Left your heart: Xanadu

I hate the Guggenheim. Never liked the exterior across from the park. Thought it was one of the most annoying gallery spaces ever invented. But who cares? I still love and admire Wright, your mouth drops looking at his stuff one hundred years later.

So with much luck, I was able to see the an exploratory version done in San Francisco, and I had forgotten all about it since it was before the blog.

The people from Xanadu, were kind, and let a boob like me come in and photograph (so my guess is, you too!). Go see this historic space on Maiden Lane, the place where the sailors made their midnight visits. It is something else! The V. C. Morris Gift Shop supposedly was designed after the Guggenheim, but gave Wright a chance to see the ramp in action.

But here is only one story, the proportion in the Guggenheim never looked great, too high. Here it is wonderful and intimate, the structure retains that wonderful horizontal orientation, so loved by Wright.

From the exterior brick, to the interior which Wright is so precise with those ivory walls which do so much with the light. This considering the front and sides are totally encased from almost any outside light. The muted light inside I assume is both natural and electrical.

Speaking again of the brickwork, Wright tends to detail beautifully the use of that light ochre brick, which copies yellow stoneware. Wright was pretty precise about his use of brick. In Chicago at the Robie House, I believe, there was an extension built to the right outside wall as you faced the building. Someone associated with the building said they were very proud that the brick were made with the same clay in the same factory. What they failed to see, that my adventures in pottery have taught me, the original bricks did not match, I believe because a blue mason stain had been brushed on the brick face, giving it a little more of a patina. Look what Wright does here by recessing the pointing (directly above), which removes flatness from the brick face creating more depth. Wright works against the reality of a totally flat surface.

The curves catch light in some nice ways and he does the cutouts with thickness, which the shadows give thickness like heavily embossed paper. The lighting is softened and the forms lack a certain sharpness, one sees often on exterior architecture.

Catch the curve on the brass of the banister and how it echoes the the curve of the ramp (left). The woodwork neat and soft. Look how the ramp (right) rises up against the office area, which recedes back further into shadow. I wonder what the original covering of the floors were?

That famous planter.

Left your heart: Thanks, Mr. Jasper Johns.

Everybody always thinks of Warhol as the king of Pop. And in some ways he was, as I was reminded this summer in San Francisco, looking back on images of superstars from the Factory. I always wonder a little what Warhol would have had to say about this period, as he was always a step ahead.

But lemme tell ya, if you want to get a good snoot of culture, get yourself out to the SF-MoMA. There was so much stuff to see, I haven’t felt like that since the time I was in the NY Met, where including everything else to the wonderful collection, the Met had a show of Cartier or Chanel. The SF-MoMA is the coolest. Wonderful architecture and a showing of the patron saint of Sante Fe, O’Keeffe (and Walker Evans), but a wonderful show of the work of Robert Frank and Richard Avedon. The Avedon show got people excited and enthused, as shows rarely do. It was a shame, that the wonderful installation, A Sac of Rooms, did not get the same response by most viewers.

Now, I won’t say all the other stuff, too, that floored me, including the wild Brazilian sculptor Neto’s pink thing (my niece said it looked like bubble gum!) and wonderful sculpture on the top floor, but some other real little gems. And there you will find one flag by Jasper Johns.

Frank and Johns go together in my head in some ways. They both reverberate as seekers out of the 50s. Frank was exploring America with his camera, in a way people would only start seeing and speaking about America a decade on. Johns with his flags and targets was beginning to put Pop together in his head. I think of that wonderful bronze Ballentine beer cans. But the flags always come to mind first, before that only cartoonists saw that bold, graphic image as something outside nationalism. Never irreverent, but in the same way that Warhol would go on to do the Marilyns, and Liz and the electric chair. Something iconic.

One has to take their hat off to Johns. More aesthetic than Warhol, more intellectual than Rauschenberg, Johns created and recreated many themes over and over again in his life. Maps, words, patterns, three dimensions repeat like a musician trying to create a perfect theme. Only Roy Lichtenstein could be compared in Pop as broader in his approach, and Oldenburg for being physically grander (i.e.-giant eraser in the sculpture garden in DC).

A little homage done for the flags. Thanks, Mr. Johns.