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hey. do you guys wanna learn some art history with me?
we’ll start with something light today, sourced from the Daily Art app. The Madonna of Humility x Vitale da Bologna. (ca. 1353)
Madonna of Humility is a genre/style of art focused on depicting the Virgin Mary as a grounded or humble being, she’s usually seated on a cushion that’s low to the ground, often holding young Jesus.
it spread quickly through Italy and appeared in Spain, France, etc by 1375. it was one of the most popular styles of the Trecento period, which is commonly considered to be at the beginning of the Renaissance.
“Almond Blossoms” x Vincent Van Gogh, 1890. two points if you can tell me what style of art inspired Van Goghs usage of bold outlining, positioning and subject matter here.
-buzzer- correct answer is “mokuhanga” - Japanese water-based woodblock printing.
interesting follow-up to my last post, here is “Girl in a White Kimono” (1893-94) x George Hendrik Breitner. after seeing an exhibit of Japanese prints at The Hague, Breitner went and purchased kimonos and screens and had neighbors model for him.
“Meisje in Witte Kimono” is part of a series of seven paintings & photographs Breitner did of the same content. these paintings are considered to have happened at the height of Dutch japonism in Impressionism.
“Girl in Red Kimono”.
“Girl in Red Kimono”.
I’m not in a rush and you guys shouldn’t be either but here’s another one just bc I think it’s interesting and I’m pressed. “Tanzende” (1911) x Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
produced during his time with German expressionist group Dïe Brucke (The Bridge) Kirchner carved this piece out of wood. it v closely resembles a Bangwa Queen sculpture acquired by a museum in Berlin shortly before this time.
here is a photograph of the Queen in question, which is one of many artifacts taken from Cameroon and currently at the center of one manifestation of conflict around reparations between French/European museums and various African cultures.
dialing back a bit to Die Brücke, I’ve always thought the group and its manifesto were pretty cool/personally relevant. Here is a photo of the groups manifesto, a woodcut print, and a translation. this seems to be a good link if you want to learn more:
http://www.germanexpressionismleicester.org/story-of-expressionism/expressionist-groups/die-bruecke-(the-bridge)/
http://www.germanexpressionismleicester.org/story-of-expressionism/expressionist-groups/die-bruecke-(the-bridge)/
brooches x Anton Cepka (1976, 1977). Cepka was a member of the Czech-Slovak group Klub konkretistov (Club of concretists). these artists took a more sculptural and designed approach to their work, preferring geometric shapes and abstraction.
Cepka established a studio of jewelry in 1990 at Academy if Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. he is considered to be “one of the most important makers of world art of the latter half of the 20th century”.
“An Asphyxiated Woman” x Charles Porphyre Alexandre Desains, 1822. “A young woman, victim to the toxic smokes of a brazier, left her bed and tries desperately to open the window.” in the 19th century it was common for artists to use science, scientific studies/subjects—
—in their paintings, often in order to point out the dangers of recent discoveries or trends. created during the romanticism movement, Desains chose to focus more on the dramatic side of things than the more popular idealized subjects.
shares similarities with “The Lock” x Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1777.
RELATED BECAUSE IVE BEEN OBSESSED WITH THIS PAINTING SINCE I SAW IT AND NOW I’m MAKING CONNECTIONS: https://twitter.com/themakeda/status/1026820551011180545?s=21
it’s worth noting that “The Lock” x Fragonard is said to be a part of a three part narrative in paintings, it’s siblings being “The Contract” and The Armoire”! (I could only find photos of prints of these last two)
SO IF YOU’LL RECALL THE PREVIOUS TWEET, Lubaina Himid made two paintings, both titles beginning with Le Rôdeur which translates to “the prowler”. that translation may or may not be irrelevant by itself HOWEVER
in 1812, there was a slave ship called Le Rôdeur that resulted in the deaths of over half of the enslaved people onboard during its journey bc of the outbreak of a disease called ophthalmia.. the captain ordered those affected to be thrown overboard
I am pretty sure all of these things are related but I will share my discoveries once I find out some more answers.
Carrie Mae Weems is a multi-faceted artist who’s work focuses on themes including but not limited to sexism, racism, womanhood, motherhood, identity and systemic gatekeeping, erasure and exclusion etc.
she has accessible, publicly shared work that dates back to early 1980s. her photograph series are what have always caught my heart the swiftest. let’s look at one of my most recent faves, shall we? 
In the photography series “Not Manet’s Type” (1997), Weems explores the absence of black women in the art canon. “Standing on shaky ground, I posed myself for critical study but was no longer sure of the questions to ask”
“It was clear I was not Manet’s type. Picasso —who had a way with women—only used me & Duchamp never even considered me”
“But it could have been worse. Imagine my fate had De Kooning gotten hold of me”
“I knew not from memory, but from hope, that there were other models by which to live”
“I took a tip from Frida who from her bed painted incessantly—beautifully while Diego scaled the scaffolds to the top of the world”
according to Bridget R. Cooks in her book Exhibiting Blackness, in the history of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), they have only curated three exhibits of work by black artists, all three of them held in the 1970s.
the first was called “Three Graphic Artists: Charles White, David Hammons, Timothy Washington”. White was largely a painter and illustrator. Hammons took care to avoid sticking to any one medium, producing installations, minimalist/post-minimalist work etc
Timothy Washington largely focused on found art, finding a physical way to illustrate his ideas about the metaphor for humanity that all pieces can retain their individual identities while still coming together to form a whole.
“Seed of Love”x Charles White, 1969.
“Injustice Case” x David Hammons, 1970.
“One Nation Under God” x Timothy E. Washington, 1970.
Dallas Museum of Art runs this really cool blog called Uncrated. it features posts from employees in (almost) every department of the museum and sometimes even special guests. You can search through collections and get a range of BTS takes. https://uncrated.wordpress.com
Shadi Ghadirian is a photographer born in and currently working out of Tehran, Iran. her work tends to focus on the relationship between symbols of tradition, war, and narratives about femininity/masculinity.
“Qajar #24”, 1998 from the “Qajar” collection.
from “Nil, Nil” series, 2008.
if you have the google arts and culture app LIKE I TOLD YALL TO GET, you can view a digital manifestation of the Iran pavilion featuring “Nil, Nil #9” during the 56th Venice Biennale. https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/nil-nil/ggF5Mn8pE49okQ
tea incoming. remember earlier I said LACMA had only exhibited three comprehensive exhibitions of black art, all three of them having been held in the 1970s. the last of these three was Two Centuries of Black American Art, guest-curated by David Driskell.
at the time, this exhibit was considered to be the most comprehensive show of black art to have happened. Driskell presented a formal proposal to the LACMA board, to which one member refused to attend.
once the board agreed to mount the show, two more members promptly resigned due to the decision. Driskell decided to include work by John James Audobon based on info he’d learned in undergraduate school and after pursuing the Jesuit birth record of Audobon.
Driskell received significant flack for the decision, not only in a public letter to the editor of the NYT BUT ALSO PRIVATELY, from a descendant of Audobon who denied and found it slanderous they would purport Audobon was black/had any black ancestry.
THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE I’m shook’th’n’st!
there’s a lot of conversation to be had here about the shame of Blackness, “passing”, heritage/ancestry and what it means to be black. my heart is racing. I’m sitting here reading and shit like
Thelma Golden is currently the director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem. she was inspired to become a curator by the work of Lowery Stokes Sims and received her first taste of training during a curatorial apprenticeship at Metropolitan Museum of Art.
She’s done previous curatorial and directorial work at Whitney Museum of American Art and the Jamaica Arts Center. Golden is credited with curating many notable exhibitions, including the controversial “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art”.
here is a google books link to the catalogue for the Black Male exhibit: https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Male.html?id=7DzCAAAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description
here you can watch Golden’s TED talk from 2009 about how art shapes culture: https://www.ted.com/talks/thelma_golden_how_art_gives_shape_to_cultural_change/up-next?language=en
In honor of #IndigenousPeoplesDay 
, here’s some shots of an article from the 1983 March/April issue of ART PAPERS, “Crafts in the Southeast” Stephen Finn Young interviews Melvin Henry and discusses the craft culture of Mississippi Choctaws + the effects of external eyes.
, here’s some shots of an article from the 1983 March/April issue of ART PAPERS, “Crafts in the Southeast” Stephen Finn Young interviews Melvin Henry and discusses the craft culture of Mississippi Choctaws + the effects of external eyes.
Eva Hesse was a German-born American sculptor known mostly for her work with latex, fiberglass and plastics. she is considered as one of the artists who ushered postminimalism in, in the 1960s.
most of her early work (1960-1965), consisted of abstract paintings and drawings. a move back to Germany with her husband at the time, sculptor Tom Doyle, inspired her move into sculpture and post-minimalist work.
here are notebook pages donated to the Allen Memorial Art Museum by Eva’s sister, Helen Hesse Charash. (1965-1968)
“Repetition 19 III”, 1968, “Hang Up”, 1966, “Accession II”, 1968, “Untitled or Not Yet”, 1966.
at the time, minimalism and post-minimalism were very male-dominated movements. feminist art historians often note that Eva did a good job of illuminating feminist/gendered issues without “being too political” (which, ok, wtf you mean, there’s things to unpack but whatever.).
in a letter (1965) to fellow artist Ethelyn Honig, Hesse ‘said that a woman is "at disadvantage from the beginning… She lacks conviction that she has the ‘right’ to achievement. She also lacks the belief that her achievements are worthy.”’
‘She continued to explain that, “a fantastic strength is necessary and courage. I dwell on this all the time. My determination and will are strong but I am lacking so in self-esteem that I never seem to overcome”’
‘In an interview with Cindy Nemser for Women's Art Journal (1970), she states, "Excellence has no sex."’
Eva Hesse died at the age of 34 in 1970, of a brain tumor, after having been operated on three times in one year. this ended a 10 year career. fiberglass, resin and plastics are known for correlation with increased risk of cancer, which she spent most of her time working with.
sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Hesse , http://www.ethelynhonig.com , https://news.artnet.com/art-world/7-deadly-art-materials-to-watch-out-for-1081526, http://www2.oberlin.edu/amam/EvaHesseArchives.html, https://www.moma.org/artists/2623 , and Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings x Kristine Siles & Peter Selz.
Wheeeew running late today, but here we go. shall we?
the Where We At Collective was a group of black women artists formed in 1971 by Dinga McCannon, Faith Ringgold and Kay Brown.
