the ambition
P2JW243000-4-C01400-1--------XA CMYK Composite
CL,CN,CX,DL,DM,DX,EE,EU,FL,HO,KC,MW,NC,NE,NY,PH,PN,RM,SA,SC,SL,SW,TU,WB,WE BG,BM,BP,CC,CH,CK,CP,CT,DN,DR,FW,HL,HW,KS,LA,LG,LK,MI,ML,NM,PA,PI,PV,TD,TS,UT,WO
C14 | Saturday/Sunday, August 31 - September 1, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
****
ICONS
THE
BY MARY M. LANE
BIG AMBITION OF MINIATURE ART
Their Lilliputian scale is a powerful tool, making viewers think of childhood.
Ronchini Gallery
‘MIRE’ by Thomas Doyle at the Ronchini Gallery in London. His pieces are priced between $10,800 and $15,000. Mr. Doyle says he wants his work ‘to be active canvasses for people’s anxieties.’
WHEN BROOKLYN, N.Y.-BASED artist Patrick Jacobs seeks inspiration, he heads to Prospect Park to photograph decaying tree stumps. When he needs art supplies, he journeys to nearby apartments to stockpile fur shed by felines Daisy and Monte. The fruits of Mr. Jacobs’s painstaking labor are intricate dioramas—miniature landscapes only 7-by-12 inches wide. Viewed through a 2-inch-wide concave piece of glass, the landscapes transform into infinitely sprawling vistas with details such as fluffy dandelion tufts created from Daisy and Monte’s fur. Three of the artist’s works are exhibited in “Dream No Small Dreams,” a group show of miniature art at London’s Ronchini Gallery that opens next Friday and runs through Oct. 5. Ronchini’s three-artist show, which includes work by fellow Americans Adrien Broom and Thomas Doyle, highlights how contemporary artists employ fastidiously crafted models evocative of childhood toys to convey complex themes like the pursuit of serenity or domestic strife. In Mr. Jacobs’s “Oak Stump with Red Banded Brackets,” a decomposing stump speckled with chartreuse fungus is nestled behind branches of waxy leaves. In the background, a river winds its way through a soggy field. The California-born artist says his landscapes, inspired by “the fantastical transcendental landscapes in Renaissance paintings,” lack living creatures to better allow viewers to imagine being inside the works. Yet creating peaceful paradises contains a sinister ulterior motive, he says. “My works aren’t post-apocalyptic, but there’s an anxiety triggered by that unrealized desire to transcend reality and enter those worlds,” says Mr. Jacobs, 42. His works for Ronchini are priced at $12,000 each. Mr. Doyle says the Lilliputian scale of miniatures is a powerful, twopronged psychological tool: Their size makes viewers think of childhood playtime, while their hyperrealism and accurate proportions allow viewers to imagine being inside each scenario
better than if it were full-scale. Mr. Doyle says the “intersection between destruction and domesticity” is a common thread in his works, which are priced between $10,800 and $15,000. In “Active Measures,” a 1-inch-tall man flails to keep his head above choppy water (made from treated Plexiglas) as he grasps a 9-inch-tall ladder for support. The ladder is a futile attempt to escape a watery limbo: It leads nowhere in either direction. Far below him, a couple exits a drab yellow house oblivious to his plight. Such domestic turmoil has invoked associations with America’s housing crisis in fans of his work, Mr. Doyle says, though that was not an inspiration. “I want them to be active canvasses for people’s anxieties, so that’s a natural leap,” he says. The same diminutiveness that allows viewers to enter a disturbing scenario laid out by a miniature work also enables adults to pull back and feel power over the tiny displays, says Bartholomew Bland, the curator of the Ronchini show. Historically, professionally crafted miniatures were the niche amusement of oldmoney European households, whose fastidious replicas of their homes and possessions served as inventory lists for illiterate household staff, says Lindsay Mican Morgan, caretaker of the 69-set Thorne miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. “It was also a showing-off tool: the finer your miniatures, the more prestigious you were,” says Ms. Morgan. The professional creation of miniatures received a push forward with the advent of modern photography. Unlike those in the Ronchini show, many artists including photographer James Casebere employ miniatures only as a means to an artistic end. Mr. Casebere began photographing small-scale works around 1975 and is holding a show at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery in October. Mr. Casebere, whose photographs include series on the architecture of 16th-century mosques and America’s suburban sprawl, says photographing miniature models instead of real buildings allows his work to focus on ideas rather than actual locations. What happens to his miniatures after they’ve been photographed? “I put them in a barn in upstate New York until they fall apart and then I throw them away,” says Mr. Casebere.
A SECOND LOOK AT LONDON’S SIXTIES SCENE BY MARY M. LANE BRITISH ART DEALER John Kasmin still vividly recalls David Hockney’s metamorphosis after the artist returned to London in 1961 from a New York vacation. “He came back a blond after a raving good time in New York,” said Mr. Kasmin, 78, of the previously shy brunette. “The biggest change was probably a new confidence in being gay.” Mr. Hockney, now 76, went on to become one of today’s most successful contemporary artists. But many of his peers from London’s Sixties scene lag behind in both prices and recognition despite showing alongside Mr. Hockney as youths. In an attempt to change this, Sotheby’s and Mr. Kasmin have partnered in a show called “The New Situation,” opening Wednesday in London and running until Sept. 11. In the show, the auction house exhibits works by art luminaries like Mr. Hockney and Bridget Riley, which are not for sale, alongside 36 pieces by lesser-known artists like Robyn Denny and Gillian Ayres that collectors can buy. “Stand Point,” an 8-foot-by-6.5-foot oil on canvas by Mr. Denny, now 82, features olive-toned geometric figures interlocking on a two-toned gray-green background. It’s a fusion of precisely applied tones that expresses Mr. Denny’s “strict moral value,” says Mr. Kasmin, his former dealer. Mr. Denny saw swift success upon graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1957. After showing “Stand
Point” at the 1966 Venice Biennale, he was the youngest artist to have a retrospective at the Tate in 1973. Yet Mr. Denny moved to America to work, receding from the public eye. “He fell off the map for a long time,” says Simon Hucker, deputy director of modern and post-war British art at Sotheby’s. England in the 1960s was rife with mercurial artistic experimentation, a boon to the movement but a risk for artists hoping to establish instant recognition—and rising prices—for their work. One such artist, Joe Tilson, employed sophisticated carpentry skills to create mixed media works on wood relief with vastly different looks. His 1969 work “Page 6, Snow White and the Black Dwarf” features images of lingerie-clad women and menacing men juxtaposed with text from the underground publication “The Black Dwarf.” But Mr. Tilson’s “Geometry 3” from 1964 is a sleek square with cool-toned geometric shapes. Gillian Ayres was the only woman in the RBA Galleries’s 1960 “Situation” show, which was self-curated by young artists. Ms. Ayres, now 83, was a pioneer of Jackson Pollock-inspired action painting in Britain. Sotheby’s is selling her 7-foot-by-10-foot amalgamation of circular color patches, called “Brood,” for $387,000. Ms. Ayres still balks at the necessary hobnobbing vital for artists to become famous, says her dealer, Alan Cristea. “What matters to her is appreciation from people she knows well and respects,” says Mr. Cristea.
Sotheby’s
Hockney became famous, but many of his London peers lag behind.
SOTHEBY’S is asking around $155,000 for Joe Tilson’s 1964 work, “Geometry 3.”
DON'T MISS: AUG. 31-SEPT. 6 PATTERNED PANORAMA Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, through Jan. 26 “Hammer Projects: Maya Hayuk” presents a site-specific installation of largescale work in the museum’s lobby. The Brooklyn, N.Y.based artist is known for her monumental murals and colorful designs. Left, a photograph of the installation.
ITALY VIA GLASGOW Oklahoma City Museum of Art, through Nov. 17 Works by masters including Bellini, Botticelli, and Titian, on loan from several museums in Glasgow, will be on display in “Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums.” At left, Bartolomeo Veneto’s “St. Catherine Crowned,” circa 1520.
(l-r) Hammer Museum; American Federation of Arts/CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection; Romare Bearden Foundation/VAGA/Chazen Museum of Art
BLACK ODYSSEY Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, until Nov. 24 Romare Bearden, in 1977, made a series of collages inspired by Homer’s “The Odyssey.” In “Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey,” these works and accompanying watercolors and drawings are on display. Left, “Poseidon, the Sea God.”
P2JW243000-4-C01400-1--------XA
Composite
MAGENTA BLACK CYAN YELLOW
CL,CN,CX,DL,DM,DX,EE,EU,FL,HO,KC,MW,NC,NE,NY,PH,PN,RM,SA,SC,SL,SW,TU,WB,WE BG,BM,BP,CC,CH,CK,CP,CT,DN,DR,FW,HL,HW,KS,LA,LG,LK,MI,ML,NM,PA,PI,PV,TD,TS,UT,WO
C14 | Saturday/Sunday, August 31 - September 1, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
****
ICONS
THE
BY MARY M. LANE
BIG AMBITION OF MINIATURE ART
Their Lilliputian scale is a powerful tool, making viewers think of childhood.
Ronchini Gallery
‘MIRE’ by Thomas Doyle at the Ronchini Gallery in London. His pieces are priced between $10,800 and $15,000. Mr. Doyle says he wants his work ‘to be active canvasses for people’s anxieties.’
WHEN BROOKLYN, N.Y.-BASED artist Patrick Jacobs seeks inspiration, he heads to Prospect Park to photograph decaying tree stumps. When he needs art supplies, he journeys to nearby apartments to stockpile fur shed by felines Daisy and Monte. The fruits of Mr. Jacobs’s painstaking labor are intricate dioramas—miniature landscapes only 7-by-12 inches wide. Viewed through a 2-inch-wide concave piece of glass, the landscapes transform into infinitely sprawling vistas with details such as fluffy dandelion tufts created from Daisy and Monte’s fur. Three of the artist’s works are exhibited in “Dream No Small Dreams,” a group show of miniature art at London’s Ronchini Gallery that opens next Friday and runs through Oct. 5. Ronchini’s three-artist show, which includes work by fellow Americans Adrien Broom and Thomas Doyle, highlights how contemporary artists employ fastidiously crafted models evocative of childhood toys to convey complex themes like the pursuit of serenity or domestic strife. In Mr. Jacobs’s “Oak Stump with Red Banded Brackets,” a decomposing stump speckled with chartreuse fungus is nestled behind branches of waxy leaves. In the background, a river winds its way through a soggy field. The California-born artist says his landscapes, inspired by “the fantastical transcendental landscapes in Renaissance paintings,” lack living creatures to better allow viewers to imagine being inside the works. Yet creating peaceful paradises contains a sinister ulterior motive, he says. “My works aren’t post-apocalyptic, but there’s an anxiety triggered by that unrealized desire to transcend reality and enter those worlds,” says Mr. Jacobs, 42. His works for Ronchini are priced at $12,000 each. Mr. Doyle says the Lilliputian scale of miniatures is a powerful, twopronged psychological tool: Their size makes viewers think of childhood playtime, while their hyperrealism and accurate proportions allow viewers to imagine being inside each scenario
better than if it were full-scale. Mr. Doyle says the “intersection between destruction and domesticity” is a common thread in his works, which are priced between $10,800 and $15,000. In “Active Measures,” a 1-inch-tall man flails to keep his head above choppy water (made from treated Plexiglas) as he grasps a 9-inch-tall ladder for support. The ladder is a futile attempt to escape a watery limbo: It leads nowhere in either direction. Far below him, a couple exits a drab yellow house oblivious to his plight. Such domestic turmoil has invoked associations with America’s housing crisis in fans of his work, Mr. Doyle says, though that was not an inspiration. “I want them to be active canvasses for people’s anxieties, so that’s a natural leap,” he says. The same diminutiveness that allows viewers to enter a disturbing scenario laid out by a miniature work also enables adults to pull back and feel power over the tiny displays, says Bartholomew Bland, the curator of the Ronchini show. Historically, professionally crafted miniatures were the niche amusement of oldmoney European households, whose fastidious replicas of their homes and possessions served as inventory lists for illiterate household staff, says Lindsay Mican Morgan, caretaker of the 69-set Thorne miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. “It was also a showing-off tool: the finer your miniatures, the more prestigious you were,” says Ms. Morgan. The professional creation of miniatures received a push forward with the advent of modern photography. Unlike those in the Ronchini show, many artists including photographer James Casebere employ miniatures only as a means to an artistic end. Mr. Casebere began photographing small-scale works around 1975 and is holding a show at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery in October. Mr. Casebere, whose photographs include series on the architecture of 16th-century mosques and America’s suburban sprawl, says photographing miniature models instead of real buildings allows his work to focus on ideas rather than actual locations. What happens to his miniatures after they’ve been photographed? “I put them in a barn in upstate New York until they fall apart and then I throw them away,” says Mr. Casebere.
A SECOND LOOK AT LONDON’S SIXTIES SCENE BY MARY M. LANE BRITISH ART DEALER John Kasmin still vividly recalls David Hockney’s metamorphosis after the artist returned to London in 1961 from a New York vacation. “He came back a blond after a raving good time in New York,” said Mr. Kasmin, 78, of the previously shy brunette. “The biggest change was probably a new confidence in being gay.” Mr. Hockney, now 76, went on to become one of today’s most successful contemporary artists. But many of his peers from London’s Sixties scene lag behind in both prices and recognition despite showing alongside Mr. Hockney as youths. In an attempt to change this, Sotheby’s and Mr. Kasmin have partnered in a show called “The New Situation,” opening Wednesday in London and running until Sept. 11. In the show, the auction house exhibits works by art luminaries like Mr. Hockney and Bridget Riley, which are not for sale, alongside 36 pieces by lesser-known artists like Robyn Denny and Gillian Ayres that collectors can buy. “Stand Point,” an 8-foot-by-6.5-foot oil on canvas by Mr. Denny, now 82, features olive-toned geometric figures interlocking on a two-toned gray-green background. It’s a fusion of precisely applied tones that expresses Mr. Denny’s “strict moral value,” says Mr. Kasmin, his former dealer. Mr. Denny saw swift success upon graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1957. After showing “Stand
Point” at the 1966 Venice Biennale, he was the youngest artist to have a retrospective at the Tate in 1973. Yet Mr. Denny moved to America to work, receding from the public eye. “He fell off the map for a long time,” says Simon Hucker, deputy director of modern and post-war British art at Sotheby’s. England in the 1960s was rife with mercurial artistic experimentation, a boon to the movement but a risk for artists hoping to establish instant recognition—and rising prices—for their work. One such artist, Joe Tilson, employed sophisticated carpentry skills to create mixed media works on wood relief with vastly different looks. His 1969 work “Page 6, Snow White and the Black Dwarf” features images of lingerie-clad women and menacing men juxtaposed with text from the underground publication “The Black Dwarf.” But Mr. Tilson’s “Geometry 3” from 1964 is a sleek square with cool-toned geometric shapes. Gillian Ayres was the only woman in the RBA Galleries’s 1960 “Situation” show, which was self-curated by young artists. Ms. Ayres, now 83, was a pioneer of Jackson Pollock-inspired action painting in Britain. Sotheby’s is selling her 7-foot-by-10-foot amalgamation of circular color patches, called “Brood,” for $387,000. Ms. Ayres still balks at the necessary hobnobbing vital for artists to become famous, says her dealer, Alan Cristea. “What matters to her is appreciation from people she knows well and respects,” says Mr. Cristea.
Sotheby’s
Hockney became famous, but many of his London peers lag behind.
SOTHEBY’S is asking around $155,000 for Joe Tilson’s 1964 work, “Geometry 3.”
DON'T MISS: AUG. 31-SEPT. 6 PATTERNED PANORAMA Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, through Jan. 26 “Hammer Projects: Maya Hayuk” presents a site-specific installation of largescale work in the museum’s lobby. The Brooklyn, N.Y.based artist is known for her monumental murals and colorful designs. Left, a photograph of the installation.
ITALY VIA GLASGOW Oklahoma City Museum of Art, through Nov. 17 Works by masters including Bellini, Botticelli, and Titian, on loan from several museums in Glasgow, will be on display in “Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums.” At left, Bartolomeo Veneto’s “St. Catherine Crowned,” circa 1520.
(l-r) Hammer Museum; American Federation of Arts/CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection; Romare Bearden Foundation/VAGA/Chazen Museum of Art
BLACK ODYSSEY Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, until Nov. 24 Romare Bearden, in 1977, made a series of collages inspired by Homer’s “The Odyssey.” In “Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey,” these works and accompanying watercolors and drawings are on display. Left, “Poseidon, the Sea God.”
P2JW243000-4-C01400-1--------XA
Composite
MAGENTA BLACK CYAN YELLOW
