Robert Gober at MOMA

I caught up with the Robert Gober show at MOMA.   I was intrigued, but not particularly excited by the show.  While you couldn't really call him a Surrealist, his art does, I think evolve from some similar notions, especially the idea that objects can convey a particular meaning in the gallery context.  Thus his endless sinks without faucets (eventually with water!)

The most startling thing in the show was a large suitcase on the floor, in which, when you looked inside, you could see through a hole (about 2 feet) wide in the floor to the floor below, where water was flowing like a stream bed.   Which meant that MOMA actually drilled a large hole in their floor (with jackhammers?)   And that wasn't the only hole in the floor; in a part of Gober's 9/11 piece, a fountain (from nipples) spews water into a hole in the floor, after which, through some kind of plumbing work the water is pumped up to its source.

As per usual, MOMA does not allow any sort of photographs.

But I found some...

The fountain and a hole in the floor...

Running water...

Sink drains in bodies...

Rant alert...

I have commented before on the changes in the MOMA books on the second floor, where knick-knacks have been gradually replacing books. This time, the shelves where the newest books on art were normally featured now feature New York picture books, etc.    It begins to look like an airport shop.  All it needs is small models of the Statue of Liberty.  In addition, while I was there, in the main shop downstairs the main wall of books was just in the process of losing all its books, being replaced by more merchandise.  Now the books are safely hidden behind that wall, so hopefully no one will see them anymore, and MOMA can continue its grand transition to becoming a shopping mall.   Seriously, if a museum of modern art cannot dedicate ample space to books about modern art, it is seriously compromising its mission.   I really wonder who it is that is in charge of all of these changes.

Back to New York

The trip was not promising, with over an hour and fifteen minutes in security lines in Vancouver, and an hour wait for luggage in Newark.   But it was a great pleasure to step off the plane and see our friends Jane and George, who were waiting to board the same plane to go back to Vancouver.   Arrival was also complicated by a dead computer, or more precisely a computer which indicated that there was no hard drive.   After some days of panic, I was able to fix it with a lowly screwdriver.   And now have a very strong compulsion to back up everything constantly...

I returned to New York ahead of Vera in order to be able to see a exhibit of contemporary Japanese artists at the Japan Society entitled "Unearthly Delights".   It was indeed a delight. I had seen an exhibit of the work of "Team Lab" in Chelsea last year,  and seeing more of their work renewed my interest.  The focus of the entire show was on contemporary artists in Japan who are working with the traditions of Japanese art.  I honestly don't know if this is something which works better in Japan than in the US, but, to my eyes, it is fascinating.   Team Lab's work is highly sophisticated, in contrast to the many contemporary "multimedia" installations that involve old slide projectors, or look like someone's home movies where they forgot to use a tripod, etc.   But it's very hard to take pictures of the work, since it is all about movement.  Even the you tube videos give no real indication of the intricacy and detail in the work.

Another artist in the exhibit was Manabu Ikeba, who works only with pens and different color inks, and also makes intricately detailed works which echo both traditional and anime type drawings.  I first saw his work at an exhibit in Tokyo a few years ago.  One very striking work is a large scale picture which draws of the form of the famous Hokusai "Wave". but in its details creates a dense collage of human activity.  The picture, made in 2009, eerily presages the 2011 tsunami, so much so that it had been withdrawn from circulation until recently.

Original Hokusai:

Ikeba

Detail:

Another artist did this to the traditional zen garden:

Oddly enough, the spectacular exhibit of the 16th century tapestries designed by Pieter Coecke at the Met that I saw the next day resonated with the Team Lab work.   These large tapestries are in fact, the work of an enormous team of craftsman.  And the tapestries, in this case, are very, very large, which makes their impact even stronger.  Which was the idea, I think.  They were meant to impress.   The show itself was particularly dazzling, as they were all together in a very large space.  

Coecke would sketch out the work, and then supervise the teams of dyers and weavers who would need to spend a large amount of time weaving just to make a small portion of the tapestry.

A detailed corner of the above, quite fantastic:

This one is truly epic, click to enlarge.