Exposed

After having a pretty tasty lunch at Farm:Table the Femme Fatale and I went to view the recently opened exhibit at SFMOMA called Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870.

To say this is a subject which interests me tremendously would be understating the fact. Living in a small, crowded city, you have two choices as I see it: you can ignore the fact that people are watching you and choose not to acknowledge them, pretending you actually have some anonymity here (which you don't), or you can watch them and understand you too, are being watched by others. This requires tacit acceptance that there is little in the City which goes unnoticed by someone. It's creepy, but it's also a tether to reality, and perhaps a community.


Harry Callahan, Atlanta, 1984

I live in a twenty-story building which is across the street from my previous apartment. I could sit in the living room of my old place and see into about twenty of the apartments in this building. I'd guess there are about 55 apartments in this building that can easily observe what happens in my former place if the curtains aren't drawn. For the record, I live in the rear of the building and can't see into my old apartment, which I think would be very, very interesting.

One day a few months after I moved here I was explaining where I used to live to a neighbor in the building, whose apartment faces my old one. As I was telling him about my former apartment he asked some questions, and suddenly a look of embarrassment came over his face and he got very quiet. I could tell he had seen something happen in my old place. This was all the more awkward because he knew an ex-girlfriend of mine professionally, who I was dating when I lived there. The conversation quickly ended, and I no longer point out my old apartment to my neighbors, though it's now been more than three years since I moved.

I used to date a woman who lived in an apartment building similar in size to this one, but over in Pacific Heights. I often found myself seated at her window watching people as I waited for her to get ready. On more than one occasion I noticed a striking woman enter the building across the street. Lights would then come on in a flat but there was never anything to see- just the woman entering or leaving the building. I asked the one I was dating if she knew anything about the one across the street- going so far as to point her out one night. She replied she'd noticed her too, really liked her clothes, seemed a bit mysterious in an Avengers-era Diana Rigg-way, but other than that she knew nothing.

Garry Winogrand, New York, 1969

A year later I placed a personal ad in the SF Weekly. It received only one response, which really didn't surprise me so much as disappoint me. We soon made a blind date for a drink at Enrico's. Two weeks later I was amazed to find myself in the flat of the woman I used to watch come and go from an apartment across the street. From her flat we would sit in the window and spend entire evenings entertained by goings-on of her neighbors across the street. The woman from whose apartment I used to watch the woman I was now dating dated had moved by this time. I could tell because I could easily see into that apartment. I swear this is a true story and I have some others in a similar vein I could relate as well.

But enough about me- this was supposed to be about the exhibit at the MOMA. Well, it's quite good and covers a lot of ground, ranging from surveillance tapes of numerous types, including Andy Warhol's Blowjob playing high in a corner (you have to look in a place you wouldn't normally look to see it- in other words, non-voyeurs may miss it altogether), vintage nudes, upskirts, paparazzi, news photos- there is really quite an array to see and much of it disturbing to view- there are a number of very grisly photos. It will be on the 4th floor of the museum through April 17, 2001.

Sadly, the museum won't let you takes pictures inside the exhibit. Something about this greatly offends me.  It's an excellent exhibit. Don't miss the Cartier-Bresson exhibit one floor below, which makes a perfect compliment.

In Chicago

In Chicago with a Manhattan:


In the summertime, in Grant Park:

In the Moulin Rouge:

Included for Patrick:

In praise of a roomful of Richters in the Art Institute:

60 Hours in New York Part 1 (NSFW)

New York holds such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to art and culture that there are moments I long to live there. I had the good fortune to be able to drop in for the weekend during the middle of an East coast business trip and caught 4 great shows in between hanging out with two dear friends.

Normally I would start with the opera, but the first large exhibition of Otto Dix's work at the Neue Galerie gets ranked first in importance because it's ridiculous Dix is not more well-known in this country. He's one of the most significant artists of the 20th Century and his work is unforgettable once you've seen it. With the exception of Goya, I cannot think of a painter who's willingness to portray his world was so unflinching and revealing. It's this quality, coupled with a deep level of skill and style, that gives Dix's art its potency.

The exhibit has some unfortunate absences- notably the Big City Triptych, Prager Strabe, The War Cripples, To Beauty, The Seven Deadly Sins, Der Krieg, Three Women, and the portraits of Dr. Paul and Sylvia Von Harden. Nevertheless, it's a comprehensive overview from the most important years of Dix's career and features a lot of work I hadn't seen before. There's a large selection of his WWI prints which still had the same hit-you-in-chest impact from the first time I saw them at LA's Museum of Art more than 20 years ago. This is not a touring show, and the Neue partnered with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to present it. So it's not coming to a city near you. The exhibit runs until August 30th. If you are in New York, don't miss it.

Oh- and we saw Maggie Gyllenhall there with her baby. She looks better in person and her child is very well-behaved- how many actresses you can say that about?

One shame to the Neue- ask your store employees about how to create a commemorative exhibit poster- the one (wtf !?!) you have is unsuitable for the exhibit, and I really would have liked to have had one.

After the Nueue, we went over to see the Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the MOMA, which was interesting, good even, but almost obliterated from my consciousness by the Marina Abramovic retrospective taking place on the same floor, along with the William Kentridge exhibit. I don't think I've ever seen an art exhibit that freaked me out to the extent this one did. It's truly disturbing, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. There's been a mountain of press on it, so do search if you want more details and information. The pictures here are stills from films or live presentations and can't possibly capture the impact of watching them or seeing them live.

I didn't realize that anyone could participate in the "Artist is Present" portion of the show. If I could go back and participate in this, I surely would. This kind of art isn't to everyone's taste, and there are tons of naysayers who would say "where is the art in this?" but I was deeply moved by it- the video with her and her parents flanking her on each side, while her father aimlessly twirls a gun with a sinister, detached look on his face was simply chilling. I can't find a single image of that particular part to steal and post here, but the show ends May 31st and is fascinating, disturbing and yes, it is most certainly art.

The Kentridge exhibit, which I missed when it was in San Francisco, was also deeply interesting (and alas, now over in NY), but it would also have taken a good two hours to absorb completely and I didn't have that much time to devote to it sadly. Having all three one the same floor? Priceless. First stop in NY on my next visit, after the opera house that is, is NY's MOMA- for an entire afternoon.

Which brings me to Berg's Lulu at the Met, which was fantastic but I'm going to save that for another post.