Collections: Contemporary Art

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1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist for January 2009: An Xiao

Will Cary on December 23, 2008

In the same spirit that we asked Swoon to launch 1stfans in person (that is to say, with the Museum’s existing community in mind), we are delighted to announce that An Xiao is going to be the first artist on the 1stfans Twitter Art Feed. We’ve known An for a while and were ecstatic when she decided to submit a proposal for the 1stfans Twitter. Many of our community may already know An because her work was in the top 25% of Click! and perhaps you’ve seen her blog or her Twitter feed (both of which Shelley and I follow). I would be remiss if I didn’t mention her work is part of the Micro-Macro exhibition in NYC running through the end of this year, so hurry, go quick. But none of these reasons are why she was selected (lest you think that we are granting anyone favors). An’s proposal for using the Twitter Art Feed simply blew us away and when we forwarded it to curators Eugenie Tsai, Patrick Amsellem, and Lauren Ross, they were equally enamored. Since I’m not a curator, I’ll spare you my analysis and simply share with you how An will be using the Twitter Art Feed in her own words:

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In January 2006, Western Union put to rest the telegram, the groundbreaking new technology that allowed nearly-instant intercontinental communication and enjoyed almost two centuries of communications usage. Two months later, a new medium emerged, similar in many ways: Twitter. In a world of email, AIM and cell phones, it made barely a blip, but its importance is quickly becoming clear.

I propose using the 1stfans feed to tweet in Morse code. As writer Nicholas Carr noted, the parallels are apparent--speed, brevity, and a need for acronyms--, but the purposes are almost entirely separate. Whereas telegrams were used for business and important personal communication, tweets generally act as wide broadcasts and rarely contain substantive information per se, which emails and blogs are better suited for. In other words, telegrams conveyed news of deaths, deals and diplomacy; tweets convey breakfast habits.

Through tweeting Morse code, I aim to explore instant communication's new direction by recalling its history. Rather than important issues, I will communicate daily minutiae, such as "Brushing my teeth" and "Tired. Need coffee." Such usage of telegraph technology would have been inconceivable in its heyday. In so doing, I want to encourage 1stfans viewers to examine the evolution of instant communication and what purpose, exactly, is served by sharing such minor details of one's life.

Samuel Morse, in his first telegraph, asked, "What hath God wrought?" His invention changed the world, especially with its influence on politics and business. What have Twitter, and other microblogging media, wrought upon the way we connect with others? What doors have they opened in the realm of personal and business relationships, and how have they expanded our sense of identity?

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Contemporary Take on Landscape Painting

Eugenie Tsai on October 21, 2008

Valerie Hegarty (American, born 1967). Fallen Bierstadt, 2007. Foamcore, paint, paper, glue, gel medium, canvas, wire, and wood. Gift of Campari, USA , 2008.9a–b. Photo courtesy Matt Verzola via Flickr. All Rights Reserved.

Hanging off kilter in 21: Selections of Contemporary Art from the Brooklyn Museum is Valerie Hegarty’s Fallen Bierstadt (2007). Looking like a charred painting that’s disintegrating, one corner of the ornate gold frame appears to lift off the wall while the lower half of the canvas and frame appear to have crumbled into pieces of debris that lie in small piles on the floor. What appears to be a painting is in reality a highly illusionistic facsimile crafted by Hegarty out of ordinary materials including paper, foam core, and wood.



Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite, about 1871-73. Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 26 3/8 in. (91.7 x 67.0 cm.). Purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) and various donors, by exchange, 87.9

Fallen Bierstadt refers to a painting entitled Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite (in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art) by Albert Bierstadt, the renowned 19th century American landscape painter. I was gratified to learn that Hegarty, who lives across the street from the Museum, has frequently visited American Identities on the 5th floor where our own examples of Bierstadt’s paintings can be found. The title, Fallen Bierstadt, seems to refer both to the physical appearance of the piece and to the end of a heroic tradition of landscape painting. By mimicking the high degree of illusionism found in Bierstadt’s paintings, Hegarty’s fabricated object reveals her own skill as virtuoso.



While Patrick Amsellem and I were installing the exhibition, we invited Hegarty to place the debris on the floor as she wished and the placement was documented by our conservation department so that we can replicate it whenever the work is on view at the museum.

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Gilbert & George take Times Square!

Shelley Bernstein on October 14, 2008

If you've been in Times Square lately, you may have seen this already, but we were waiting to post until we had some good photos. Tash put out a call to the Brooklyn Museum Members group on Flickr and Trish Mayo and Stephen Sandoval took a field trip to the square to get some shots. Trish, Stephen - thanks, these are awesome!

Photo by Trish Mayo. All Rights Reserved.

Video by Stephen Sandoval (with awesome Times Square street noise). All Rights Reserved.  [Hey, you need at least IE7 to see the vid, but use Firefox because it is better]

If you are in Times Square, check out Gilbert and George on the MTV 44 1/2, the high def screen on Bway between 44th and 45th Streets. The series curated by Creative Time show early works by Gilbert & George, A Portrait of the Artists As Young Men and The Nature of Our Looking, are from 1970 and 1972, respectively, and are timed to correspond with the Gilbert & George exhibition, on view from October 3 to January 11.

Schedule (subject to change) as follows:

Monday AM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 Monday PM: 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00

Tuesday AM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 Tuesday PM: 9:00, 10:00, 11:00

Wednesday AM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 Wednesday PM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00

Thursday-Sunday AM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 Thursday-Sunday PM: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00

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