Sculpture – Page 3 – an intuitive perspective

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 2

Just two months ago I wrote the first post about some wonderful environmental sculptures that have popped up along Lincoln Memorial Drive in Milwaukee’s Lake Park area. These sculptures enhance the portion of the roadside that are wild and natural in our urban environment…and although parts of these are man made they are truly sensitive to their natural environments. Here is the original post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

And although I am identifying their locations, if you visit them please be respectful of the work and their environment. These are truly a joy to experience.

This first one is relatively monumental compared to most of the others. It is very reminiscent of one of those that I documented in my original post (see below). Again, this one resides just west of Lincoln Memorial drive along the bluff near what any unreconstructed hippie of an older Milwaukee era would refer to as the alternate site. Here we see a number of oval discs that appear to be made of water washed and formed pieces of concrete and black top paving materials. I was able to get a bit closer to these so they may have had some human intervention to enhance the natural feel of eroded materials. But serious thought has been put into their placement and relationship to the space as well as finding the perfect fallen log for the base.

I didn’t notice this one until mid-January. This may have been the fourth piece that I felt in the back of my mind back in December but couldn’t find at the time. It may have required the full winter drought environment to become noticeable. Or it may be a newer piece.

This next piece is probably the most sober and for me the least successful…partly due to its stark nature and maybe because of the relationship of the living trees just beside it. This one is also west of LMD, across from the lagoon, about a half mile north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This one is the nearest to the road. But instead of a piece of eroded paving material this one appears to be fashioned from a local piece of granite or quartz. More color than the other pieces.

And this third and final one is certainly a new one. Even last fall it would have clearly stood out from its surroundings. I saw it immediately during my first drive to UWM in January for the start of the spring semester. And a friend of mine, Beth Vandervort, who travels the bike trail along the bluff also commented on it on Facebook and posted a picture shortly after it appeared in January.

Now this is significantly different than all of the others. It doesn’t have any rock or pavement pieces attached to an onsite log or stump or fallen tree. It doesn’t elude a sense of calm or tranquility or sensitivity to place. Instead it is red and right in your face and as Beth said, this is “The Earth’s circulatory system revealed.”

So my question…is this the same artist or someone who felt the soul of the other pieces and is putting a new and different stamp on our psyche? What do you think?

This one is up on the bluff above the bicycle path west of LMD and just north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. But given its color it is currently very easy to spot from the drive.

I am concerned about these sculptures. I don’t remember seeing the first one that I documented in my previous post recently. So please be respectful of the sculptures and the environment if you go to visit them.

AND AGAIN: if any of you know the artist, please share that information in the comments section so that I can properly attribute these here. And if you are aware of other ones in the park, please leave the locations in the comments because I would like to go see them in the wild!

I would really really like to interview the artist. I have a lot of questions about how and why and the future! These are exciting pieces and warrant our respect and admiration.

COMMENTERS NOTE: if you have never commented here before, your first comment won’t appear until I have approved it so don’t think you are doing something wrong! But after that first one is approved, your comments should appear immediately.

And this last image is repeated from my first post and just for comparison with the first sculpture shown above. Again, the first post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

December 29, 2021

Picturing Motherhood Now at the Cleveland Museum of Art

If you’ve been following along you know what I did on my pre-holiday vacation. A little trip to Cleveland and a lot of time spent at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Just across the hall from the Revealing Krishna show is Picturing Motherhood Now! Quite a thought provoking locally curated show that presents us with a lot of different representations of what we think motherhood can be. Some of the works are exceptionally touching. Some of them didn’t quite connect me to the idea of motherhood. But there is a lot of very accomplished and dynamic work to see here.

One of the paintings that captured my attention and emotions is Portrait of her Mother by Mequitta Ahuja (American, born 1976). She writes, “I make paintings by scraping away paint, figuring something new out of loss”. This painting was done during the last months of her mother’s life and I find it quite compelling.

*Portrait of Her Mother*, 2020. Mequitta Ahuja (American, b. 1976). Oil on canvas; 182.9 x 213.4 cm. Courtesy of Mequitta Ahuja and Aicon Art, New York. © Mequitta Ahuja

Another painting that puts me in a similar frame of mine is Titus Kaphar’s Not My Burden. The painting features two Black women who have been touchingly depicted and are certainly two individuals. But they are holding children consciously absent…so absent that the canvas has been actually cut away to show the exposed gallery wall in a brilliant white. The museum wall card suggests that the missing children might represent white children who are often cared for by Black women or Black children who have been tragically lost and a hole is left to their mothers. This painting is probably the show’s centerpiece and most gripping…

*Not My Burden*, 2019. Titus Kaphar (American, b. 1976). Oil on canvas; 167.6 x 153 cm. **© Titus Kaphar. Image courtesy of the artist and Gagosian. Collection of Ellen Susman, Houston, Texas. Photo: Rob McKeever**

There are a number of very elegant but evocative sculptures as well. This clay mother and child or Madonna by Rose B. Simpson (American, born 1983) is a prime example. Ms. Simpson is working with traditional methods used by her family and ancestors in the American Southwest. Titled Genesis this sculpture is both tied to our immediate era and timeless at the same time.

*Genesis*, 2017. Rose B. Simpson (American, b. 1983). Ceramic and mixed media; 83.8 x 22.9 x 15.2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. © Rose B. Simpson

And then we have a group of multi-media sculptures by Alison Saar (American, born 1956) that are troubling in their content. These works are based on an enslaved child character, Topsy, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I am going to post a number of photos here. One from the museum that shows us the clear vision of Rice, one of three sculptures on display from a series of five. And then I will provide two more that I took that show all three in the context of the show. The three figures are Indigo, Cotton, and Rice. The youngster is clearly shown wielding the tools of slavery and harvesting cotton. A clear indictment of our past…and a prod to think about what that means to our present.

*Rice*, 2018. Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Wood, copper, ceiling tin, bronze, tar, and vintage found tools; 162.6 x 76.2 x 63.5 cm. Collection of Susan Morse, Los Angeles. © Alison Saar. Courtesy of L. A. Louver, Venice, CA

And now a bit of whimsy: Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911 – 2010):

*The Nest*, 1994. Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911–2010). Steel; 256.5 x 480.1 x 401.3 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase through the Agnes E. Meyer and Elise S. Haas Fund and the gifts of Doris and Donald Fisher, Helen and Charles Schwab, and Vicki and Kent Logan, 98.193.A–E. © The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Katherine Du Tiel

Picturing Motherhood Now runs through March 13, 2022. This show is ticketed and tickets can be purchased online at the link shown here. Be sure to check the museum website for COVID precautions before visiting.

Ginny and Andrew, 1978 by Alice Neal (American, 1900 – 1984) oil on canvas, from a private collection. photo by Ed Heinzelman

December 27, 2021January 6, 2022

Revealing Krishna: Journey To Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain at the Cleveland Museum of Art .

Revealing Krishna is one of the current highlights at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It tells the story of the circuitous route that their Cambodian Krishna carving took to arrive at the museum as well as the several attempts to restore it and connect it with it’s correct pieces.

One of the gratifying parts of the story is the co-operation between the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and the Cleveland Museum. Earlier attempts to restore the Cleveland statue resulting in mismatched pieces…which eventually led to swaps of statue fragments with the National Museum to get the statue in Cleveland and another in Phnom Penh matched with their correct pieces.

*Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan* after 2020 restoration, c. 600. Southern Cambodia, Takeo Province, Phnom Da. Sandstone; 203.1 x 68 x 55.5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1973.106

In addition to Cleveland’s Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan, the exhibit includes a number of other CMA holdings of Cambodian sculpture plus this stunning carving of the same subject on loan from the National Museum in Phnom Penh:

*Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan*, c. 700. Southern Cambodia, Takeo Province, Wat Koh. Sandstone; 161 (without 27 cm tenon) x 65.5 x 35.2 cm. National Museum of Cambodia, Ka.1625. Photo: Konstanty Kulik

But this exhibit goes beyond the wall cards and wall text that is standard signage in any museum. There is also a visual component that uses a visor and holograms to present details of the restoration process, original site in Cambodia, and the trek that the statue made on its journey to Cleveland. And the exhibit ends with a number of interactive videos that present three dimensional representations of the eight sculptures of gods from the original site along with text explaining who they are and how they are significant to the site and the story! Beyond the ‘in the flesh statues’ this last bit was the most informative and for me at least the next most useful piece of the exhibit.

The “Gods of Phnom Da” digital gallery displays life-size 3-D models of the eight gods of Phnom Da, from c. 600, with motion-activated animations exploring details and iconographic elements. Photo: The Cleveland Museum of Art

More info: Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain runs until January 30, 2022. There is an entrance fee for this exhibit of $15 but there are discounts for seniors and students and others. Tickets are timed and can be ordered at the link above.

*Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan* (detail), c. 600. Southern Cambodia, Takeo Province, Phnom Da. Sandstone; 203.1 x 68 x 55.5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1973.106

Janauary 6, 2022: update. Here’s a short documentary from PBS: How 3-D technology helped restore ‘Cleveland Krishna’ statue