery

Note:  It is difficult to imagine a more splendid way to spend a Saturday than visiting and viewing this exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery at 980 Madison Avenue.  The gallery press release which follows is incredibly enticing and promises a view into a superb collection of paintings and sculptures curated for his own pleasure and, I would imagine, with at least a slight nod toward posterity, by a master modern artist.

          With this exhibition, a posthumously published Robert Rauschenberg, the art and communication continues (mostly) unabated.

Andy Warhol:  Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1967)

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Gagosian Gallery, in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, presents “The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg,” selections from Rauschenberg's personal art collection. This is the first time that Rauschenberg’s collection has been publicly presented and that an artist’s collection has been exhibited at the gallery. It follows the acclaimed introductory survey exhibition of Rauschenberg’s own work presented at Gagosian West 21st Street in 2010. Proceeds from the collection help fund the endowment established for the Foundation’s philanthropic activities.

        An artist’s collection is a rare resource, charged with anecdotes of how and why and where works were acquired, as well as whether they represented epistemic interests, or they were used for reference in the creation of new works. This fascinating exhibition provides special insight into Rauschenberg’s broader inspirations as well as his friendships and affinities, the causes he supported, and his personal philanthropic initiatives.

Marcel Duchamp:  

Above: Bottlerack (detail of base) (1960 Duchamp-signed replica readymade)

Below:  Bottlerack (full view)(1920 Duchamp-signed replica readymade for Suzanne Duchamp)

          A game-changing figure in post-war American art, Rauschenberg bridged all traditional boundaries between medium and genre and forever changed the relationship between artist, image, and viewer. He quickly identified as his driving energies and motivations the incidental, the immediate, and the perception of a presence greater than his own artistic virtuosity. Rauschenberg truly believed in the communicative and transformative potential of art and throughout his life he devoted his creative energies equally to artistic and philanthropic activities. In 1970 he founded Change, Inc. to assist artists financially in emergency situations, and in the 1980s he inaugurated ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange), a pattern-breaking, collaborative, global exhibition project that forged entirely new artistic territory in international dialogue and peace-keeping. In 1990 he formed the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to benefit and promote awareness of the causes and groups close to his heart. Activities included educational art programs, environmental and humanitarian campaigns, as well as grants and direct assistance to artistic collaborations. Since Rauschenberg’s death in 2008, the Foundation is responsible for maintaining this legacy as well as the expansion of philanthropic activities consistent with his personal view that “Art can change the world.”

Jasper Johns, Map, 1960


          In addition to his philanthropic spirit and his championing of positive change, Rauschenberg was also acknowledged to be one of the most generous and inquisitive artists of his time, passionately engaged in, and supportive of, the art of others. Over a lifetime, he acquired through exchanges, gifts, and purchases, an astonishingly rich collection of artworks by seminal forbears (Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Edweard Muybridge); a wide circle of friends, including choreographers and composers (Trisha Brown, John Cage, John Chamberlain, Merce Cunningham, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Jean Tinguely, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Susan Weil); and younger colleagues (David Byrne, Robert Mapplethorpe, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha).

Ed Ruscha:  Romeo, With Contraceptive Ghost (1980)

          Some of these artworks—such as Duchamp’s Bottlerack (1960), Cage’s original scores, Marden’s Choice (1967), and Ruscha’s Romeo, With Contraceptive Ghost (1980), represent milestones in recent contemporary art history; others, such as Warhol’s Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1967), John Chamberlain’s jewel-like sculpture Homer (1960) and Trisha Brown’s vigorous notations are of a different order, intimate and highly personal, though no less potent. Whether masterpiece or token in the general order of things, Rauschenberg ascribed equal importance to all and this exhibition of the art with which he surrounded himself seeks to reflect the breadth, openness and sincerity of his vision.

          A catalogue of selected works from the collection is currently being prepared by Gagosian Gallery and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg in his Pearl Street studio, NY, ca. 1956
© Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York

Robert Rauschenberg Exhibition At Inverleith House, Edinburgh -- July 27 to October 2, 2011

Inverleith House, Robert Rauschenberg Botanical Vaudeville, Installation view. Photos by Michael Wolchover. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH.-      

      "The American artist Jasper Johns (B.1935) once said of Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) that he had invented more than any artist since Picasso. Rauschenberg has altered the cultural landscape and continues to exert a profound influence on contemporary artists. Robert Rauschenbeg: Botanical Vaudeville is the first museum exhibition devoted to the artist to take place in the UK in thirty years – and it features thirty seven works made between 1982 and 1998.

Freeze Glut, 1989

           During this time, Rauschenberg was exploring the reflective, textural, sculptural and thematic effects of metal, glass and other reflective surfaces in several series of works. All are represented here, and the paintings and sculptures on display vary from the highly-polished glamorous metallic works from the Shiner and Borealis series that celebrate energy and motion, to the Kabal American Zephyr and Gluts series which represent Rauschenberg’s fascination with the discarded object. He once stated: I think painting is more like the real world when it is made out of the real world. These works in particular benefit from being shown in natural light which is such a feature of exhibitions at Inverleith House, revealing their true colour – enhanced by multiple reflections of the viewer and the Garden which became part of the work.

Le Coon Glut, 1986

          Rauschenberg has his first one-man show at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York exactly sixty years ago (in 1951) and he was the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Bienniale, in 1964 (one year after his first retrospective exhibition at The Jewish Museum in New York, at the age of 38). Whilst Rauschenberg is justifiably known for his ground-breaking work of the 1950s and the ‘60s’: in particular his Combines and collaborations with the composer John Cage and the dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham, his work from the period represented here is relatively little known and never before been shown in the UK.

Crossings (Borealis), 1990

          The exhibition title Botanical Vaudeville is that given to one of the works (from 1991) displayed in the last room. The documentary film Robert Rauschenberg – creative Genius (American Masters), directed by Karen Thomas (2004, 60mins) is being screened continuously throughout the exhibition in the lower-ground floor gallery (acess via the lift). Botanical Vaudeville follows previous exhibitions at Inverleith House by Rauschenberg’s close friends and collaborators; Cy Twombly (2002), John Cage and Merce Cunningham (2007).
 

Dylaby, 1962 (Detail of work preceding exhibition)

     The exhibition has been curated by David White and Ealan Wingate, with project co-ordination by Thomas Buehler. We are indebted to the Rauschenberg Stuido, New York and Gagosian Gallery for their generous assistance in making the exhibition possible."



NOTE:  As if one needed an excuse for wishing to visit Edinburgh, this exhibition (Inverleith House press release reprinted above) of later period Robert Rauschenberg certainly provides one.  What I have always liked about Rauschenberg is a sort of complete contrariness in the work -- especially in the art following the "classic" paintings and sculptures of the 1950s and 1960s  --  which dares viewers to dislike it for reasons varying from (apparent) ugliness to obviousness to obscurity.  Rauschenberg never failed to get under my skin, however, and always provoked delayed strong reactions that kept me thinking about the work. Avoiding a great risk confronting famous and successful artists, Rauschenberg  never degenerated into turning out "product".  Seeing  the Inverleith House works reproduced here, I wonder how I would have reacted if I had seen each of them when they were originally exhibited two decades ago?  Quite differently, I imagine, and I find that to be a positive and uplifting quality characteristic of Rauschenberg.  Interpreting art, including Rauschenberg's work, which is always a busy field of signals, is a perpetual challenge and pleasure.  Yesterday morning I read some extremely confident, but to me peculiar, interpretations of some of the most famous Rauschenberg pieces that seemed to re-render them simply as proto-gay rights roadmaps.  These evaluations seemed forced to me, and to rob the works of poetry and depth, but at least the critics took clear positions and set up points of  argument along with their advocacy. 

              The extremely beautiful photograph below shows Royal Terns on Captiva Island, Florida, where Robert Rauschenberg made his home.  We've wanted to visit Captiva for years (after we were kidnapped in Mexico and removed exotic travel from our travel slate, we seriously considered moving there) and I hope we will someday soon.  Doesn't it look splendid?  (Click to enlarge.)

Life Is White

 Robert Ryman, Untitled, 1965, Oil on linen

 

      Seeing another “shades of white” morning from my window in Pennsylvania yesterday, I was happy to hear a family member suggest delaying the trip north by a day.  

      It isn’t a difficult drive to Tuxedo Park, but in winters like the one we’re having it does mean a journey of several hours through expanses of uninterrupted white space at gradually ascending elevations and watching the snowmass increase, while waiting to enter a cold house in a lovely, but lonely, place where no one lives and there’s nothing to do in winter.  That doesn't exactly uplift the heart and neither does the purpose of the trip, which is to make sure that the new furnace is working properly. What if it isn’t? 

Kasmir Malevich, White on White, 1918, Oil on canvas

      We’ll drive up early today , but I expect I will be so sleepy  during the drive (and Sunday mornings are the worst for terrestrial radio programming) that I will be able to ignore the white plains and try to dream about colors.  (Important reader note:  Caroline will be at the wheel. ) 

      The white has actually gotten to my brain, I think.  Yesterday, I missed two significant things that were said to me, which apparently (according to my family) seemed to command my full attention at the time.  This occasioned much laughter, but my inattentiveness sort of disturbs me, especially since in retrospect both subjects, while mundane (one involved instructions for slicing our sad, out-of-season tomatoes) were ones that interested me.   

       My mental state actually reminds exactly of the day in 1978 when I recruited two college friends me to help me paint our first nice apartment, a large corner two-bedroom at 149 Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights.  It took about 12 hours to paint the entire place white and by the time we were finished and I headed to the subway for the trip back to our old apartment in Manhattan, I was literally walking into walls because I was totally white-paint-blind.  As I recall, the feeling of disorientation and confusion carried over into my dreams that night and part of the next day.

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased DeKooning Drawing, 1953, Pencil on paper

      I could go on with white stories, but I won’t, except to say that what originally brought this all to mind was my desire to post an Alan Davidson recipe for cod, which I don’t currently have access to. (It is in Tuxedo.) It is included in his great North Atlantic Seafood collection, and in it the intrepid Scottish diplomat  and aquaculturist recounts the circumstances of a dinner cooked for him in an Oslo university  laboratory by a renowned Norwegian chemist/gourmet.  The centerpiece of the meal was a traditional, but unusual, Norwegian cod preparation, and the white-coated (as I recall) scientist meticulously prepared this highly important (and most white) North Atlantic foodfish using a batterie de cuisine consisting of laboratory heating equipment, glass measures, beakers, etc. It's a wonderful story and a great recipe. 

Robert Ryman, Ledger, 1982, Enamelac paint on fiberglass, aluminum and wood

      I’ll save that one for another time, but in the meantime I have several other fairly white recipes to share, these taken from Davidson’s later volume of essays, A Kipper With My Tea (London, Macmillan, 1990), which I highly recommend.  It is a short, beautifully written collection containing  Davidson’s observations on a wide range of interesting, often surprising subjects, e.g., marmalade making by men.  Unlike any number of writers now overcrowding this wildly overcommercialized, trivialized field, one always feels Davidson’s heart , soul,  joy for living and respect for life in his writing, and is uplifted by his judicious Scottish intellect, sense of circumspection and his economical use of language.  I suspect that if the British Foreign Office had ever been penetrated by Wikileaks, they would be hard-pressed to find any garrulous, embarrassing revelations in Alan Davidson’s diplomatic correspondence and memoranda.   They might easily wonder at the number of fish references, however, and quickly get the codebreakers to work. 

 Fiskepudding Med Reksaus

Norwegian Fish Pudding With Shrimp Sauce

In Norway there is a special kind of shop called fiskemat, where you can buy fish forcemeat, etc. ready prepared.  Once you have it, you can go on to make either fish pudding, as here, or fiskeboller (fish balls).

     The amount of shrimp sauce provided by Norwegians is generous.  You could make less.

2 cups raw fish flesh, free of skin and bone, e.g., haddock, pollack, saithe

1 tsp salt

1 tsp potato flour

½ tsp mace

¼ tsp ground ginger

30 g (1 oz) butter

½ litre (1 pint) single cream, plus

2 tbsp fish stock (optional)

More butter for greasing the dish

For the shrimp sauce:

450 g (1 lb) cooked shrimp meat, chopped in small pieces

60 g (2 oz) butter

4 tbsp flour

450 ml (1 pint) milk

3 tbsp single cream

Salt and white pepper

1 ½ tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp finely chopped dill

Combine all the ingredients for the fish forcemeat, except the cream, and blend them until the butter has “disappeared”.  Continue blending, adding the single cream (with the fish stock, if used) in installments.  The result will be very light, and is to be used without delay.

      Grease a Pyrex or similar dish of suitable size and pour the forcemeat into it.  Tap the sides to help it settle down.  Then cover it with greaseproof paper, place it in a baking tin half full of boiling water, put this in a preheated oven (355 degrees F, 180 degrees C, gas mark 4) and leave it for between 45 and 60 minutes.  (The water may need to be topped up with more boiling water.)  Test with a knitting needle; when it goes into the pudding and comes out dry and clean, the dish is ready.    Let it stand for a few minutes after taking it out, and pour off any excess liquid before you serve it.  (There is no need to go through the business of inverting it on to a platter if the dish it was cooked in can be brought to table; always a relief, for me anyway.)

            Meanwhile, you have made the shrimp sauce, thus.  Melt the butter in a pan, remove from the heat and stir in the flour with a whisk.  Add the milk and cream, then cook the mixture over a low heat, whisking all the while, until it is smooth and fairly thick.  Now season with salt and white pepper, stir in the lemon juice, add the chopped shrimp, and let the whole heat through. Finally, add the dill and serve the sauce with the pudding.

Partan Bree

Crab Soup

Partan is the Scots word for crab, and bree means stock, broth or, as here, soup.  Recipes vary, but this one is my favourite.  It does not stray far in ingredients and method from that in the famous Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie (1909), but the quantities are reduced and advantage is taken of the blender, which she did not possess.

      If you prefer to use a pack of frozen crabmeat (500g/1 lb), with the white and brown meat conveniently separated into two sachets, use 120 g (1/4 lb) of each, keeping the rest for other purposes.

1 dressed crab

75 g (3 oz) rice

550 ml (1 pint) milk

550 ml (1 pint) fish or chicken stock

125 ml (1/4 pint) single cream

Salt and white pepper

A dash of anchovy essence

Chopped parsley

Set the rice to cook, until soft, in the milk.

    

      Meanwhile, pick out, chop into fair-size chunks and reserve the white meat of the crab.  Blend the brown meat with the rice and milk until smooth.

      Put the blended mixture in a large saucepan over low heat and gradually stir in the stock and the seasonings (careful with the salt if your stock is already salty), together with the white crabmeat.  Bring it almost to a boil, but not quite.  Just before serving, stir in the cream.

      Strew the chopped parsley in the bottom of the soup tureen or individual bowls, and pour the soup over it.

     Finally, this last one looks absolutely great:

Krabbenbrot

Shrimps on Rye Bread With A Fried Egg

This classic shrimp dish of the German North Sea coast.  If you wish to be really authentic, eat it with a cup of strong tea, sweetened with large lumps of sugar candy.

200 g (7 oz) cooked North Sea shrimps

4 slices dark rye bread

60 g (3 oz) butter

4 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter the slices of bread and spread them thickly with shrimps. Heat the remaining butter in a frying pan and fry the eggs in this, sunny side up.  Put one fried egg on top of each helping, season with salt and pepper and serve.