Where I Want to Be: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

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It’s summer, which should be full of travel, the Venice Biennial just passed, and my eyes are looking abroad to see where I would like to be for some art viewing.

Where I Want to Be #1: Stockholm’s Moderna Museet

Sure, the low, long building with its whimsical outdoor structures perhaps looks a bit dated and much like any other museum. But the Moderna Museet has been known for legendary shows (solo exhibitions of Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol and Edward Kienholz in the 1960s; “5 New York Evenings” in 1964 with Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, David Tudor, Yvonne Rainer, Öyvind Fahlström, Merce Cunningham) under Director Pontus Hulten. It’s currently putting up what looks to be another great show, and one I’d love to see: a Clay Ketter retrospective.

Clay Ketter Retrospective, 30 May – 16 August 2009
“Clay Ketter was first acknowledged for his Wall Paintings (1992-99), plasterboards with spackle over screws and joints. They were both strikingly beautiful abstract paintings and a sort of fabricated ready-mades, less finished than the wall they were hung on. Trace Paintings (1995-) is another series of paintings that resemble wall surfaces being redecorated. Traces of wallpaper, shelves and electric wiring evoke a sense of uncertainty in the onlooker as to whether this is a real wall or a painting of a wall.”

I wasn’t familiar with Ketter’s work until I saw it on the Moderna Museet’s website. I love it when I discover an artist who just does really beautiful work! As it happens, the artist is with the same gallery, Sonnabend, that Hulten bought a very important Warhol from in the 60s. Small world, or things coming back around?

The image above is from Ketter’s latest series, Gulf Coast Slabs, taken when the artist travelled with a photographer to Louisiana post-Katrina. Ketter has lived in Sweden for the past twenty years and is considered a Nordic artist, but is American. The image is actually an ariel view of house foundations. Ketter’s work is a beautiful balance of material and painting, of abstraction and the real. There’s a Minimalist aesthetic to his works that makes his ready-made objects poetic. Ah well, I can at least dream of travelling.

Not to mention, if you do happen to be in the area, it makes for a lovely afternoon to stroll past the National Gallery and bridge over to Skeppsholmen where the Moderna Museet is, surronded by museums and park space. Swedish summer days are cool, especially beneath the trees, and just on the other side of the bridge is a coffee stand with strong black coffee, cinnamon buns, and, of course, ice cream.

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Czech Street Art

Czech Street Art was a late-blooming thing, an import from New York in the 80s after grip of COmmunist censorship had lessened. It was refreshing simple and direct, smart in art historical terms, and came to be appreciated in the Czech republic for its artisitic qualities, but also as an expression of new found personal freedoms.

A Nude Mona Lisa?

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Via the Discovery channel, “Leonardo da Vinci, in a Renaissance version of Mad Magazine, may have painted his famous Mona Lisa in a number of ways, including nude. Now, a painting has surfaced that looks much like the original, sparking debate over just how far the master took his iconic painting.

The newly revealed painting, hidden for almost a century within the wood wall of a private library, shows a portrait of a half-naked woman with clear links to the famous (and clothed) Mona Lisa. The work, which documents suggest was at least based on never-seen similar work by Da Vinci, is now on exhibit at the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where Da Vinci was born in 1452. The lady in the portrait does not exactly resemble the original Mona Lisa, but there is little doubt it has parallels with the painting hanging at the Louvre museum in Paris.”

While it’s not likely to have been painted by Leonardo, evidence suggests it may be a copy of his work. Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa between 1503-1506. This manner of protraying the female nude is not typical for the time. Although Renaissance painters were rediscovering the human body and looking back to Greek and Roman sculpture, their nude creations were ideal forms representing gods or virtues. This is a woman, rather than a reclining Venus or a weak, defenseless Eve. And she’s looking looking straight at you. How bold.

Maybe that’s what she was smiling about.