Ice (1981), Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
From The Met:
We invite you to virtually experience the exhibition Gerhard Richter: Painting After All. See the galleries in a new exhibition tour video, get an in-depth look at the master painter in the feature-length documentary Gerhard Richter Painting, and dive deeper into the exhibition with the digital Primer and other online resources.
A street art piece by artist Pony Wave depicts two people kissing while wearing face masks on Venice Beach in Venice, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | April 23, 2020, 10:32 a.m.
As much of the world continues to shelter in place, those states and countries slowly easing restrictions are heading out into a world adorned with new art. Graffiti artists, street artists and muralists have been taking over public spaces during the pandemic, using their art forms to express beauty, support and dissent.
One of the newest pieces is in Milwaukee, a colorful, geometric mural by local artist Mauricio Ramirez that depicts a front-line medical worker in prayer. In Dublin, a neon-hued psychedelic coronavirus graces a wall, painted by SUBSET, an artist collective that focuses on social issues. In Berlin, there's a mural of Gollum from Lord of the Rings worshipping a roll of toilet paper. Even more coronavirus-inspired art can be found on walls in Russia, Italy, Spain, India, England, Sudan, Poland, Greece, Syria, Indonesia and elsewhere.
She was endlessly inspired by the possibilities this material brought to her art practice, dedicating decades of her life to the deep contemplation of what it could express.
“Techniques are simple to learn,” Asawa noted. “Digesting them and making them something that represents you will take a lifetime.”
Asawa learned the looping technique that formed the basis of her signature style on a trip to Mexico in 1947, fascinated with local wire baskets designed to hold eggs. The process she developed required patience and rigor. Asawa compared the repetitive coiling of wire by hand to the farm work she did as a child: “It’s very easy in a way for me to do it because it’s out of my own past … like stringing the bean pole for beans to climb up on and … sowing and planting onions.”
A pressure to be productive has emerged in our quest to fill time at home. It may seem like everyone is brushing up on a new language or baking sourdough from scratch. But it’s okay to slow down, scrap the to-do list, and be gentle with ourselves. Asawa’s meditative focus reminds us that there’s a wealth of opportunity in something as deceptively simple as making shapes with wire. Wherever you are, we hope you’re doing one thing that you love.
Explore Asawa’s uniquely expansive vision in our online exhibit about the artist.
-From “de Young/Legion of Honor, No.7 Meditation”
Exactly how do you introduce in writing a painting to museum visitors? This is a question which exhibit curators have always pondered, the label next to a painting being the most commonly chosen format to serve as its "spokesperson." But what if there were no labels in the exhibition galleries at all? Would people really be able to focus on and appreciate the works on display? And assuming that museum labels are still needed, what kind do visitors really want to see?
Over the past several decades, and depending on the period and type of the exhibit, the National Palace Museum has used various label formats to accompany its works of painting and calligraphy on display. Through the years, changes have been made to the dimensions, materials, color, position, wording, contents, and translation of these cards. This exhibition takes a special look at the subject of museum labels through seven paintings in the Museum collection by the Yuan dynasty artist Ni Zan (1301-1374) or after his style. These works spanning the Yuan to Ming and Qing dynasties appear at first glance to be quite similar, but each is accompanied by a different kind of label used in the past. These Chinese and English museum cards range in length from a brief title label to very detailed descriptions. There are also Chinese explanatory cards calligraphed in brush using traditional vertical columns of characters and a modern horizontally formatted one in print. On one hand, visitors standing before the display cases can compare the various combinations of artworks and labels to gauge their different effects, while on the other hand they can appreciate firsthand an experience from the past of the written description at the Museum.
In addition to being a retrospective of the National Palace Museum's explanatory labels for painting, this exhibition also features a questionnaire to determine how audiences feel about the different label formats, fonts, sizes, and descriptions on display. It is hoped that, after receiving feedback from visitors from different age groups, occupations, and nationalities, the Museum can improve the design and contents of its explanatory labels in the future and see how people would like them to "introduce a painting," thereby offering better service and an enhanced museum experience.
