Coveted: Statement pieces

Michele Oka Doner, Cul-de-Sac, 2005. cast sterling silver.

Although Michele Oka Doner's art practice is informed by organic processes and natural materials,

it is anything but Arte Povera. The Miami native's body of work, which ranges from sculptural pieces and public commissions to limited-edition design objets such as the clutches above, emphasizes the splendor of nature.

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Go Fauve

the fauvist influence in contemporary fashion shoots

"The function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.

I put down my tones without a preconceived plan...The expressive aspect of colors

imposes itself on me in a purely instinctive way." (emphasis added)

Thus writes Henri Matisse in his influential 1908 essay, "Notes of a Painter."

Matisse is undoubtedly known as the most prominent member of Fauvism,

perhaps the "sleeper" movement of the early twentieth century avant-garde art landscape in Europe.The fauves, or "wild beasts" in French, comprised a small circle. And unlike their contemporaries in such movements as Futurism and Cubism, they wrote no accompanying manifestos and very little literature to disambiguate their theories on art. By the time "Notes of a Painter" was published,Fauvism, a movement characterized by the bold, unbridled, and "savage" use of color in its canvases, had ironically already faded, lasting a meager two years, 1905-07.

However, there is still much to learn from Matisse and his fellow fauves,

Kees Van Dongen and Maurice de Vlaminck. If Fauvism as a movement was short-lived, its legacy lives on as a catalyst for the major revolutions it instigated in color theory (I refer specifically to Vasily Kandinsky, who coined the term "color theory" in his 1913 treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art).

Fauvist-inspired interiors and fashion are lively and sensual,

attracting such words as loud, expressive, sensational,

appealing to a vaguely primitive instinct.

Kees Van Dongen, Maria. The Robert Lehman Collection, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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Unpacking my library

Lolita, undressed: a stack of index cards containing material that would become Nabokov's incendiary novel

Every passion borders on the chaotic,

but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

-- Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking my Library"

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Tonight: Yvonne Jacquette Woodcuts at Mary Ryan Gallery

Yvonne Jacquette, Chrysler Building Flanked by High-Rise Buildings, 2009. woodcut on okawara paper; 35 5/8 x 23 1/2 inches. edition of 75


The metropolis -- in its mysterious, monumental, intimate, and unseen angulations -- is the muse and protagonist of artist Yvonne Jacquette's body of work, comprising sketches, paintings, and woodcuts.

Tonight, the first retrospective of Jacquette's woodcuts opens at Mary Ryan
Gallery, located in the heart of the Chelsea Gallery district. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalogue available for a modest sum of $15, and will travel to the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Missouri.

I look forward to seeing Jacquette's new works, such as the woodcut of the Chrysler Building above.

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Strawberries in Murnau

Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table in the Murnau House, 1912. oil on canvas

see: Gabriele Münter and Vasily Kandinsky, 1902-14: A Life in Photographs

on view at the Guggenheim Museum

as part of the Kandinsky focus show.

I’m trying to make sense of a thread of correspondences written one unseasonably hot summer in 1911. The place is Murnau, a rustic village in Bavaria, Germany. An artist has arrived to the house after an extended visit with family and relatives in Moscow and Odessa. She is not there, and so thus begins the chain of correspondence:

Well, sailed in today with pile of luggage (porter Lobl). It was very hot, unusual even for Murnau. Went into the garden at once & ate a few strawberries. Then had tea and bared my knees—splendid. Then back into the garden. And this is how things stand. Not one berry has been stolen (i.e. not even red currants etc.) The strawberries look as if splashed with thick daubs of blood. The biggest one today was like this (here, Kandinsky inserted a drawing)…the bed positively glows—even from afar there must be hundreds in there…

Wassily Kandinsky begins a long line of correspondence with his lover, Gabriele Münter, who cannot join him in Murnau, in the house that she bought, due to obligatory family affairs. I am skimming through these letters for any hint of the significance that this place had for the artist, who over the course of five years, 1908 to 1913, painted many landscapes of the small village he had called ‘home”. One theme constantly appears in Kandinsky’s letters—the garden, with its growing crops of raspberries, cherries, and gooseberries, its potatoes, radishes, lettuce, and spinach, and most importantly, strawberries...

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Art I love: The Art of Provocation

Balthus (Balthazar Klossowski de Rola), Therese Dreaming (La Reve). 1938. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

''You know why I paint little girls? Because women,

even my own daughter, already belong to this present world, to fashion.

Little girls are the only creatures today who can be little Poussins.''

-- Balthus, interviewed by Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times, 1988

Immaturity is not always innate or imposed by others.

There is also an immaturity which culture batters us against when it submerges us

and we do not manage to hoist ourselves up to its level. We are "infantilized" by all

"higher" forms. Man, tortured by his mask, fabricates secretly, for his own usage, a sort of "subculture":

a world made out of the refuse of a higher world of culture, a domain of trash, immature myths,

inadmissible passions...a secondary domain of compensation.

That is where a certain shameful poetry is born, a certain compromising beauty...

Are we not close to Pornografia?

--Witold Gombrowicz, in the preface of his 1966 novel, Pornografia

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Madrelingua: Anna, ti amo!

the inimitable Anna Dello Russo

"Everyone has a strength. The English people sell very well because their editorial style is a little avant-garde; they are always the first at looking for new ideas. We Italians, have a very beautiful product that no one can beat, for quality, efficiency and tradition. The French people have that allure; in Paris you can feel a fantastic glamour at each show. The Americans have the money and the power, can you ask for more?" -ADR

Certo, parlo della editrice statuaria e aristocratica di Vogue Nippon. Come la tua narratrice humile, ADR è di origine Pugliese, pure ha fatto il Master's nella letteratura e la storia dell'arte (faceva il professore Gianfranco Ferrè). Si definisce come "collezionista" della moda alta. ADR anche fa la musa per i bloggers The Sartorialist, Garance Doré, ed al. Insomma, la sua presenza intensa e il suo corraggio con i colori e le trame la mettono al di là della folla esasperante della moda.

Of course I'm talking about Anna Dello Russo, the statuesque and aristocratic editrix of Vogue Nippon. Like your humble narrator, ADR is of Apulian origin, and even received a Master's in Literature and Art History( Gianfranco Ferre was her professor). She describes herself as a "collector" of haute couture. Dello Russo is also the muse for bloggers the Sartorialist, Garance Doré, et al. In this aspect, her intense presence and fearlessness when it comes to mixing colors and textures place her far beyond fashion's madding crowd.

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Art I love: Beyond the Liminal with Atta Kim

Disappearing act: Atta Kim, On-Air Project, Monologue of Ice (24 Hours). 2004

The photographs that comprise Atta Kim's On-Air Project (2004-2006), are visually striking, haunting, lurid phosphorescences. Many of the photographs, taken using the time-lapse photography method, render the luminous halos of their subjects. For example, in the photograph above, Monologue of Ice, Kim recorded the adumbrations of a melting block of ice over 24 hours.

Kim also photographs a couple during sexual intercourse in a similar manner, this time lapsing one hour . The hazy image, similar in color and composition to Monologue of Ice, brings to mind the enmeshing of the cosmos, the fantastic imagery of Blake, even the creation of Man on Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling. The metaphysical element of the photographs emerges. Kim captures an ethereal kind of poetry, a dance between duration and simultaneity, the sacrosanct and chaos of decomposition, consummation.

Perhaps the most apocryphal and referential image of the series is Kim's rendition of The Last Supper, which recreates the biblical dinner of Jesus and his apostles, down to the bare architectural detail, in the style of a religious panel.

Atta Kim, On-Air Project, Sex Series (1 Hour). 2003.

Atta Kim, On-Air Project, The Last Supper. 2003

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The Death of Taste: Reflections on the Shuttering of Gourmet Magazine

Ruth Reichl: Editrix, eater, Culinary mastermind and poet

The title of a yet released headline flutters in my head like burning blood: CONDE NAST TO CLOSE GOURMET MAGAZINE. I immediately feel utter disbelief welling up in my chest: how is this possible? Gourmet Magazine, to me, is so much more than a food publication; it has come to be likened in my eyes as an anthem of elegance and style, expressed in a layout of incomparably luxurious photographs and literary articles expounding the cosmopolitan cuisine of destinations throughout the world. It is a tome that I consult on a monthly basis.

Responsible for much of the magazine's image and position in the current magazine culture is the guiding vision of its longtime (since the 1990's) Editor-in-Chief, Ruth Reichl. It was she, in one of her many published memoirs, who instructed me on the subtleties and nuance of food, the poetry of apples, figs, prosciutto. Despite these taxing lessons learned regarding the transience of things (and yes, even beautiful things), there is always something to be thankful for.

Ruth Reichl's Red Wine Caramel Apples, in the October issue of Gourmet

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