Winter is…
…cold architecture, generative art, tactile sculpture, and textiles.
Here is a collection of art I am thinking about this season.
Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1968 (SFMOMA)
The tactile urgency of Twombly’s marks contrasts their light, spindly forms - simultaneously becoming more vocal yet more faded as the eye moves down the canvas. Paired with the muted mushroom-taupe backdrop, the painting depicts the monotonous solitude of winter.
Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting (still), 1974 (SFMOMA)
Gordon Matta-Clark shines warm light into cold spaces. Impermanence is a central force in his work: temporary canvases to be demolished, the passage of time, sunlight. They question an unsettling reality behind suburban utopia.
Gillian Carnegie, Hanser, 2010 (Tate)
A cold architectural painting that seems not of this world. Uncanny. The smooth, monochrome, geometry makes me feel visually satisfied but emotionally eery. Through the continuous upward curvature of the spiral staircase and the peak to a downstairs passageway below the balcony railing, the painting makes me think more about what lies beyond, and less about what is visually presented.
Kiki Smith, Fortune, 2014 (Magnolia Editions)
I love Kiki Smith’s whimsical, magical, folklore-esque works. A jacquard tapestry is the perfect medium for expressing these themes - woven with history, passed down, the evidence of hands and time. Although Fortune technically resembles fall in her tapestry series, it has a peaceful wintery quality that I find myself thinking about during this time of year.
Yayoi Kusama, Compulsion Furniture (Accumulation), 1964 (SFMOMA)
This is a collage featuring Kusama’s Accumulation sculptures. The array of sofas and chairs are rendered unusable - consumed by tentacle-like growths. I like the idea of transforming something so familiar and comforting into something so uncomfortable to look at. It is exactly what Meret Oppenheim accomplishes in Object, I think the MoMa website said it best, “revealing the sexual, psychological, and emotional drives burning just beneath the surface”.
Edwin Dickinson, Interior, Glen Eyrie, 1929 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
I enjoy this painting because it is just legible enough. It is a very delicate balance between information and abstraction. You can barely make out a chair, a dresser, a desk .. there’s definitely a window? The feeling is slightly chilly, not cold. The warm earthy palette of the interior contrasts the cool white (snowy?) window. Rooms without people: one of my favorite subjects!
Sonia Delaunay, Couverture de Berceau, 1911 (Centre Pompidou)
I’m dying to see Orphism in Paris at the Gugg. I love this example of Sonia’s work, as she oscillates between visual arts, costume and set design, and utilitarian textiles. This falls in the latter category: a baby’s quilt made for her son. I love that this functions as an object - made of repurposed scraps for practical reasons - yet transforms into something completely beyond and into the realm of art.
Bruce Nauman, Untitled (Suspended Chair, Vertical III), 1987 (Magasin III)
Suspended in space, Nauman’s chair eludes to the absence of the human body. It is hostile and cold, and contextually speaks to the political abuse of human rights in the 80’s. This feels relevant right now. I don’t know if I feel like the chair or the imaginary person that fell out of it.
Rose Salane, 64,000 Attempts at Circulation, 2022 (Whitney)
I think about this artwork frequently ever since seeing it at the Whitney Biennial in 2022. After purchasing a bag of 64,000 ‘slug’ coins used on NYC buses from an MTA auction, Salane catalogued each coin into five distinct categories: Faith, Place, Chance, Imitation, and Blank. Examples of ‘slugs’ used as currency include arcade tokens, washers, counterfeit coins, guitar picks, and religious memorbillia. The work is a powerful analysis on value (who determines value? how do we value objects?) and an observation of objects passed through a space.
Jennifer Bartlett, Squaring: 2; 4; 16; 256; 65,536, 1973–74 (Met)
I first saw this piece at the Met in 2019, and it has always been one of my favorite examples of generative art (in which a set of rules determines the final outcome). Made of metal plates inspired by signs in the NYC subway, hand-painted dots represent the squaring of the number 2. It unfolds from left to right, as 2 becomes 4 and 4 becomes 16, until we reach 65,536. The process is both meditative and mathematical, as the organic mark making contrasts the geometric presentation. I explore this same dichotomy in my own work, which is probably why I enjoy this piece so much.
