It's very difficult to find a photograph that does justice to one of Richard Tuttle's wire pieces. The current exhibition at the DMA features a room full of these 1970s "drawings" which incorporate graphite, the wall, screws, and wire. These are by far my favorite of Tuttle's oeuvre.
The show at the DMA takes up the Barrell Vault, the quadrant galleries, the concourse, and the contemporary galleries - it's a lot of work to view in what begins to feel like a tight amount of space, and it would have been interesting to see the retrospective installed in San Francisco, to get a sense of how the work flowed in a different configuration.
I was probably most interested in Tuttle's book arts works which were displayed in custom display cases built from blond wood with stands that opened outwards like the pages of a book. Creative carpentry, yes, but awkward when it came to viewing and stepping in close to get a good look at the books under glass. Further, the books were oriented more than one direction which really made viewing a pain in the ass. It's interesting to think of Richard meeting Mei Mei while they worked on the design together of one of her books. Also featured in the show were some of Tuttle's more recent works from 20 Pearls and works made between New Mexico and New York.
Kort had a Core Fusion (blend of ballet, stretching and yoga) class last night at the new spa, so I took a trip downtown to visit the DMA and the Tuttle retrospective. After finishing there, went to the Trammell Crowe Museum to see Japanese woodblock prints and then wandered across the street to the Nasher Garden. All Museums are free on Thursday nights! I hadn't been to the Nasher in some time - I've never been crazy about the way that the art is laid out in the galleries or in the garden. But tucked in the back of the garden is a James Turrell skyspace. You enter thru two sets of double doors into a concrete space with benches that looks up into the sky. Yesterday, viewing conditions were ideal. Streaky white clouds and birds flying overhead. It's the quietest place in the garden and a nice place to retreat to stare up at the sky.
I just finished reading David Antin's UC Press book i never knew what time it was picked up at the Taipei International Book Festival this past spring. The book is a series of "talk pieces" - adaptations of spoken "lectures" that Antin has given over the years at various venues like CalArts. As a New Yorker, Antin brings an interesting perspective to urban development in Southern California - the nature of real estate (buying and selling on short turnaround time), public highways, and the evolution and politics of the art programs at the Walt Disney School and UC San Diego, where Antin was hired to teach and run the university gallery. It's a fascinating picture of California arts within a certain period. I first came across Antin's cloud poems a few years back in a Granary catalog - Antin hired airplanes to write poems in the sky using water vapor over the skies of La Jolla. They were short poems, because hiring skywriters does not come cheap. But what an amazing concept.
Kort and I arrived back home last night just in time for my 6:30 a.m. Lasik eye surgery. I've had to do a series of 4 different eyedrops over a five hour period and am seeing the world thru a milky haze. Tomorrow, the medicinal contact lenses come off of my eyes and I will be able to see how much exactly I can see.
It was a tripped out experience and they gave me a percoset to make the whole thing a little more calm. They mark up your eyeball with a black marker, stick you on a chair with knees bent and tell you to look up into a circle of 8 lights. They hold your eyelids open and apply pressure to the eyeball and everything goes black (which is supposed to be quite normal). Then you sit for 30 minutes and wait for the bubbles to disappear and go back to a different chair where the laser reshapes your eye.
I am not supposed to wash the top half of my face for a full 7 days. I have milky residue from the eyedrops clogging up my lashes, like white mascara.
At the end of this, I may just be able to see.
