Sunday, February 13, 2011

MoMA, On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century



The Museum of Modern Art housed an exhibition recently, called On Line: Drawing Though the Twentieth Century. It was surprisingly branched out from the medium of simple line drawings. Some noted works were the pieces by Alexander Calder, who's iconic and balanced mobiles clearly reflected the theme of the show, as well as classical works by Piet Mondrian, always a pleasure (and a few butterflies) to see anything of his in person. To be honest, I did not make it to this show until the very last day of the exhibition, and it was during the weekend, so it goes without saying that MoMA was a mob scene, which still sounds like an understatement.

This show as a whole paid beautiful homage to the line in all of its forms in 20th century art. It was so massive I can't begin to scratch the surface of covering all of it. I only wish that I'd made several visits to see it all in depth, instead of one gung-ho last day race to the finish. Still fun!



Now, we all know Kandinsky, who allegedly created the first ever totally abstract and non objective drawings and paintings. See above is his piece Black Relationship from 1924. But can we all also acknowledge El Lissitzky and the striking resemblance between these two "original" and "groundbreaking" artists?
HMMMmmmmmmmmmm....... very interesting indeed.

And to kick off the show, this piece in the downstairs lobby amps every passerby up for what's to come on the sixth floor. I could have literally sat and stared at this piece the entire day, waiting for sabotage the same way I assume people who partake in NASCAR anticipate a crash, because c'mon, whats the point without one? But, the museum was closing in a few short hours and I had to make haste with what little time I had!





This is Zilvinas Kempina's sculpture at MoMA, which consists of two industrial strength fans, perpetually keeping afloat two loops of video tape. The name of the piece is Double O.

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