EUREKA! EFFECTS OF THE WEST FOUND IN MODERN ART.Byline: Jim Farber Staff Writer Two video screens glow at the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, Calif. The original museum opened in 1913. Among its important patrons was William Randolph Hearst, whose enormous collection brought the museum major status among the country's art houses. of Art's exhibition, "The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950," on loan from Houston's Museum of Fine Arts Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, chartered and incorporated (1870) after a decision by the Boston Athenaeum, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pool their collections of art objects and house them in adequate public galleries. through June 3. One shows a Navajo healer kneeling on the floor of a hogan, executing a ceremonial sand painting. The second shows modern art's most famous action painter, Jackson Pollock, kneeling on the floor of his studio dribbling paint. Navajo mysticism and abstract modernism: What can they possibly have in common? That's the question That's the Question is an American quiz game show on GSN, hosted by game show veteran and former Entertainment Tonight reporter, Bob Goen, which premiered in October 2006. that stimulates and reverberates throughout "The Modern West." "We tried very hard to make connections appear self-evident that are not a part of the history of American art American art, the art of the North American colonies and of the United States. There are separate articles on American architecture, North American Native art, pre-Columbian art and architecture, Mexican art and architecture, Spanish colonial art and architecture, as it's told today," explains the Houston museum's curator of American painting and sculpture, Emily Ballew Neff, who spent six years gathering together works by 74 artists. "The landscape and the artists had a mutually reinforcing effect," says Neff, standing amid the more than 100 paintings and photographs that make up the exhibit. "That's what this show is about. And that's the part of the story that hasn't been told. People who take a traditional view of modernism say it's anti-subject, anti-narrative; ergo, place doesn't matter. This exhibition says -- emphatically -- place does matter." From Neff's perspective, contrasting a video of Pollock at work on a canvas with that of a Navajo Indian crafting a sand painting makes absolute artistic sense. "People don't realize that Pollock worked as a surveyor's assistant at the Grand Canyon Grand Canyon, great gorge of the Colorado River, one of the natural wonders of the world; c.1 mi (1.6 km) deep, from 4 to 18 mi (6.4–29 km) wide, and 217 mi (349 km) long, NW Ariz. when he was 13," she explains. He was born in Cody, Wyo., studied in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of with Thomas Hart Thomas Hart or Tom Hart may refer to:
"This show doesn't make an argument that the West determined the look of modernism," Neff says, firmly. "Nor does it deny the importance of the East and Europe. What it does say is the West played a very important role, and that it's the only major player in the history of modernism that hasn't had a major exhibition devoted to it. We're rethinking the canon of modernist artists and their influences because it has merit." Jim Farber, (310) 540-5511, Ext. 416 jim.farber@dailybreeze THE MODERN WEST: AMERICAN LANDSCAPES, 1890-1950 What: Exhibit traces the influence of the rugged West on artists. Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, also known as LACMA, is the official and world-renowned art museum of the County of Los Angeles, California, located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. , 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. When: Noon to 8 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; noon to 9 p.m. Fridays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through June 3. Tickets: $9, $5 for seniors and students, free for children 17 and under. Information: (323) 857-6000 or www.lacma.org. CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) "The Crucified Land," 1939, oil on canvas (2) "Hot Coffee," Mojave Desert 1937; gelatin gelatin or animal jelly, foodstuff obtained from connective tissue (found in hoofs, bones, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage) of vertebrate animals by the action of boiling water or dilute acid. silver print |
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