Dark Dreams with Hugo Crosthwaite at Noel-Baza Fine Art

Last Sunday Gallery Members were invited to a special evening at Noel-Baza Fine Art gallery in Little Italy for a private viewing of Dark Dreams, an exhibition of Hugo Crosthwaite's artwork. Museum curator Amy Galpin lead a refreshing dialogue with Crosthwaite, and guests received a bonus tour of Pierette van Cleve's private collection. After the tours everyone made their way to El Camino Super Cucina for margaritas and ceviche.

Curator Trip to Mexico City

From time to time, I have the good fortune to do research or attend a conference abroad. As a curator with strong interests in Mexican art, I was thrilled to travel to Mexico City, one of my favorites places in the world and in my opinion, the best city for art viewing. While many of my colleagues might pick Paris or Rome, I would jump on a plane any day of the week to see the diversity of art found in Mexico’s capital.

My recent trip to Mexico City was my sixth, but it was my first time to stay in the historic center. It was amazing to wake up to the sound of the Cathedral’s bells, and to fall asleep to the light sound of drumming from the central plaza.

Walking through the streets of Mexico City, history and art unfold seamlessly. Within a few quick blocks in the heart of the historic center, one can experience the ancient art of the Mexica Empire, colonial architecture, murals created by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and the most recent work of José Luis Cuevas. At the nearby Colegio de San Ildefonso, one can experience murals by the Frenchman Jean Charlot, an artist included in The San Diego Museum of Art’s collection.

For the Museum, I met with a curator at the Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL) and discussed some upcoming collaborations between our museums. I also visited the Blaisten Collection, located in the Tlatelolco area of Mexico City. Tlatelolco is another area of Mexico City in which one sees art from different centuries in rapid succession; ancient ruins, a colonial church, and a mural by Siqueiros are neighbors. It is also an area of Mexico City where residents witnessed the horrific violence that broke out in 1968 between student protesters and the police. A memorial in the Plaza de Tres Culturas honors those who lost their lives. The Blaisten Collection includes works by well-known Mexican artists María Izquierdo, Agustín Lazo, and Carlos Orozco Romero. 

Perhaps the most exceptional part of my trip to Mexico City was the afternoon I spent with Brigita Anguiano, the widow of the Mexican muralist, printmaker, and painter Raúl Anguiano. The San Diego Museum of Art has several works by Anguiano in its permanent collection and plans to host a small exhibition of Anguiano’s paintings this summer. I visited their home in Coyoacán, an area of Mexico City with the house museums of both Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky. It was an incredible experience to see Anguiano’s studio and to have a private viewing of the stunning paintings in Brigita’s collection. The visit made me extremely excited about the opening of the Anguiano show at the Museum. With its ardent dedication to the visual arts, Mexico City is a dynamic place for art lovers. I'm already looking forward to my next visit.

Not to miss: Chapultepec Park, Museo Rufino Tamayo, National Palace murals, Ministry of Education murals, Colegio de San Ildefonso murals, Museo Templo Mayor, UNAM campus, Museo Franz Mayer, Coyoacán, Tlatelolco, Alameda Park, Palacio de Bellas Artes, José Luis Cuevas Museum, and a day trip to Acolman and Teotihuacan.

If you really love murals, also try: the Supreme Court Building, Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros, Museo Mural Diego Rivera, and the house museum dedicated to Siqueiros in Polanco.

The Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil and the Museo Dolores Olmedo have stunning collections of modern art as does the Andres Blaisten Collection in Tlatelolco.

A final art tip: Pick up a newspaper and check out the current exhibitions. There are so many art spaces that you can easily find new and exciting things to do. On my recent trip I went checked out the art listings and find my way to a show that honored the anniversary of certain tax freedoms for artists. The show included a stunning Rivera painting that I had never seen before and a host of strong works by contemporary artists. I caught an intriguing Betsabeé Romero show as well.

 -Amy Galpin, Project Curator for American Art

Alice Neel's Aphorisms

Last night, the Sundance Channel aired their compelling film on Alice Neel. The best parts of the film are undoubtedly all the recorded videos of Neel herself.

When painting her portraits, for example, she said that she had four things in mind:
1. Art - the best part of the process was the moment of "dividing of the canvas," the setting out of the composition.

2. Likeness - the portrait needed, after all, to look like the person being painted. Only then could one try to move on to...

3. Capturing something of the inner character of the sitter.

4. And finally, she explained, the painting should have an aspect of zeitgeist. A portrait painted in the 1970s shouldn't look like as though it were painted in the 1930s.

Keeping all that in mind, have another look at the Museum of Art's Portrait of Mildred Myers Oldden, which was just reinstalled in the newly configured 20th Century Galleries.

Painted around 1937, the portrait is a relatively early work (and as such is an interesting counterpoint to her better-known paintings of the 1970s), but it gives you a pretty good idea of what Neel meant.

The best line of the documentary, however, was something else entirely. At one point, Neel turned to the camera and explained...

Art is not as stupid as human conversation

HOMECOMING: Artist Hugo Crosthwaite returns to San Diego for his first museum exhibition

By Alexander Jarman, Manager of Public Programs

Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite opens tonight at Museum.  This exhibition is particularly exciting because we will have the artist composing a work in the gallery space for all to see for the next few weeks.  I sat down with Hugo over some Mahi Mahi tacos recently to talk about his work.

AJ: Hugo, you were born in Tijuana, went to college in San Diego and now live and work in New York City. Do you consider yourself more of a Mexican or American artist?

 HC: For me, that question doesn’t enter into my work that much. New York is so cosmopolitan that being from somewhere else doesn’t matter much. My drawings often reflect to some degree the place that I am living at the time, though I don’t think the Tijuana landscape will ever leave the work.



AJ: Tell me more about making it as an artist here versus New York City.

 HC: I try not to think about being a smaller fish in a bigger pond. New York is the heart of the industry, you can’t throw a rock in that city without hitting an artist. But there are lots of people there trying to just make a living with their art and a lot more opportunities for them to do so. More NYC institutions are paying attention to emerging artists, which is why it is so gratifying for me to come back and participate in the Museum’s exhibition here. The San Diego Museum of Art was the first museum I ever went to growing up. It was the only place I could actually see works by all the artists I was interested in- Giotto, Rembrandt, Sorolla, Goya.



AJ: You taught yourself to draw by copying illustrations from Don Quixote and the Divine Comedy at a very early age. What attracted you to such serious and heavy subject matter and has that stayed with you in the work you continue to make today?



HC: I was captivated by the very dramatic images of naked bodies in poses of suffering. I mean, the Divine Comedy has all of these images of people writhing in hell, but the drawings were full of beautiful lines and compositions. That dramatic aesthetic was the first thing I fell in love with in art and I am still drawn to it. But I never looked at the whole figure or the whole picture when I was redrawing it. I would copy one detail and then move on to the next detail, which is what I still do today. I am a collage artist in the sense that all of my figures are made up of body parts and details from various sources. I might draw an eye from a glamour magazine, and then a mouth from a movie still and then a body from an advertisement. So the drawings are just created detail by detail, I never have any idea how they will look when they are done. I can’t sketch out an entire composition ahead of time because I’m too obsessed with the details.



AJ: So let’s talk more about your drawing process, in terms of how it is structured and when you know the piece has finally come together.

 HC: Well, the drawing I am working on in the galleries for this show is the fourth time I have proposed working in a public space on a strict deadline. I have to give myself a schedule in order to finish in time, since I only have a couple of weeks. For all of the other works in the show, I have been able to work for months on them at a time or even a year if I need to. I did one of my first big public drawings at a gallery in New York. They invited me to be in a show but all of my work had just been shipped off to another exhibition, so I thought I would make a drawing, sort of as a performance, in the space during the run of the exhibition. In that instance, I have a deadline, so the drawing is done when it has to be done. But when I’m in my studio, I know a work is finished when I can’t possibly think of adding anything else to it….the drawing has run its course and it’s not taking me anywhere else. That’s usually when the title comes to me too. But finishing the drawing is easy, tackling that empty canvas is the harder part.

 AJ: Tell me quickly about your drawing here at the Museum, both the actual piece and the process of being ‘on view’ while you create.



HC: Well the invitation to do this show came just as I was reading A Tale of Two Cities. And coming back to the border region, I thought I would make a drawing with two figures, one representing Tijuana and one representing San Diego. I like exploring the duality, the points of embrace and of conflict between these two cities.


I’m looking forward to drawing in front of a Museum audience because I think it demystifies the artistic process. I would always wonder how artists worked in their studios, like how did they hang their canvases, what kind of easel did they use, what kind of techniques were they using? Why was Francis Bacon’s studio so messy but his paintings so pristine? What you’re seeing when you come to watch me in the galleries is exactly what you would see me doing in my studio- except I won’t be listening to music! Usually I have my iPod or NPR going. I didn’t want to bring my iPod with me into the galleries because I want to make sure I can hear someone talking to me if they had a question.

 AJ: So you’re not worried about people coming into the space and trying to talk to you while you’re working?

 HC: No, I like talking to people about the work. If I didn’t, I never would’ve proposed doing this project.



AJ:Now that you’ve seen the space, how do agree with Amy’s [Amy Galpin, Project Curator for American Art at the Museum, curated the exhibition]  vision for the show?



HC: I am very happy with all the work Amy picked and arranged. These pieces represent my working in San Diego from about 1998 until 2004*, when I moved to New York. So for me, it is a chance to reacquaint myself with some of my past pieces, it’s kind of like a time capsule. But that’s why proposing the mural was so important for me, because it gives the audience a chance to see what I’m up to right now. It serves as a very nice little retrospective.

Images: Top, Three Graces, Collection of Debra Dold Trust
             Lower, TWINS, Courtesy of Van Cleve Fine Art

* Brutal Beauty contains works from 1998-2007, and includes a commissioned work--constructed by Crosthwaite on site February-March 2010.

Gallery Event Wrap-Up: A Conversation between Curator Ariel Plotek and Educator Alexander Jarman

On January 21, The Gallery hosted their Behind Closed Doors: Art of the 20th Century event at the Museum.  Assistant Curator Ariel Plotek and Public Programs Manager Alexander Jarman sat down to reflect on how the evening went.

AJ: So what was your favorite part of the night?


AP: Well, first let me just say what I like most about the Gallery. What I’ve remarked repeatedly about Gallery get-togethers is how much the members seem to like one another. Folks don’t just come for a lecture, they’re there to rub shoulders with each other. Having said that, as a speaker, our Gallery members are an ideal audience: curious, attentive, and there to have fun.

AJ: And it was great to be able to enjoy a beer in the galleries while listening to you, Amy and John. But seriously, it was very special to have the group see the space, see the works and hear the ideas behind the exhibitions before they are even open to the public. It seems like everyone was excited to bring their friends back when the shows open to share their knowledge of the ‘inside scoop.’

AP: You know, there’s a sort-of nervous energy in the Museum, a real sense of mounting excitement when a show is about to open. What you see at the official opening is an unveiling, the culmination of a lot of effort–

AJ: And what you got to share on Thursday wasn’t just the result, but some of that anticipation.

AP: Exactly. And it was great to see how contagious that excitement can be. Everyone really wanted to talk about the choices we’d made for the shows. All those nitty-gritty details suddenly seemed to matter—and not just to the curator, whose job it is to weigh shades of white…

AJ: Yeah, and it seemed like most people were pretty keen to keep the conversation going.

AP: Even before the Art of North America was fully open, people were milling around, curious —checking out the ‘peach cobbler’ (the coral color in galleries 2 and 3). It certainly got everyone talking.

AJ: I thought Katy’s comment about how even the Board of Trustees doesn’t get that kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse, was very apt. Really reminded us all how special the evening was.

AP: Absolutely, I thought that captured it perfectly.

Top image: Ariel Plotek holds a 'butterfly board,' which is a preparatory map of the exhibition layout.

Lower image: A close-up of the 'butterfly board' for Art of the 20th Century.

James Hyde

As visitors to the Museum have seen this week, we're starting major reinstallations. The Picasso, Miro, Calder exhibition has closed, and those rooms will soon be given over to the art of South Asia, in a new installation entitled Temple, Palace, Mosque. For the first time, our important - even world-renowned - collection of South Asian painting from the Binney Collection will get a prominent place in the museum. It deserves it: this is one of the world's great collections of painting from India, and we're going to install it in rooms that will also have sculpture and other objects from our collection.

That will be a complicated display and it will take some time to set up. In the meanwhile, we're using one of the now-empty galleries just off the rotunda to show our installation-sized group by contemporary artist James Hyde (born 1958).

Entitled Middle Station--Luminous Platforms and Relaxed Seating, this is a collection of glowing coffee tables and of chairs made of galvanized aluminum or vinyl-sheathed styrofoam. Indebted to the American minimalist movement of the 1960s and 70s, to artists such as Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Scott Burton, Hyde's work plays with the properties of light and reflection and questions the boundaries between art and utilitarian objects. The installation might be summed up with a quotation from the artist himself: "For me, painting is neither an object or a practice, but a habit of seeing... I'm interested in how furniture constructs the figure. This comes from painterly concerns. I've often been more interested in the pictorial qualities of the painting support than its surface. My furniture can be thought of as pictorial abstractions of a painting panel."

With that in mind, come in, sit down for a while, and be part of the work of art. If you want to know more about Hyde and his work, have a look at his website:
http://www.jameshyde.com/

-John Marciari

What Museum People are Talking About

Last week was chock full of arty encounters, museum moments and culture gossip. Thought I'd share a bit of this with you all, to keep you up to speed on what museum people are talking about.

Monday at the Getty: How to Get an Art Historian All Worked Up

We took a select group of Trustees and Circle Donors up to the Getty for a private tour of their latest exhibition, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference with senior curator Lee Hendrix and our own John Marciari. Of course we learned more about Rembrandt, and the up and comers who studied with the master, but we also got quite an education on the controversy of attribution. Is this really a Rembrandt? Or is it a Govert Flinck? How can you tell? For the record, art historians get really sweaty and animated expressing their opinions on this. For more on Rembrandt don't miss all of the activities in SoCal not to mention our own Ferdinand Bol show.

PS. The other hot topic on everyone's lips was the recent announcement (January 7, 2010) that Getty director since 2005, Michael Brand, was stepping down. We were warmly greeted by David Bomford, associate director for collections at the Museum and interim director.

Thursday Lunch: The Role of a Museum Director is Not For the Faint of Heart

I met my friend Rob for lunch in La Jolla on Thursday afternoon. He's from LA and works for Gurr Johns dealing with appraisals and private collections. Our big conversation topic was on the recent naming of Jeffrey Deitch as the new director of MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles). I won't give you my take here, but if you're interested, read this NYT article and today's LA Times piece. Dig deeper with a series of interviews with Deitch from Modern Art Note's Tyler Green. Finish it up with Tyler's summary which provides links to other takes on the topic.

Friday Lunch: How Cool is Hugo Crosthwaite?

Friday we had lunch with Pierette Van Cleve, of Van Cleve Fine Art.  Van Cleve represents artist Huge Crosthwaite, who is a San Diego artist (in NY) making it big. Really big. And he's going to be at the Museum in February installing a major piece for Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite. Not sure what this installation might be like? Check this clip out. At the February Culture & Cocktails you'll have a chance to see him at work...We're pretty smitten, and we think you will be too.

Sarah E. Beckman
Associate Director of Development