Works by 5 Women Artists Among 9 New Acquisitions @ LACMA

 Works by Betye Saar, Martha Boto, Ruth Asawa, Julie Mehretu and Jennifer Bartlett were formally welcomed into LACMA at the 2018 Collectors Committee weekend. Here's the full list of acquisitions. Excellent. Thanks, Guerilla Girls, Lynda Resnick, Ann Colgin and other collectors for making this possible.

Betye Saar’s I'll Bend But I Will Not Break (1998) is a sculptural tableau comprising an ironing board imprinted on top with a diagram of a British slave ship, showing how scores of bodies were sandwiched into the ship’s lower deck. An iron—chained to the ironing board just as slaves were chained to slave ships—refers not only to female labor but also to the marking of slaves with branding irons. In the tableau, a sheet is pinned to an ordinary laundry line with letters “KKK” appliquéd onto the sheet, a reference to the white sheets and hoods worn by the members of the Ku Klux Klan. This is the first large-scale work by Saar to enter LACMA’s collection and will be included in the artist’s upcoming LACMA exhibition Betye Saar: Call and Response (opening 2019). Gift of Lynda and Stewart Resnick through the 2018 Collectors Committee.

Martha Boto’s Optique Helicoidal (Mouvement) (1967) is a superb work by a major representative of the kinetic art movement, one of the only women to work in this vein. Created in Paris following Boto's move there from Buenos Aires, the work combines modern technology and new materials (e.g. aluminum, stainless steel, and Plexiglas) to produce mesmerizing optical effects. Deceivingly simple, the work is precisely conceived to trick the viewer’s eye and induce contemplation. “My particular means of movement, color, and light can give the illusion of contraction, or multiplication, so that by optical means the spectator undergoes a series of reactions,” said Boto. This is the first work by this pioneering postwar Latin American artist to enter LACMA’s collection.
Gift of Gayle and Tim DeVries through the 2018 Collectors Committee.

Parviz Tanavoli’s , Lion and Sword II, 1975, and Lion and Sword III, 1976, two carpets; , 2008, a screenprint; and , 2015, a portfolio of four screenprints. Tanavoli, one of the founders of Iran’s main modernism movement, has a long-standing fascination with lions, which he has rendered in a variety of media and configurations. In these two carpets Tanavoli highlights a long-established emblem of kingship and the Iranian state—a lion with sun rising from its back (Shir u Khurshid). More recently Tanavoli has returned to these earlier designs in a series of prints, where he redeploys the original images by focusing on color and form. The two carpets will be featured in the upcoming exhibition In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art (May 6–September 9, 2018). Gift of Hope Warschaw through the 2018 Collectors Committee.

Ruth Asawa’s Untitled (S.027, Hanging Six Open Hyperbola Forms that Penetrate Each Other, with a Half-Hyperbola at the Top, (1954) is an early and unusual example of her ethereal hangings that redefine the notion of sculpture as solid form. Described by the artist as “open hyperbola forms that penetrate each other,” the work was inspired by a 1947 trip to Toluca, Mexico, where Asawa observed local artisans forming baskets from a mesh of interlocking wire loops. Upon her return to the U.S. she began her lifelong journey of transforming this functional technique and modest industrial material into poetic works of art. While also known for her drawing, printmaking, and civic art initiatives, Asawa is most revered for these transparent looped-wire sculptures. Gift of an anonymous donor and the 2018 Collectors Committee with additional funds from the Buddy Taub Foundation.

Julie Mehretu’s Epigraph, Damascus, (2016) is a monumental six-panel work that uses photogravure, a 19th-century technique that fuses photography with etching, with aquatint (using sugar lift and spit bite) and open bite. Mehretu created the foundation of the print from images of architectural drawings of buildings in Damascus, which she then overlaid with an array of marks—a fusion of past and present that, in the context of Syrian history, resonates with the regrettable reality of history repeating itself. Epigraph, Damascus joins one print by Mehretu, Local Calm (2005), and one painting, Untitled (2012), in LACMA’s collection, and will be featured in her mid-career survey, Julie Mehretu, co-organized by LACMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art (opening at LACMA in November 2019) Gift of Kelvin Davis and Hana Kim through the 2018 Collectors Committee.

Forest Spirit Figure (Nigeria, Niger Delta, Ijo culture, 19th century), a monumental sculptural figure with seven heads and 14 eyes, emblematic of its role in protecting a community and promoting well-being. This commanding guardian figure is the most imposing and expressive of all known examples, and among the most remarkable works of sub-Saharan Africa. It was the centerpiece of Tradition as Innovation in African Art at LACMA in 2008. With its alert, superhuman vigilance, the forest spirit figure will have prominence in LACMA’s permanent collection galleries, underscoring the multiplicity of visions that LACMA embodies and imparts. Gift of the Silver Family and the 2018 Collectors Committee.

Collection of African Ceremonial Barkcloth Paintings (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mbuti culture, 20th century) are 29 barkcloth paintings created by nomadic groups of people known as the Mbuti, who reside in the Ituri rainforest. Mbuti men harvest bark from trees and pound them into pliable sheets that serve as painting surfaces for Mbuti women, whose art, with its aesthetics of asymmetry and visual dissonance, mimics the imagery of the rainforest and aligns with the syncopated polyphonic rhythms of Mbuti music.
Gift of the 2018 Collectors Committee.

 Jennifer Bartlett’s House Piece (1970) is an early, seminal work that demonstrates the artist's innovative and characteristic use of enameled steel plates as standardized units for her compositions. It comprises 61 12-inch-square plates to which color was applied in the form of dots to create multiple representations of what Bartlett described as a “banal, yet poignant” image of a house. The fact that she submits the house image to an almost relentless deconstruction, analysis, and reconfiguration problematizes*  any fixed notion of “home,” while also investigating the nature of representation itself. House Piece will be featured in the LACMA’s 2021 exhibition Coded: Art at the Dawn of the Computer Age, 1960–1980. (Editor's Note to Visual Artists / Curators: How about if you leave the writing to the writers. I'll not mess with the visual artmaking.)
Gift of the 2018 Collectors Committee and the Schloss Family.

Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta (Korea, Joseon dynasty, 17th century) is a Korean gilt wood sculpture depicting one of the most powerful bodhisattvas in the Buddhist pantheon. Mahasthamaprapta symbolizes the power of wisdom in Buddhist practice, and in East Asian Buddhist art is often paired with Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion. Like Avalokiteshvara, Mahasthamaprapta is an emanation of the Buddha Amitabha (Buddha of the Western Paradise or Pure Land), and is often depicted in China, Korea, and Japan. This sculpture is a significant addition to LACMA's collection of Korean Buddhist art.
Gift of Florence and Harry Sloan through the 2018 Collectors Committee.



Hakuin Ekaku’s  Willow Kannon (c. 1755) depicts the Bodhisattva of Compassion who sits in meditation, her eyes slightly opened in accordance with Zen practice. The willow to her right signals that she is the Willow Kannon, evoking both her strength and flexibility. This monumental masterwork is by Hakuin (1685–1768), the best-known Zen Master of the last 500 years, and Japan’s greatest painter-monk.

Willow Kannon joins LACMA’s other 10 works by Hakuin; these 11 artworks will form the core of a proposed exhibition on Zen art by curator and head of Japanese art at LACMA Robert T. Singer. Gift of the 2018 Collectors Committee with additional funds from an anonymous donor, Laurie and Bill Benenson, and Richard Wayne and Charlotte Wayne.

Nothing Lost ... Somethings Gained: Found in Translation - Design in California and Mexico 1915 - 1985

Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico 1915 - 1965 is one of LACMA's offerings in the Getty-sponsored festival of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA.

PST LA/LA... (hey, pssssssssssssssssst! over here! 
 Never say la-la, as in tra- ...!

This exhibition does much more than clear up the ruse of Olivera Street (set up as a tourist attraction like Chinatown LA). It honors, not just disparages, the mutual admiration society between CA and ME!

Being a child of the post-WWII era, an early consumer of television and having emigrate from the Mid-Atlantic region in the late 1970s to CA, the show strikes a familiar chord of cultural sensibility, but now I can see the back-story of what was projected as the "goldene medina" of my mediated youth. I will now admit to having drawn a serape-d/sombrero-d "Mexican" propped up against a saguaro sleeping in the noonday sun in a mural in middle school. 

What did I know? I was brought up in Philadelphia area in the age of TV!

California was once part of Mexico and which was a Spanish colony. The very soil, the ocean, the forests and mountains, the weather and the sun ... above all, the sun! The indigenous people were not waiting to be discovered! They were also not consulted when design images were attribute to them. It is still hard for me to eat lettuce and grapes, given what I learned about the Chicano Movements ... Woody Guthrie was right. California was and remains the "Garden of Eden", and we sill need, more than even, the Do-Rey-Mi!

It's a full range of design and architecture dialogues between California and Mexico from 1915 - 1965. The more I visit this exhibition (and tour school kids to show the Portrait of John Dunbar, by Diego Rivera), the more I learn, such as the fact that Ruth Asawa, a participant in the Black Mountain College art/community experiment, learned how to weave wire into sculptures in Mexico! I was already familiar with Peter Shire's work, and love the inclusion of his "Mexican Bauhaus Tea Pot".

The Mexico / USA California split in 1804 never left either wish a sore spot in term of design sensibilities. There has been a natural trickle up and down effect for a long time despite efforts to appropriate imagery and disseminate stereotypical impressions via the then "new" media as photography, wire audio recorders and movies and later TV. There was and continues to be a "mutual admiration society" among the colonialists. There are a few indigenous pieces, but mostly this is a celebration of conquest.

The triptych (right) includes (l-r) LACMA's Standing Male Figure with Club" a (200 BCE - 400 CE) slip painted earthenware acquired in 1986 and Dora De Larios (b1933, active Los Angeles) "Warrior (mid-1960s) and "Blue Dog" (1979). I couldn't help but chuckle, as they reminded me of 2 pieces in the permanent collection on the top floor of the Pavilion for Japanese Art. (l-r) "Seated Figure" and "Horse", both Haniwa (tomb figures) from the Late Tumulus Period (4th and 5th Centuries, CE). 

#FoundinTranslation @ #LACMA has opened as one of the PST/LALA offerings around town thanks to the #Getty. It's a full range of design and architecture dialogues between California and Mexico from 1915 - 1965.

Frances Stark & Marc Chagall Make Mozart Magic at LA County Museum of Art

Image / Caption in Frances Stark's The Magic Flute

In advance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s forthcoming exhibition, Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage (July 30, 2017 – January 7, 2018) LACMA premiered Frances Stark’s rendering of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s score / Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto of The Magic Flute (2017). The approximately 110-minute animated film adaptation in two acts of the popular 1791 opera is about a prince and a bird catcher who cross paths and endure various tricks and trials in search of love. Stark, who is represented by Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles, will take the film to the biannual events at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and then on to Venice.


In her introduction of the film before an SRO crowd, Stark made note of the fact that the piece was Mozart’s last one; he died 5 weeks afterwards at the age of 35, and, thus, for her, this premiere gave her pause. She seemed quite relieved and happy with the outcome. For the past 25 years, Stark’s unusual approach to lyricism and her signature economy of means are employed in full force in the film: “I’m trying to make The Magic Flute unfold for people very directly and joyously; it isn’t about clever redressing or anything, it’s really about the bare bones of the opera having the capacity to engage you, the original accessibility of the opera was based on its high-low conceit.”

The overture is played in its original form and recorded with a full orchestra. The remainder of the opera is more experimental and was recorded in smaller studio sessions with a full string section and solo wind and brass instruments assigned to play the vocal melodies.

While I love friends who love opera, I am not a natural opera lover for many of the same reasons I don’t read long novels. I am happy to report that Stark has created a novel way to guide the listener through the narrative without the distractions that come from stiffly staged performers, no matter how splendid the production designs. According to one press hand out: “Stark’s adaptation of The Magic Flute confronts notions of power, cultural capital, and institutions (i.e. the museum, the university, the opera) with an invitation to a more humanized experience of beauty, kinship, and art.”

According to one press release, “The audience is invited to experience the work as a ‘pedagogical opera.’ In other words, an opera that is closely read and/or taught. This artistic impulse reflects past breakthroughs in Stark’s work which have consistently reflected her attempts ‘to understand and manifest an erotics of pedagogy capable of voicing my poetics and challenging the art audience while also engaging youth.”

Let me unpack the experience in simpler terms. I agree that “the presentation demanded close viewing, a lot of reading, and listening.”

Quetzalcoatl ... hmmm!

There are no vocal parts
 Rather, vocalists have been substituted with instrumental soloists (local performers ages 10 – 19!) who play the respective character’s melodies. In the opening titles, the young musicians are shown lined up across the screen with their instruments in hand; text equates the instruments with the characters a la Peter and the Wolf. The overture was recorded with a full symphony orchestra; the balance of the score is performed by a 13-person string plus timpani section.

Super titles take center stage
There is no attempt to design a production with sets, costumes, props, lighting, etc. It’s a visual desert, but that makes way for Stark to accomplish what she set out to do (see aforementioned paragraph). In addition to the instrumental soloist, each “character’s” libretto, adapted by Stark into English, is set in distinct fonts and colors that are pulsed to keeps pace with the music. This does not overwhelm the listener with a) language that one doesn’t understand and b) the seemingly endless repetition of phrases. For example, in the case of the three female spirits who come upon the protagonist Tamino in the opening act, their individual lines are represented by one of three tones of violet cursive style font. When they sing as a trio, three lines are seen on the screen. Nothing else. Call – response phrases among characters are more likely included in a single frame than presented via a lot of switching. Thus, the editing is key to keeping pace with the score. While I found the approach helpful, as it provided a synopsis of what was transpiring in the narrative, the conceit became boring after a while.

Visually sparse
 Familiar images reminiscent of Stark’s graphic vocabulary enjoyed in the mid-career exhibition (see below) often prompted scene breaks, and unfortunately, more often than not, the screen was blank. One press release advised, “Her unique balance of light-hearted jest and philosophical inquiry ventures into the bawdy while remaining elegant, often probing prickly issues of race, class, and gender with joyous and agonizing sincerity.”

Lyrically accessible to a contemporary audience unschooled in the pomp and circumstance of grand opera
 The lyrics have also been updated through Stark’s creation of an “amalgam libretto” derived from the study of numerous translations.

Collaborators
For the project Stark collaborated with a set of artists from disparate parts of the music world. Conductor Danko Drusko, a Ph.D. student at the time of the production, adapted the entirety of Mozart’s score. He also oversaw each rehearsal and conducted the players during each recording session. The legendary producer and arranger H.B. Barnum recorded and mixed the music; cellist and mezzo-soprano instructor Ameena Maria Khawaja organized the audition and the student players throughout the entire process; and percussionist and film composer Greg Ellis added rhythmic effects and finalized the soundtrack.

Stark has collaborated with a writers, dropouts, virtual partners in online video platforms. More recently, she worked with Bobby Jesus on the video installation Bobby Jesus’s Alma Mater B/W Reading the Book of David And/Or Paying Attention is Free (2015). Her recent works demonstrate novel ways of storytelling, with sexual overtones, poetic verve, and comic timing. My Best Thing (2011). She began working on The Magic Flute following the opening of her critically praised mid-career survey UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015 (2015–16) at UCLA’s Hammer Museum – which I truly loved — and receiving the 2015 Absolut Art Award. It was also developed in the wake of a highly publicized withdrawal of the entire class of MFA students at USC’s Roski School of Art and Design amid administrative changes. While she had resigned from her position several months prior, she felt that the university “flaunted an egregious disregard for the fundamental human endeavor we cherish as Art. She remarked, “I believe what is at stake here is not confined to the academy but involves the entire fractured cultural landscape of Los Angeles, the fragile role of the individual artist, and the un-commodifiable human voice itself.”

I think Stark is on to something that can build audiences from the next generation of opera lovers.

Chagall: Fantasies for the stage!
 communicates the moving and celebratory power of music and art, and spotlights this important aspect of the artist’s career by the presentation of his vibrant costumes and set designs—some of which have never been exhibited before. In addition to his pieces for The Magic Flute (1967), the exhibition will include works from the ballets Aleko by Tchaikovsky (1942), The Firebird by Stravinsky (1945), Daphnis and Chloé by Ravel (1958). In addition, the exhibition features a selection of iconic paintings depicting musicians and lyrical scenes, numerous sketches of his theatrical productions, and documentary footage of original performances.

According to Stephanie Barron, LACMA’s senior curator and department head of Modern Art, music and dance played in Marc Chagall’s artistic practice, which is deeply linked to his Russian birthplace and upbringing. A significant source of inspiration and a central theme throughout his extensive oeuvre, music permeated Chagall’s engagement with modernism, from his early canvases in the 1910s to his first creations for the stage in the 1920s and his monumental set designs of the 1940s–1960s.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts where it will be on display, January 24–June 11, 2017, and was initiated by the Philharmonie de Paris – Musée de la musique, and La Piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, Roubaix, with the support of the Chagall estate.

Originally published 5/11/17  The Theatre Times

The Writing on the (Art Gallery) Wall: rappel a la ordre: "Picasso and Rivera" @ LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA) newly-opened exhibition Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time has provided me with some insight into the very distressing current socio-politico-economic climate in the USA and in westernized nations world-wide.

One of the galleries in this provocative, sophisticated exhibition presents the curator’s premise that the works reflect “rappel a l’ordre”, return to order, in Europe after the unprecedented devastation of WWI.

The writing is really on the wall, folks, and, like all great art, the works provoke viewers to consider life today.

From the didactic (exhibition narrative on the wall): 

“A renewed interest in classicism emerged in the visual arts as a reaction against Cubism and other prewar avant-garde movements.” In France, there was a “widespread desire to return to stable, universal values and traditional aesthetics”.

Of course, these “universal” values -- especially the notion of "tradition" are in the eyes of the beholders, and were amplified and solidified through the echoes via media across space and exhibitions across time.

“In a number of Latin American countries with multiple indigenous populations, particularly in Mexico, the return to traditional values in the arts took the form of indigenismo. This was a complex political and social phenomenon that sought to address disparities between the indigenous population and the educated elites of European descent. Anthropologists and politicians looked to solve these problems by creating an ideal of the mestizo, being of mixed race, that helped to unify the country while erasing multiculturalism."

Westerners do not easily understand how to engage in a “game” with more than two teams. It’s usually “us” vs “them. Good guys (white hats) and bad guys (black hats).

The assumed prominent -- and thus, entitled -- "class" creates an "us" by stereotyping an otherwise diverse "them". What poses as news on the consumer-focused media looks more and more like the back (sports) page of the news paper or broadcast. Is this a natural outcome of our binary-based computer-dependent life?

Another key question that is provoked is ...

Who is “traditional”?

• The Native Americans at Standing Rock who hold treaties with the US government as sovereign nations and who are vocally, peacefully but forcefully advocating #NODAPL? 

• The immigrants to this country -- some risking life itself -- to willfully work to abide by the Constitution in hopes of earning a coveted place in civil society and do so through expressions of their cultures of origin. 

• Post-colonial red-white-blue (but mostly red) patriots who are claiming rights to "traditional" value shave no recollection beyond 3 generations as to why they live where they do and why their assumptions of protecting traditions of “universal values” may not hold up.

Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Finding Your Roots genetics-based TV programs has greater resonance than ever before. But these programs assumes that the viewer is a member of an informed, educated public.

Wrong. and it's getting wrong-er.

I venture to say that being satisfied being ill-informed, suspicious, under-educated is the basis of the new American tradition. It is racial (white is right). It is entitled (cause I say so and so does He). And it is empowered (2nd Amendment says I can have my gun to protect me and my family.). It is a collection of disparate elements who will gladly follow blindly someone who, as they are drilled weekly, will make them free if they will only give away their freedom to Him.

Help.

Photo credits - a l’ordre

Seated Standard Bearer, 15th–early 16th century, Aztec, sandstone, laminated, 31 3/4 x 13 3/8 x 13 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1962, photo courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Diego Rivera, Frida’s Friend (El Amigo de Frida), 1931, oil on canvas, canvas: 26 × 31 3/4 in., Nader Latin American Art Museum, Gary Nader Bequest, © 2016 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Nader Latin American Art Museum
 

Unknown, Male Torso, Roman; 100 AD; marble; 40 9/16 x 24 x 11 7/16 in.; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California (73.AA.93), photo courtesy The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait (Autoportrait), 1906, oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 21 1/4 in., Musée Picasso, Paris, © 2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY, by René-Gabriel Ojéda

Shedding Light on the "Ancient" Japanese Tea Ceremony

Despite the many references that fly around the cultural strata, chanoyu, the Japanese way of preparing hot water for making matcha, is not ancient; it is timeless. 

 

There is no consensus about how old "ancient" is, but it is clear that Western civilizations are pipsqueaks in comparison; so, the term is more a reference to way older than I am at this moment.

 

Haniwa / Kofun Period, LACMA

If you want ancient in Japan, you have to back to Japan's prehistoric Jōmon period (縄文時代 Jōmon jidai), from about 12,000 BC and in some cases cited as early as 14,500 BC to about 300 BC, when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. 

Or hope to the Kofun period (古墳時代 Kofun jidai) is an era in the history of Japan from around 250 to 538 AD when things got a bit more organized and ceramic tomb sculptures, haniwa, appeared.

 

While the epitome of cultural complexity, the practice of growing in comparison, came to Japan from China (via Korea) about the 9th century CE with Buddhist Priest Yeisei who brought the first seeds, and two millennia later popularized by Priest Ikkyu . Would you call the Battle of Hastings "ancient"?

Nope, chanoyu is relatively new, but it enjoys a long, living tradition that is reflected in the posting by #Mamoru Fujiwara of these images from Kyoto.

Yakimono (ceramics) and okashi (sweets) are two aspects of the tangible culture of chanoyu in which we can appreciate a 500 year (give or take a decade) continuum of shape, material -- same type (rice, beans) or actually same (clay) -- as well as intangible qualities, how these are appropriated, handled, thematically assembled, etc. 

 

To see these machiya (street-level stores common in Kyoto's older districts, with manufacturing and residential areas inside) with the kamban (store boards) and noren (entrance curtains), one could be back at lease in the 19th century. It all works the same. Add an electric light bulb ... it still works the same, but brighter perhaps (now the risk of electric fire threatens the structure whereas in the past it was only a charcoal cinder). 

 

When I would go into "antique" shops in Kyoto, of course you see such things from the Meiji period / Victorian period, as a wind up grandfather clock or, from later times, golf clubs, electrified chandelier, etc. At least I can recognize one item's age from the other, a decade or two more or less. 

I remember when I was in Suzhou China and purchased two small ceramic bowls (likely for rice) and was told they were Qing Dynasty. Sure they could have been from 1645, but more likely 1911 (or later). I couldn't imagine why I would have such an object that was so old. Venerable in my mind (and hand). I had no reason to want to make them older.

 

Thanks to Mamoru Fujiwara, my Facebook friend, for inspiring this posting.

LACMA Zen Koan: It Rains. It Reigns

Do we detect a theme? Los Angeles' drought conditions has inspired LACMA to turn on the tap full force.


First it was the Rain Room, still packing them in with promises of an entertainment with the weather. I personally prefer a tent in the Sierras under a downpour, but a few more ions are better than no ions at all. Even when the black-garbed (repels water!) masses were standing in line in BCAM, the Costume and Textile folks were suiting up over 20 be-wigged mannequins for the exhibition.

LACMA’s new exhibition, Reigning Men, attempts to present 300 years of men’s fashion (read “couture”) impact on white, Euro-centric culture. It is not a survey of menwear from bearskins and togas to kilts and spacesuits. There is an assumption of elegance which may or may not be shared equally across the region’s highly multi-cultural – ethnic population. It was a monumental undertaking. 

To illustrate the later, one of the guests, ostensibly a member of the media as it was a preview for journalists, was overheard by this writer sharing her recent experience dealing with getting from here-to-there: “There are such interesting people on the train!” Begs one to inquire whether she has skipped the Prius and Uber phases and gone straight to LACMA via METRO (stop for which won’t really be accessible for years.)

This takes me to the exhibition of some 200 maniquins (whitish skin) with fascinating whitish hairdoos ranging from peaked–and-powdered wigs to piked “mohawks” constructed of tailor batting and styled by top designer in the film industry. There is a lot of information on the “tombstones” demonstrating the curatorial staff’s deep research into the styles of the periods in this not-necessarily-chronological exhibition. It was at the first maniquin, a (nationality) dandied up in a style noted as “Macaroni” (left), referring to the Italian impact on young British gents of the 18^th Century. When I walked into the exhibition, I expected to hear the theme song from Hair, but instead, after seeing our Yankee Doodle Dandy I opted for "... stuck a feather in his hat and called it ...” or even Cohan & Cagney's opus, "... real live nephew of my Uncle Sam ..."

One of his neighbors had an entire long stemmed floral arrangement stuck into the top and out through a few holes below within the vertical row of very large buttonholes. This is the geneises of a boutinier, sans the lapel which we normally see (if at all). My mother says if there’re candle sticks or a vase on the dining room table, there should be lighted candles and flowers in them.

To discuss the draping of cloth over human body parts, one needs to name those parts, such as derriere, here called “bum.” I never used that word before, rather, “backside” or the more jovial, “tuchas”, as in “tuchas aufn tish”, which means get on with it.

Likewise, one can learn the dervation of the word “tuxedo”, as in Tuxedo Park”, a hoity-toity area near Gotham where the super rich hung out in formal attire. Now, anyone can get a tux, even rent one to look upper class, much as folks in the upper echelons can buy ripped jeans and renditions of longshoremens and sailors shirts, military camo and punk leathers, all of which are represented.

I used to work in a department store and, one Christmas holiday gift-geddon, was stationed behind the “mens furnishings” counter. My domaine consisted of ties (bow and straight), handkerchiefs, jewelery (tie tacks, tie clips, cuff links and shirt studs, wallets, scarves, and, as it was in the East, gloves.

But, honestly, who were these men and why doesn't the title of the exhibition provide important reference to the fact that these men were a real specific group, and perhaps not even of parallel social status. For example, there was not an example of a "courtier" -- perhaps a Secretary of State under Reagan of Obama, dressed for a state dinner.

Men and hats ... what can be said about them? Many of the maniquins were sporting them. My dad wore a brimmed hat to work (in his Saville Row and Brooks Brothers style) for many, many years; he even had a full head of hair well into his 80s. One day, on the Philadelphia subway, someone stole it off his head and he never took the subway again. Today’s insecure gents will go bareheaded with formal wear, but think their baseball caps and other headgear are foolin’ us. But I can’t criticize, as I’ve never experienced baldness.

This brings us to be speaking about bespoke, made-to-order. According to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bespoke) in the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including "to speak," "to accuse," and "to complain." In the 16th century, bespeak developed a new meaning,"to order or arrange in advance." I would imagine that whoever first said this was not speaking as we do today.

I will have to go back to see if there is any mention of shatnes, the Jewish prohibition (from the Torah ... don’t question) against wearing cloth that is made from the combination of wool and linen. It pertains to men’s clothing as well as women’s and children’s, so maybe it didn’t make the cut. I would think, however, that such a prestigious exhibition should include clothing worn by male clergy, gorgeous robes of cardinals and bishops, as well as that of the ultra orthodox Jewish Satmar men with their mink fur hats, brocade coats, white knicker sox and pantaloons. You can easily see this every shabbos in Beverly/La Brea area.

Finally, but not really, this brings me to the matter of androgyny. There are many outfits that I would like to be able to wear, and why not? The other part of my brain wants to know what about reigning women’s fashions so captivates men that they will go to no expense or discomfort to slip into something a little more ... what? Is this a good reason to undergo hormone treatment and surgery? Look at all the fabulous clothing guys have!

I must confess that I would have enjoyed a section on the cross-over-and-back of women's  fashions leaning toward the male power-suit (think Coco Channel) and another on female drag. Where do those guys get those awful shoes in giant-size? This particular interest me because perhaps while there may be a desire for someone born into the male gender to be attracted to women's clothing for aesthetic purposes and to work out one's transgender identity. (Rhinestones, dahling! Oooh! Look at that boa! Where DID you get those shoes?) The last thing I would do is to undergo sex reassignment just to have gaudy clothing. Most of this was awful without the pain of surgery.

Up 'n' Away @ LACMA

Chris Burden's Ode to Santos Dumont at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an elegant piece of engineering, as great engineering should be. I know about that which I speak as my late (actually he was never not on time, usually early) father, Al Deutsch, was a skilled and creative engineer. He as a wonderful draftsman; everything he built in our house, not to mention for his industrial employers, was well sketched, measured and ... did I mention measured and sketched? His desk remains filled with all sorts of mechanical pencils, rulers and templates, and other drafting equipment (something that fits on the side of a table and has an adjustable right angle gizmo so that parallel lines can be made accurately). I have his slide rules with which he built machines and calculated critical dimensions used in the nuclear and chemical businesses.

Thus the conceit of having Burden's kinetic work at LACMA, instead of the airplane/spaceship - filled exhibitions at the Science Museum in Expo Park or in an auxiliary  off-site venue, such as the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, provokes us to consider the art - forward aspects of the work. The word "elegant", as in "Elegant Universe" is important. Here is where aesthetic meets science. Where the journey is as  gorgeous as the goal. The magical twist of fate makes the energy used well worth the investment.

The artist, who, like my father, was always early, in this case to depart this material plane, must have enjoyed his childhood -- or clearly wasn't done with it, as his Metropolis II Erector Set + Hot Wheels (all trademarked names, of course) work also in the LACMA collection, seems to be an "if you could build anything you would like, what would it be ..." moment.What adult wouldn't enjoy fulfilling a childhood fantasy given all the resources necessary. What child wouldn't love to have grown-up toys? Isn't this what the high-tech design movement was about, with such now defunct stores in LA as Industrial Revolution on Melrose.

The beautiful movement of Santos around the Resnick Pavilion reminds me of the soft, relaxed pace of Hayao Miyazaki's last film The Wind Rises. In the illustrated feature the protagonist Jiro Horikoshi conjures up Italian aeroplane designer Giovanni Caproni as he searches for that elegant solution to a technical challenge that intended nonetheless deadly consequences.

I almost wanted to hear music in the pavilion today. It was as much an ode as it was elegiac.

Japan Goes Mod(ern)

Book Reviews by Lauren W. Deutsch

Originally published in 

Kyoto Journal  #58, May 2004

Reprinted in support of LACMA's Kimono for a Modern Age Exhibition 2014

Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan

Miyeko Murase, Ed. (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003)

Mavo: Japanese Artists and 

The Avant-Garde 1905-1931 
Gennifer Weisenfeld (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002)

Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions 

of Modern Japan

Stephen Vlastos, Ed. (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998)

Imagine … It's early 1924. Furuta Oribe XII's 20-something only son, Oribe xiii, is deep into an early mid-life crisis. Life as an heir-apparent is not cutting it. Endlessly attending and holding those stuffy tea gatherings every time a cherry blossom petal takes to wind or a maple leaf blushes. He's full-up-to-here with the pretentiousness of emptiness, with a capital "EMPTY". Besides, no one sits seiza anymore.

His family's legacy of quirky ceramics and interior design, so beloved by generations of aesthetes of yore, has not transitioned into the new social economy. The Western hungry ghosts have insatiable appetites for Japanese oldies-but-goodies Chinoiserie knock-offs. The nouveau riche industrialists are good to go 24/7 with assembly line versions of his great-great-great-etc. granddaddy's classics, but the output is so much vulgar stuttering, diluting the genius of spontaneity. They think a whack of a paddle, a swish of brown slip and a splat of green glaze and … a masterpiece. Ha!

Very soon he'll be installed with full rights as Mr. XIII. This will mean managing and supporting the dreary household staff. It's not his cup of tea.

Wriggling out of the nijiriguchi, he hangs up the "Sorry We Missed You!" sign on the roji gate and heads for the sento. In the genkan, the front page of the morning's shinbun blasts an editorial about the decline of morals of youth due to a dangerous and growing sense of individualism among the intelligentsia. Women are cutting their hair short, exposing their skin in public, and men are wearing unisex fashion. There's a notice about a group of artists who are staging an art show and poetry reading at a café in support of a petition for more affordable housing. Another about the round up of students hanging out at that same joint.

Slipping into his new brown hounds-tooth jodhpur, cream mohair jacket and forest green leather boots, he heads shitamachi to find that little café. His soul is dry. And he's very thirsty. Thirsty for a fresh look at the world.

Consider what might transpire if xiii had met the modernists of his own time, Picasso for sure … But this fantasy must serve this review, so he meets Murayama Tomoyoshi and his band of merry Taisho pranksters, the artists of the Mavo movement.

Turning Point is the long awaited book on about the impact of Momoyama generalissimo chajin Furuta Oribe on Japanese aesthetics. Hideaki Furukawa, the director of The Museum of Fine Arts in Gifu, offers in its early pages, "The impulse to challenge and defy convention could be called the defining theme of Japan's Momoyama period. 'Oribe' neatly captures this sprit of creative nonconformity…" The Oribe book made its debut in sync with the block-buster one-stop exhibition of the same name held at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art staged at the end of 2003 through early 2004.

Weisenfeld's dense opus, Mavo,  is a chronicle of the activities, inspirations and impact of Mavo, the Japanese sociopolitical aesthetic movement dated 1905 - 1931. It primarily focuses on Murayama Tomoyoshi, the movement's mastermind, who seemed to have a whole lot of fun stirring up the already turbulent Taisho status quo, with a capital QUO. While a bit dense to casually, the narrative would serve very well if complementing an exhibition.

"Mavo was a self-proclaimed avant-garde constellation of artists and writers collaborating in a dynamic and rebellious movement that not only shook up the art establishment, but also made an indelible imprint on the art criticism of the period," she outlines.

Rigorous narratives supported by copious illustrations fill these two volumes. By re- and de-constructing reputations, myths and the physical remnants of the times, they address philosophy and production of art in a multitude of methods -- from clay and oil painting and sculpture, to architecture, theatre and the mass media. They also give us images of how Japan deals with errant aesthetes.

During each period, evolutions of artistic styles were inseparable from developments in Japanese enterprise, hegemony and industrialization, mass consumer culture, and social order. Bookending three centuries of isolationism, it may be argued that the volumes under consideration reflect "modernist" trends within its own time period, providing an interesting spectrum from which to explore the premise of Vlastos' book Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan. 

"Artists are too often omitted from sociopolitical studies [of the Japanese intelligentsia], here they gain their rightful place in the debates of the early twentieth century. Including those who dealt with art: educators, bureaucrats, dealers, collectors and publishers," notes Weisenfeld.

As an exhibition catalog, Turning Point is a font of illustrations of stunning dogu for chanoyu. It also contains generous helpings of mind -candy about the who / how / huh of Oribe. In addition, it offers literary works, screen painting and even Portuguese maps and diaries. Each points to Oribe's impact as a major "player" in volatile and changing political, social and cultural landscapes of his time … and now.

A major focus of the book and exhibition is the new archeological scholarship being undertaken at historic Seto kiln sites. Sifting through household waste and layers of potsherds, they are documenting the popularity and mass production of Oribe-ness. What is lacking in both book and exhibition is a sampling of today's Oribe-ish ephemera such as plastic sushi bar shoyu dishes. Do I ask too much?

The editor states, "During the era of Oribe, a common aesthetic language bound all the visual arts more strongly than any other time in Japan before or since, and intimate working relationships existed among artists in different media." Until the advent of Mavo, perhaps.

Like the French impressionists in the late 19^th century, Murayama and his avant-garde cronies took on the gadan (art establishment) of their time, unabashedly challenging conventional taste and social norms. And like Oribe, Murayama was charismatic and drew tremendous inspiration from his collaborations with others.

Where Oribe's jazzy naturalistic designs were to be "seen" mostly dimly lit tea rooms set to promote harmony and tranquilly, purity and respect, MaVo was a brash, in-your-face under- and-above-ground collective tour de force affront to the bitter reality of life Meiji / Taisho.

The origin and significance of the "Mavo" name itself  seems to be contested among the group members. The most widely disseminated story has it coming from a random selection within a collective process with representation of the membershipitself. While a hotly disputed conclusion, it proved to be a useful "brand", replete with mystery. The actual composition of "membership" also waxes and wanes with opinions, however scholarly, but consensus contends it fluctuated.

What is quite clear, however, is that they played turned everything upside down and backwards.. For example, The "V" in Mavo on their publication covers is mimicked in several of the members' (men and women) hair styles … or is it vice versa?Like Andy Warhol's "Factory" in New York of the 1960s, the group of young, largely self-trained Mavo men and women spent as much energy promoting its manifesto as making the "art" itself.

"While drawn together because of a 'constructivist inclination,'" states the author, "the Mavo artists did not assert ideological solidarity. Rather, they maintained distinct convictions, respecting each other's personal goals."

On the serious art side, Mavo was deeply imprinted by German Abstract Expressionism and the "happenings" of Dada and other modernist movements in Europe and the USA. Illustrations include architectural designs catering to the lifestyle of the proletariat. Graphic designs for leftist literary works, periodicals and promotional materials for Mavo events incorporated typographic influences of Europe (including classic Germanic script and Hebrew!).

Weisenfeld writes:  "They strived to revolutionize the form, function and intent of Japanese art. They aimed to reestablish a connection they felt had been broken in the Meiji period with the codification of autonomous "fine art' based on the Western model … reintegrating art into the social (and political) practice of everyday life."

As a friend living in Japan said, it would take an exhibition in New York or Paris for Furuta Oribe to be publicly claimed by the Japanese as a favorite son in "mixed" (gai and Nihon-jin) company. And then there's Mavo. Can't imagine the French keeping Picasso a secret for 400 years, much less declaring the uniqueness of analytical cubism.

  

If you're reading Kyoto Journal, you have undoubtedly been in this situation: You're in the market check-out line; your basket includes tofu. The Japanese customer in front of you turns and, eyeing the tofu, says, "You can eat?" You nod, perhaps a polite grunt, and say, "Do you eat this?" "Yes, but I am Japanese."

In Mirror of Modernity, his excellent collection of essays on an eclectic assortment of "modernisms", Stephen Vlastos writes, "Modern Japan is widely regarded as a society saturated with customs, values and social relationships that organically link present generations of Japanese to past generations." (The accompanying article, "En Avant Garde" attempts to exercise this notion.)

A confession: I fell for it when I was a teenager. I believed in Japan's reverence for the traditional. I shunned rock 'n' roll for origami. I completely missed the party scene in the 60s and am trying to make up for lost time by getting high on matcha and eating dried breakfast cereal called "Zen".

An easy, entertaining read (with a great index, glossary and bibliography), the book takes us backstage to view the artifices of the Meiji and Taisho with compelling arguments to support his conclusion that there may be no there "there". It's done with mirrors.

Vlastos central question is, "How, by whom, under what circumstances, and to what social and political effect are certain practices and ideas formulated, institutionalized and propagated as tradition?"

While it is stated that Ito Hirobumi was the principal architect of Japan's modernization project in the latter part of the 19^th Century, we are told that Yanagita Kunio invented the "tradition of Japanese tradition" by claiming, "Japan's preservation of its original culture made Japan unique among modern nations. Japan alone had achieved modernity without cutting itself off from its original culture."

"Every tradition trades between two poles: imagination and contrivance, creation and deception, he says."

The explosive growth of Japanese capitalism after World War I sparked new media technologies, new forms of entertainment and pleasure seeking, and the mass markets with their items of personal consumption. It's how the Daimyos became princes and evolved into CEOs.

Vlastos' selection of 16 essays by which to explore the social and cultural chaos is eclectic: the fundamental notion of wa, harmony, is hit head-on. Other checkpoints include labor management, shifting gender roles as reflected in the café waitress as moga (modern girl), the development of sentimentality for folksy village life, the challenges to tame colonial Manchuko with Imperial loyalty. At the same time the archipelago was evolving into a "modern" nation state, newly contrived prefectural identities were galvanized with neo-religious fervor.

One of the most intriguing discussions is the morphing of the classic warrior skills into more broadly accessible martial arts, budo, represented here by Kokudan judo. This provided a safe way to address the threat of the growing popularity of sports and the penultimate expression of world harmony, the Olympics  -- a Western construct which was considered dangerous to the populace as it could infect society with "individualism and liberalism". Author Inoue Shun notes, "Ideologues argued that sports must be "Japanized" through budo." These "games" became a much-needed "safe" expression of national identity and was consumable casually or otherwise by everyman.

Another intriguing piece deconstructs the notion of "home", the architecture of domestic life, in post-Meiji. Its author, Jordan Sands, notes one of the big jumps from the feudal to a modern, social construct could be found in the new practice of family dining. This meant synchronizing mealtimes and sharing an eating place. It required replacing individual meal trays with a dining table. He goes on to address other elements of domesticity such as interior design as it imposes and implies social status and carves out the possibility of privacy.

The author's own essay focuses on agrarianism. "At the end of the 1920s embattled farmers and rustic intellectuals transformed agrarianism into a movement of economic renewal and political activism. Farmers, desperately searching for practical solutions to the very real problem of economic survival, and rural polemicists, certain that capitalism and city culture were the root cause of the crisis, developed their own brand of agrarianism."  Capitalism's "erosion of social authority" was thwarted by "the enshrinement of the agricultural village as the well-spring of authentic Japanese culture."  As a result of the social turmoil of the 1930s, the reassuring image of harmonious and productive farm families served the ideological needs of many sectors of Japanese society, he concludes."

Vlastos calls upon to Miriam Silverberg for a glimpse of that new “traditional” phenomenon: the café waitress as representative of moga. Not to be confused with geisha and the kissaten, coffeehouse, staff, she was "bourgeois woman's challenge to established gender norms".

[The café was itself a modern construct. Unlike the coffeehouse, which is said to have been established in 1888 and could be considered a version of the pre-modern teahouse, the café, was considered a "modern success of the Taisho-period milk halls," the author says, but does not describe further. Puratan (Printemps) is considered the first Japanese café, modeled after the male-staffed French hangout. Puratan was opened in the spring of 1911 by the artist Matsuyama Shozo, a painter in the yoga (Western style) who served food and wine to go with the graffiti he had painted on the café walls. It catered mainly to the salaried middle class and intellectuals.]

Going back to the front of this article, it attempts to demonstrate how Japan draws upon the past to create and validate the present and uses this energy to illuminate the past. Sounds like a flawed plan for a perpetual motion machine. I maintain that one must go back as far as possible and cite the source. Rand Castile, the American scholar of chanoyu, once observed that Rikyu created wabi. Sabi, on the other hand, cannot be created. "Perhaps wabi exists only in opposition to something." I maintain this tension is similar for the notion of "modernity."

Taking Vlastos at his word, I can't help but look at the Momoyama's chado explosion, with its nostalgic bow to the artifice of wabi and chashitsu -as-cosmos construct. Are these any less contrived than the café and sumo's yokuzono system discussed in his book? Aren't the former "modern" for their time?

When asked why, despite the unbroken lineage and impeccability of presentation of the art, the oiemoto of a major chanoyu school is not designated a "living national treasure", I was told that no one can tell him he isn't.

I would suggest that this practice of self-alignment has something to do with encounters with gaijin. Perhaps it was an act of purification, much like the Biblical Exodus period of isolation and wandering in the desert to galvanize identity. While not discussed, it seems necessary to determine whether there was a lack of fabrication of tradition during the 300 years of Japan's isolation until "opening up".