Ravels in Review Friday

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Hello bloggy reader! And welcome to another installment of Ravels in Review Friday. Although stupefied that on this Spring day snow is falling, I shall persevere. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor internet connection problems shall keep the blogger away.

We really were well-rounded artworld citizens this week, as we jumped from an informative post on Albrecht Durer’s painting, which drew some admiring glances of the basest kind from readers, to current topics such as how fashion is (not!) art and whether public art becomes part of the landscape. (If art needs to be on a gallery or museum wall to be recognized as art, what does that say about the nature of art?) Then we had some laughs with the stellar cast of Blithe Spirit, currently playing at the Shubert Theater.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, we have a video of Art Ravels on a trip to MoMA for the Martin Kippenberger exhibition! It’s very exciting: there’s music; there’s lights; there’s my voiceover; there’s some shaky camera work. Let me know how you think it ranks next to another Martin Kippenberger at MoMA video.

Also, I would like to do another art video adventure. Does anyone have suggestions on where I should go?

Public Art Manhattan

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When I walk to work in the morning, I pass a big red metal sculpture on the corner of 57th and Madison. Like many pieces of large civic art, I barely notice it. Office buildings in the city include large abstract sculptural works in the same way that they include a public atrium (also known as a tax break).

Just down the street from my office stands the Lever House, at 54th St. and Park. Currently, it is displaying a light installation by Keith Sonner (that replaced a gold chain link fence complex) in it’s street-level glass box of a room. On the ground level, the Lever House also has benches, a fountain, and — wait for it– large Hello Kitties sculptures (by Tom Sachs, I think) in it’s courtyard area. These white, papermache-style figures are huge and solid. Sometimes tourists take photos with the Hello Kitty sculptures. On one hand, it’s fun, but on the other, I’m not sure that it works.

I question how well these public art displays function, and I think it’s a matter of context. Museum settings at least focus one’s attention. In the case of the Lever House, they own some pretty cool pieces (“Virgin Mother” by Damien Hirst, “Bride Fight” by E.V. Day, “The Hulks” by Jeff Koons) and are making them uniquely accessible to the public with no museum fees. Yet next to the skyscrapers of midtown, these large, awe-inspiring designs are subsumed. The street corner leaves them anonymous, and they become just another obstacle on the street for Manhattanites to speed past. Perhaps it’s a testament to Manhattanites’ drive that they can speed past works of art with a single glance.

Here works of art so easily become like the red sculpture (which happens to be by Alexander Calder) that I pass on my way to work: landscape.

Fashion is Not Art

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Fashion hangs onto art’s coattails, by association trying to sneak into the fine arts balls. But this is not a fairy tale, and fashion’s foot does not fit this slipper.

Last night I read 2 magazines, both mentioned the trend toward art prints in fashion, where designers have produced a skirt that reminds one of Rothko or Pop art. Fashion creating pieces directly inspired by art is just a most blantant example of how they try to borrow some of art’s status. They use artists to create ad campaigns, their photographers often photograph art as well as fashion. But there is a line between the two. One magazine devoted pages to Richard Avedon, who has an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition, however, singles out his portraits, rather than his fashion photographry. I enjoy his work, but that doesn’t make the clothes that he photographed art.

Much like the art world, the fashion world seems creative, navel-gazing, fun and self-aggrandizing. Yet despite the fact that designers use art as their inspiration for clothing and that people who photograph clothes may or may not be artists in their own right, and despite the cultural significance clothes might have, fashion is not art.

Why fashion is not art:

It is utilitarian.
It is common.
It is commercial.
It is not beautiful.

It may be a beautiful skirt, with skirt as the qualifying noun that allows the adjective beautiful to be applied, but it is not beautiful. And while art may influence fashion, when does fashion influence art?