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| Keith Haring, The Broad |
As I thought about the beginning of a new year, which, as Louis CK
reminds us, “the turning over of one year to another
is a mental construct that bears no more weight than the things that keep us
apart and in competitive categories as human beings,” I realized that I saw
more “good” art than I ate “good” food, in 2016.[1] My travels have become tightly
focused on a mixture of food, art, and culture. Trips that were once fixated
solely on eating as much food as possible have become a careful interweaving
of art museums, subway rides, house tours, coffee shops, graffiti, beer bars, public
sculpture, and restaurants. I plan and plan. I look up opening/closing hours. I
obsess over location and safety. I plot the most efficient route. I want to see
it all, wherever I go.
While finding exceptional food is still
important to me, eating has had less importance and enjoyment since the
election. I haven’t gone down the post-election path of Marc Maron, as much as
I love his apocalyptic and dramatic tone: "As
we head into a fairly guaranteed, dark unknown, I'm becoming a little more
suicidal with my food choices...like fuck it, I'm just gonna eat this shit,
what difference does it make? Why have I been denying myself? What's the point?
Gotta enjoy it now while the joy has so much more of a profound effect in
comforting me."[2] For once, I haven’t been
eating to forget.
While I have eaten some good-looking
food, I didn’t post a photo of food on Instagram until yesterday. Again, since
the election, there is a sense that posting photos of food is unimportant. I
realize it doesn’t matter if I post a
photo of food, on my private Instagram account. Some of my unwillingness to
post what I eat has been at the urging of New
York Magazine’s Senior Art Critic, Jerry Saltz. He loathes food posts,
judging these images as a reflection of our preference to “remain in [our] own
bubbles…and stay immersed in the culture of celebrity and complacency.”[3] Before the election, about
half of my photos were food. My approach has shifted, much in the way that my
travel priorities have evolved. I have posted many more photos of art, landscapes, and facades. As such, I have been stuffing my brain with art, to forget.
Recently, I was asked to explain why I
feel compelled to see art, in person. My answer came down to feeling “something.”
That I could have emotions about something. That I know something so beyond me
exists. That a painting, or sculpture, or installation, can overwhelm me,
confirms that I’m alive. Perhaps most people don’t need confirmation from
external sources to know that they are alive. Yet, I do.
I found a more eloquent explanation for
my feelings about art in a book I read last week: Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle: A Death in the Family. I finished Book 1
in a week. I am deep into Book 2. I know that I’m in it for the duration (six
books). Among the gorgeous details of his daily life are equally dazzling
revelations about writing and art. Somehow, I relate to the mindset, anxieties,
and troubles of a Norwegian, married, father of four. In Book 1, he writes
about viewing a book of paintings by John Constable: “I didn’t
need to do any more than let my eyes skim over them before I was moved to
tears. So great was the impression some of the pictures made on me. Others left
me cold. That was my only parameter with art, the feelings it aroused. The feeling
of inexhaustibility. The feeling of beauty. The feeling of presence. All
compressed into such acute moments that sometimes they could be difficult to
endure. And quite inexplicable.”[4]
This experience, often unsayable, is what I seek out.
In December, I wavered over going to NYC for the day. I had bought a
cheap train ticket a few months prior. I was tired, busy, and felt like I
should have done something else with the day. But, I went. It was clearly the
right choice. I visited six galleries and the Guggenheim. “Filling my brain up”
with art, as Maron always calls it, was the temporary answer to whatever I had
been feeling in my post-election depression. Whereas food may have helped me
before, right now it’s art.
For some reason, I began to think about all the art I had seen in the
last year. I realized that I had the best art year of my life. As I ran through
the list in my head, it was longer than I had imagined. Thus, I’m documenting it
below, in chronological order. Highlights, in photos, are below.
1.
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
2.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
3.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, IL
4.
Frederick C. Robie House (Frank Lloyd Wright), Chicago, IL
5.
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA
6.
Hampshire College Art Gallery, Amherst, MA
7.
DIA: The Dan Flavin Art Institute, Bridgehampton, NY
8.
The Judd Foundation/Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX
9.
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
10. Philadelphia
Museum of Art” Philadelphia, PA (“International
Pop” and “Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950”)
11. James
Turrell, Skyspace at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting, Chestnut Hill, PA
12. Anton Kern
Gallery, “Richard Prince: The Douglas Blair Turnbaugh-Collection (1977-1988), Los Angeles, CA
13. The Broad, Los Angeles, CA (Cindy Sherman:
“Imitation of Life”)
14. LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (Agnes Martin)
15. Tate
Modern, London, UK (Georgia O’Keeffe)
16. The Hepworth-Wakefield,
Wakefield, UK
17. Yorkshire
Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK
18. Royal
Academy of Arts, London, UK (David
Hockney RA: “82 Portraits and 1 Still-life”)
19. New Orleans
Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
20. Storm King
Art Center, New Windsor, NY
21. DIA:
Beacon, Beacon, NY
22. North
Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
23. Ann
Hamilton, “habitus,” Municipal Pier 9, Philadelphia,
PA
24. “Philadelphia,
Goddamn,” Little Berlin Gallery, Philadelphia,
PA
25. The
Whitney, New York, NY (Carmen
Herrera: “Lines of Sight”)
26. The New
Museum, New York, NY (Pipilotti Rist: "Pixel Forest")
27. South
Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD
28. NYC
Galleries: Rothko “Dark Palette” (Pace Gallery), Joseph Albers “Grey Steps,
Grey Scales, Grey Ladders” (David Zwirner), “Ai Weiwei 2016: Roots and
Branches” (Mary Boone Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Jeffery Deitch), “Implosion 20”
(Anton Kern Gallery), Bob Pruitt “The Obama Paintings” (Gavin Brown Enterprise)
29. The
Guggenheim, New York, NY (Agnes
Martin)
With the exception of England, New Orleans, Raleigh, and The New
Museum, I went to all of these places by myself. In some ways, over the course
of the year, I was on a mission to reclaim my ability to be alone. There was no
one to converse with, about what I saw. There was no one taking the perfect
photo of me in front of famous paintings. It was all me, the art, and whatever
I felt. And that’s what I’ve been after, especially since the election: a
feeling that something matters.
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| Matisse, The Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ellsworth Kelly, The Art Institute of Chicago |
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|
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, IL
|
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Frederick C. Robie House (Frank Lloyd Wright), Chicago, IL
|
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DIA: The Dan Flavin Art Institute, Bridgehampton, NY
|
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| Prada Marfa, Valentine, TX |
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| Judd, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX |
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| Judd, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX |
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| Judd, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX |
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|
Flavin, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX
|
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| Twombly, PMA |
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| Richard Serra, LACMA |
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| Ed Ruscha, Tate Modern |
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| Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK |
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| Sol LeWitt, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY |
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| Dan Flavin, DIA: Beacon, Beacon, NY |
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| Dan Flavin, DIA: Beacon, Beacon, NY |
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| Frank Stella, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC |
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|
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
|
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Ann Hamilton, “habitus,” Municipal Pier 9,
Philadelphia, PA
|
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| Joe Boruchow, Little Berlin Gallery, Philadelphia, PA |
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| Aubrie Costello, Little Berlin Gallery, Philadelphia, PA |
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| Carmen Herrera, The Whitney |
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| Pipilotti Rist: “Pixel Forest,” The New Museum |
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| Frida Kahlo, PMA |
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| Sol LeWitt, PMA |
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| Art Alley, Rapid City, SD |
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| Ai Weiwei 2016: Roots and Branches |
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| Ai Weiwei, Laundromat |
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| Rothko “Dark Palette” (Pace Gallery) |
[1] Louis CK, e-mail message “From Louis CK,” December 24, 2016.
[3] Jerry Saltz, “This Post-Election Pain Is Good, At Least for Art,” Vulture, November 13, 2016, accessed November 13, 2016, http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/post-election-pain-is-good-for-art.html.
[4] Karl Ove Knausgård, My Struggle, trans. Don Bartlett (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 207.
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