Fashion Institute of Technology’s Museum

Fashion Institute of Technology’s Museum is devoted to “advancing knowledge of fashion through exhibitions, programs and publications”. With theatrical settings and household names the small museum features exhibitions that certainly rival with the larger Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Set in the front gallery of the museum is a timeless exhibition titled “Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion”. Women have always been vanguards of fashion either as muses to male designers or as creators themselves, but most importantly as promoters and disseminators of the newest styles. The delightful exhibition chronicles arbiters or trendsetters who “shaped the course of fashion for more than 250 years”.

The exhibition honors high profile en vogue women through the ages such as royals Marie Antoinette and Empress Eugénie, Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, photographer Louise Dahl Wolf, and actresses Lauren Bacall and Rosalind Russell. Furthermore, the exhibition brings to light behind the scene fashionistas often unnoticed such as textile designers, fashion photographers, models, and executives.

One of the most beautiful pieces in the exhibition is Anna Maria Garthwaite’s cherry colored floral damask dress. The eighteenth century textile designer worked in Spitalfields, a silk-weaving center in London. Her designs soon became iconic to Spitalfields style. As the only woman who worked in Spitalfields Garthwaite set a high standard for her predecessors such as the couturière Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, whose suit sets became a staple in every woman’s wardrobe.

The exhibition asks a final question…who are the arbiters of style today? Obviously celebrity culture is not a nuance but it is more and more present in today’s media. “Isabel Eberstadt and Jane Holzer epitomized the “society fashion celebrity” of the 1960s” and today Hollywood celebrities and high profile heiresses such as Paris Hilton foster today’s fashions. For this reason it is clear that there is a constant wave of new tastemakers each day. Time will tell who history chooses to recognize as the “true” judges of fashion for our generation.

Also on display is “Gothic: Dark Glamour” set in darkened labyrinth of the museum’s basement. Filled with vampy couture commemorating gothic notions and styles the exhibition is a tribute to the history and development of gothic fashion. Gothic style is responsible for inspiring household names in fashion history including John Galliano for Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Karl Lagerfield for Chanel Haute Couture.

Upon entering the space the visitor encounters an introductory gallery chronicling “the development gothic style from its origins in the eighteenth century literature of terror to its contemporary in art, fashion, and film”. Included in this section was a collection of accessories worn by mourning widows such as momento mori jewelry and black veils. Also on exhibit was a Cabinet of Curiosities, which was popularized during the Renaissance to showcase religious relics and art objects. On display were a death mask and a top hat covered with a bat image.

The gallery was arranged like a dungeon from a gothic castle. Although the exhibition design bordered on a bad haunted house on Halloween, it certainly added to the allure of this dark era. The inclusion of Eiko Ishioka’s costumes for the film, Bram Stroker’s Dracula, adds a contemporary perception of gothic to the exhibition. The crimson velvet dress stands out among the drab background of the gothic setting. Another show stopper was a Rodarte dress inspired by Japanese horror films. The red dyed chiffon dress looks like a wash of blood.

Most of the garments exhibited focused on pain and torture. Used for posture improving and to highlight the waist, corsets were featured on almost every piece. Many of the items appeared impractical and unable to wear. However, this is not a far stretch from high fashion today.

The “Bat Cave” allows a visitor to take a glimpse at modern day gothic sub-cultural styles with the use of two-way mirrors. However, after two separate visits to the museum this feature seems to be not working or not what was advertised.

Postmasters Gallery: Katarzyna Koyzra

The darkened gallery space of Postmaster’s Gallery in Chelsea showcases Katarzyna Kozyra’s film “summertale”. A further addition to the series In Art Dreams Come True, the film assumes the same characters with a slightly varied plot. Set in a fogged forest in the glistening light of summer the richly colorful film is eccentric and lacks dialogue. Nostalgia for old bedtime stories emerge once the viewer overcomes feelings of confusion and horror.

Harping on prominent themes from fairytales and folklore universally recognized and branded by Disney, Koyzra examines the validity and harm caused by such extreme stereotypes and clichés. The Polish born artist uses parody to further her agenda forcing the viewer to question the foundation of their beliefs and ask themselves if they too were molded by these often intolerant portrayals.

Despite the lack of verity in these fictional stories many of the common paradigms such as gender roles are threaded into our social fabric. Of course everyone knows there is no princess trapped in a tower guarded by a dragon awaiting rescue from a knight on a horse and Snow White certainly did not take up residence in a cottage with seven disorderly dwarves. But the fact remains that the markers of femininity and masculinity laid down by these very stories spill over into the real world. Not to mention the presence of little people (dwarves and elves) creeping their way into almost every beloved story as merry helpers always welcoming their guests and acting as servants. At first Koyzra continues this Wizard of Oz notion in “summertale” but in the end contradicts the idea by making the dwarves murders.

The unusual narrative begins like any other fairytale with chirping birds and cheerful music but almost as soon as the film starts the story strays from the norm. A band of dwarves bustles around pruning their garden flowers and freeing dust from their linens. After a heavy rain to the dwarves surprise three large mushrooms pop up and like a bird breaking out of its eggshell the opera singer, a drag queen, and Koyzra dressed as a baby emerge.

The dwarves quickly welcome their guests showing them to their rooms. To their dismay the opera singer makes himself a little too at home throwing clothes all around his perfectly tidy room. The dwarves feel disrespected after finding his room in disarray and cook up a plan to poison the opera singer. Upon his death the singer is laid to rest in a casket surrounded by flowers. Overcome with sadness Koyzra now dressed as an Alice in Wonderland character, kisses the singer awakening him.

Consumed by vanity the drag queen obsessively reapplies makeup and parades in front of the mirror like a true diva. The dwarves look on as she proceeds to the bathroom and stands while urinating all over the toilet seat. Questioning the drag queen’s femininity the peasant dressed dwarves look suspiciously at the lifted toilet seat and used facial razor. They then gather around plotting the demise of both the drag queen and her equally messy friend the opera singer.

The dwarves drag the vulnerable bodies of the opera singer and drag queen down the stairs into a dungeon-like setting to repeatedly bludgeon their victims with axes. Koyzra forced into isolation emerges from the cottage with smeared makeup and teary eyes. She casts a spell on the dwarves below and they immediately turn to mushrooms.

The cyclical narrative makes little sense leaving the viewer with many questions including the meaning of the reappearing mushrooms and the dwarves’ true motivation to kill. Did they really kill over a pile of clothes on the floor and soiled toilet seat? Other questions ensue like why did they spare Koyzra? In the end there is no happily ever after for this fairytale.

A.I.R Gallery: “The History Show: Work from 1972 to the Present”

The A.I.R. gallery was established in 1972 as a “response” to the lack of space given to female artists in galleries. “The History Show: Work from 1972 to the Present” exhibition currently on view is a combining of seventy-five A.I.R. artists from the past and present. Feminist content is often the motive for the work but it’s not all agenda driven. Jill Parisi’s capricious Untitled piece and Howardena Pindell’s Op art certainly counteracts the obvious feminist framework of Mary Beth Edelson’s and Silvia Sleigh’s contributions. However, the gallery seems to favor their feminist foundation heavily. A.I.R takes a fresh look at past artists by merging their old and established work with emerging artists’ less familiar art. The mixture shines a new light on the past while elevating the contemporary work to a position of recognition.

Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art Gallery: Blake Little

“The Company of Men” exhibition at Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art Gallery also located in the 111 Front Street Galleries presents the solo exhibition of photographer Blake Little. Little stages everyday man in “settings that complement the subject or tell a story”. Common surroundings such as the subject’s home, workplaces, or typical hangouts serve as the backdrop for the artist’s note worthy photographs. Many of the authentic environments add to the rouged exterior of the man photographed. Some men are sexualized such as Wolfgang, Portland, OR (2006) or Mark, Rugby, Seattle, WA (2005) while others appear genuine and hard working like Todd, Vacaville, CA (2007) and Chuck, San Francisco, CA (2006). Each piece acts as a window into a different man’s unknown life. The men are portrayed as ordinary yet all of them harbor a certain secret. Each is gay but none outwardly exhibit the usual characteristics of a stereotypical homosexual man. Little’s motivation for the series was to document rarely seen gay men who are overtly masculine breaking down the common markers of a typical gay man.

303 Galleries: Doug Aitken

An artist’s creation must be spellbinding to warrant the amount of space Doug Aitken occupies at the 303 Galleries in Chelsea. Two separate galleries house the multimedia artist’s work. Whatever the medium Aitken’s art explores “constructed landscapes” and subsequently the consequences that follow such development.

Residing in the 22nd street space are thirty scenes formed entirely out of blue geometric shapes. The fragmented paintings guide the viewer through futuristic streets and allies. A glowing ceiling highlights the monochromatic watercolors that line the curved sterile walls. Aitken manipulated the gallery to resemble a spaceship not unlike a set for a science-fiction film. However, the alien interior lends nothing to the watercolors in fact the space outshines the work.

Cityscapes are a theme carried throughout the 22nd Street gallery. As the viewer progresses through the gallery they encounter Star. Aitken continues his homage to urban life with the neon illuminated light box featuring an aerial view of a metropolis lit up like an evergreen tree on Christmas morning. It seems that the artist is commenting on the loneliness of living in a big city. While we are surrounded by people, we rarely know our neighbors or care to meet them. In a city of millions one person is unknown and insignificant.

At the 21st street gallery Aitken’s alluring video installation monopolizes the warehouse space. Rarely seen wildlife star in the triple screened feature dubbed “Migration”. The lined up screens resemble highway billboards or fleeting birds. Close ups of a beaver’s scaly tail and the fully dilated eyes of an owl mesmerize the audience. The cinematography is a cross between a nature program and a psychological thriller.

Set in roadside motels the displaced animals appear lonely. Many Americans suffer similar feelings when visiting the very same locations. These motels are equipped with basic amenities like a shower and bed yet they never feel like home. Likewise the artist tries to make the animals feel at home by playing video of their kin on the television. Scenes of galloping horses for the brown stallion and flocks of migrating birds for the peacocks seem to only confuse the lost animals. However, the bathtub does appear to be an adequate substitute for a dam. The beaver leisurely swims as if unaffected. Other attempts such as the mounted antlers on the wall result in a clearly distressed deer.

The viewer becomes a witness to the animal interacting with their surroundings. Although not overtly conscious raising the piece does make the spectator wonder the affect development has on the natural habitats of animals.

The Brooklyn Museum: Ghada Amer

Set in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art the “Ghada Amer: Love Has No End” exhibition showcases modernist abstract painting, embroidered sculpture, and the artist’s conceptual work regarding terror. Amer’s work mostly deals with injustice for women and the Arab world. The exhibition consists of fifty pieces of Amer’s art including some collaborative works by Riza Farkhondeh. The exhibition is broken up into the four sections.

The first section is “Patterns and Models” with works like Barbie Loves Ken, Ken Loves Barbie (1995/2002) and Love Has No End. In this section Amer’s motivation was women working domestically. Iconic images of women ironing and cooking decorate various articles of clothing. Amer’s reference to women’s craft parallels her predecessors’ work. Miriam Shapiro, Faith Ringgold, and Judy Chicago all incorporated such symbolism in their work in order to elevate women’s traditional work to fine art. Amer carries on this mission with her pieces while commenting on new issues women face globally.

On the flanking wall is the “Big Drips” section which consists of Amer’s “signature smut-embroidered” paintings. Included under this umbrella is a large-scale painting stitched with pale blue, pink, and yellow thread into the carbon colored background titled The Big Black Kansas City (2006). At first glance the piece appears abstract however a more careful look reveals the duplicated profile of a woman. The stenciled pattern repeats vertically up and down the canvas. Likewise Red Dragon (2000) employs the same embroidered pattern of an erotically posed woman. The orgasmic-faced figure stands out on the paint dripped background.


“The Reign of Terror” section is a commentary on how the Muslim world is perceived as the agents of panic and terror. The Egyptian born artist suggests these perceptions have been pierced into American minds further perpetuating racism and more often then not the American government orchestrated this continued discrimination. Amer counteracts the idea of the Arab world being the “axis of evil” by showing that the majority of Arab people do not fit this terrorist stereotype. The most spellbinding work presented shares the same name as the section. The Reign of Terror is an installation of wallpaper with printed definitions of terror. This concept of terror has become part of the social fabric of our nation and surrounds us much like walls. Many have become so engulfed by panic they have lost touch of what it actually means.

Although many of the pieces in this section focus on words, I ♥ Paris (1991) concentrates on visual stereotypes. The series of photographs depicts veiled women posed in front of Paris’ most beloved tourist sites including the Eiffel Tower. Combining the Iranian cador with the naqqab from Egypt and other countries Amer and her colleagues are completely shrouded by black fabric. Exaggerating the veil references the extent at which a small group of Arab terrorists have been seen as a canopy for all Arab people. The individual has been flattened. The artist adds humor by posing the women in same manner many Americans do when on vacation in Paris. Further proving these women are more similar to us than different.

THe Klompching Gallery: Cornelia Hediger

The walls of the Klompching Gallery bare the photographs of renowned Swiss artist Cornelia Hediger. Each rich and colorfully fragmented photograph in the “Doppelgänger” exhibition carries a narrative. The carefully crafted scenarios are comically shocking while simultaneously psychological. Hediger plays the role of the woman in all the works struggling “between the conscious and the unconscious”. The whimsy of brightly patterned dresses and fanciful embellishments are off set by a sense of eeriness and sorrow. The broken woman appears to be in a state of emotional terror yet the luscious hues of her surroundings create a jovial façade for the surface.

In Doppelganger 11/05 one woman on the left holds a cheerful doll’s head in front of her face masking her melancholy. The other is trapped in a bird’s cage screaming. Of course both are the same person battling an internal trauma. The artist is making a statement about the tendency to hide behind a public image to avoid signs of depression. Despite the weighty subject matter the work presents a humorous side to these sad emotions. Perhaps the message is that eventually we all stop and laugh at the past.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Jeff Koons and Giorgio Morandi

“Jeff Koons on the Roof” is a play land of imagination only possible by the magical location of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof. The breath taking view of the New York skyline competes with Koons’ sculptures almost outshining them. The relatively large-scale objects appear miniature in comparison to the big city.

Balloon Dog (Yellow) is an “updated version of Duchamp’s urinal” as Jerry Saltz quotes in New York Magazine. The yellow-tinted high-chromium stainless steel piece like any ready made is meant to play off the viewer's past experience in this case specifically a person’s childhood. Almost everyone has been to a street fair or carnival where balloon animals were a must-have.

The mirrored stainless steel of Coloring Book looks like a large scale 1980’s pop art piece until you read the name. Suddenly childhood memories of coloring in your favorite Disney themed coloring book come over you. With careful viewing the scribbled rendering of Winnie the Pooh becomes apparent.

Sacred Heart is a heart wrapped in reflective red paper and tied off with a yellow ribbon quoting the powerful Roman Catholic image that bares the same name. In the past religion was the main inspiration for humans. People devoted their entire lives to their faith. This notion seems less and less apparent in modern day America. Koons’ suggests consumerism is now at the heart of America. Sacred Heart is even more relevant in a time of economic crisis like today. Neatly packaging America’s lifeline is a reminder to the viewer that luxury is a gift not an entitlement.

Koons’ work deals with dreams for all ages. Each piece allows the audience to make up their own narrative harping back on their past experiences. Without our memories Koons’ work would be meaningless. Sadly I felt the work was cheapened by the bar and smoking section. People were not there to look at the art but take a break from the massive museum below them.

Another special exhibition on view is a comprehensive body of work by one of the most skillful artists of the twentieth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts the first showing of the Italian artist’s beloved still lifes and landscapes within the United States. The tasteful “Giorgio Morandi: 1890-1964” exhibition showcases works Morandi produced for his friends and perspicacious collectors.

Examining Morandi’s collection gives a sense of the artist’s personality and intent only possible with such an expansive body of work. He painted dozens of works with the same subject from alternate views and varied positions in a range of styles. Likewise he experimented with painting identical objects with slightly altered lighting. He even changed color palettes to record the differences. A fascination with intricate details and minor variations consumed that artist’s entire career.

Morandi was more experimental in his early years before narrowing his focus to vases, pitchers, vessels, and similar receptacles. In the 1950s Morandi became interested in voids and negative space but remains true to his favorite subject of still lifes. Concentrating on how objects appear in relation to other objects the artist positioned items in front of on another as if the covered section was lost.

Etchings such as Bouquet of Flowers (Fiori in un Cornetto) and Landscapes (Paesaggio) highlighted Morandi’s skill and eye for making something truly beautiful. Each was unique breaking away from his typical mode of painting. Although the subject matter remained the same there was a unique quality to each piece not seen in his painting.

One great curatorial element was the addition of quotes from art historians, friends, and the artist himself. Each passage further explained Morandi’s artistic motivations. However, navigating where the exhibition began and ended was difficult. There was a sense of chronology yet the pieces were also separated by subject matter making the artist’s timeline unclear. On the other hand the grouping of related subject matter allowed the viewer to compare slight disparities on a similar theme. The exhibition is sophisticated and appropriate for the context of the work but crowds are certainly not pouring into the museum for this lackluster show.

The Museum of Modern Art: Dali: Painting and Film

Combining film, painting, and drawings the “Dali: Painting and Film” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art examines the influence of film on Salvador Dali. With the inclusion of gems such as the artist’s most recognized work, Persistence of Memory and Un Chien Andalou (The Andalusian Dog), the show was congested with museum-goers all struggling to catch a glimpse at the surreal and perplexing work of Dali. Seeing every piece was impossible. I found myself peering over heads and looking through crowded bodies, which in a way was fitting for Dali.

Oddly enough Dali’s work Persistence of Memory was not drawing the crowds I expected. I was able to decipher the famous symbolism I learned in my art history classes. It was much smaller than I thought, which was disappointing. I imagined it as big as my college roommate’s poster version.

The first film on view was Un Chien Andalou surrounded by paintings the semi-darkened room was less then appropriate for either medium. The film directed collaboratively by Luis Buñuel and Dali is probably one of the best-known surrealist films of its time. Un Chien Andalou is based on two separate and unrelated dreams of Buñuel and Dali and explains why the chronology of the film is fragmented. The bizarre film features two central characters that appear to be having a love affair that ends in tragedy. The imagery of the man widening the eyelid of his lover’s left eye with one hand and preceding to draw a straight razor across her eye with the other still makes me flinch even after seeing it numerous times. Not to mention the chills that run over my body during the ant scene. The absence of a narrative leaves the viewer with many questions much like Dali’s painting.

Dali and Walt Disney’s shared film, Destino, was certainly the showstopper. The animated film encompasses the alluring appeal of Disney classics combined with the strange hypnotic whimsy of Dali. Ben Walters speaks of the delightful film saying it was like “walking a weird fault line where Disney's dream world meets Dalí's precise surreality”. The exhibition includes storyboards and letters between the producers mapping how step-by-step the film came to fruition. The distraction of the chattering crowd was lost as soon as the looped film began. The room silenced and people gathered around as if in a trance completely mesmerized by the film’s flowing love story. The wall postings and storyboards allude to the ill-fated love Chronos, an all-powerful god, has for a mortal woman. The long-haired hour glass shaped woman looks like any other Disney princess but Dali’s surrealist backgrounds prevent it from being cliché.

In 1966 Dali sat for some screen-tests produced by Andy Warhol who flipped the film upside down to distort the image in honor of the Spanish Surrealist. Warhol stated, "it's like being with royalty or circus people". Dali’s work has a sort of awe that is unexplainable. He truly was the first artist to be seen as a celebrity. A notion perfected by Andy Warhol and carried on by Damien Hurst.

The alluring and very comprehensive exhibition not only shows the influence of film on Dali’s work but his impact on the cinematography. It was really wonderful to see the artist’s iconic representation of melting clocks and ants set in motion in his films. It is as if his paintings come alive in these films.

The Guggenheim Museum: Louise Bourgeois Retrospective

In honor of Louise Bourgeois’ seventy-year long career the Guggenheim Museum hosted a retrospective exhibition of the iconic figure’s art. The exhibition monopolized the museum’s rotunda perfectly complementing the French-born artist’s artwork. However, admittedly I expected slightly more grandeur. After seeing Cai Guo-Qiang’s Exploding Cars suspended almost weightlessly from the Guggenheim ceiling, the pair of cocoon-like pods were more than disappointing. Imagine the curatorial possibilities Bourgeois’ sculpture lends to a space like the Guggenheim.

The absence of Bourgeois’ spiders was equally as frustrating as the inclusion of the paintings displayed from her early period. Appearing to be ordinary studies or models for the artist’s sculpture the paintings seemed elementary. However this notion was rejected by the wall postings, which seemed to be more embellishment then straight fact. Additionally the postings were clearly geared towards art historians or someone well versed in art historical theory and vocabulary that was unsuitable for a show viewed by a diverse audience.

The exhibition was set up chronologically highlighting each period in Bourgeois’ career. To borrow words from the “Wack: Art and the Feminist Revolution” exhibition catalogue Bourgeois’ work is “an assault on patriarchal psychic and social structures by envisioning new models of gender that cannot be understood in terms of simple opposition between male and female”. In Personages the non-sexed beings all have their own personalities created with different woods, colors, and added embellishments. The stick-like figures were spread out unable to engage or confront one another the way her other works do such as Night Garden or One and Others or Eye to Eye. The primitive beings feel isolated and self-contained. According to the wall posting Personages was exhibited in 1949 at the New York’s Peridot Gallery, however the figures were grouped together as if they were conversing. The sprawling arrangement of the piece is misunderstanding to the viewer and directly contradicts Bourgeois’ ongoing motif of relationships.

Bourgeois’ work quotes personal memories and the emotional scars that follow them. A spectator may never fully understand the extent of pain and betrayal the artist felt by her father’s extramarital affairs but through repetitive themes and motifs her poignant wounds become more and more apparent. She gives the viewer a taste of her personal trauma by allowing them to peer into her Cells through keyholes and door jams like a voyeur creating a fortress for her emotions. Bourgeois revisits the association between the body and architecture over and over again. The notion is most present in her works Confrontation, Cells, and the Fabric Sculptures. She uses cloth in her Fabric Sculptures to lend a flesh like effect to her sculpture further alluding to the body. The intimacy of the two ambiguous bodies in Couple IV references back to the artist’s fascination with relationships but also how we perceive “human experience in the most raw, unflinching, and elemental terms”.

Howard Halle, writer for Time Out New York addresses how Bourgeois is often “perceived as a pioneering feminist artist” but she really is nothing like the stereotypical feminist artist because her work “isn’t tendentious or even vaguely interested in consciousness-raising, and while it does make frequent references to the body—especially sexual anatomy—it does so in a way that is highly ambiguous”. Halle’s words perplexed me since I felt the exhibition presented Bourgeois as the godmother to feminist art. Georgina Silica agrees saying, “it follows that this show…attempts to recast Bourgeois’ work as explicitly feminist”.

Halle goes on to say that Bourgeois is just “one of the boys, which is why major institutions like the Guggenheim love her” and of course will exhibit her work. These comments not only discredit feminist art but also the museum. Why would a glorified institution such as the Guggenheim waste it’s time on feminist artists or female artists for that matter unless of course they are just “one of the boys”. Its laughable since the Guggenheim is now exhibiting Catherine Opie, a well-known photographer often referred to as a feminist artist. Opie’s work was even exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum’s “Global Feminisms” exhibition last year. Perhaps Bourgeois has become overexposed leaving her impervious to criticism. Believe me there is no one more thrilled to see a female artist who has lived most of her life in the shadows emerging as an icon but despite the artist’s establishment the exhibition was assiduous and repetitive not unlike Bourgeois’ career.

The Lehmann Maupin Gallery: Jennifer Steinkamp

The torrent of poisonous flora cascading down the walls of the Lower Eastside Lehmann Maupin Gallery is the ever-brilliant work of Jennifer Steinkamp. The digital artist and long time pioneer for the medium presents two delightful pieces of new media. Even more attractive are the distinctive narratives and Op art derivatives. Unlike Bridget Riley's infamous work that creates the feeling of motion Steinkamp's work in truth is moving.

Upon entering the gallery the viewer is immediately mesmerized by the fading rainbow of clouds. The abstract projection is a play on God's body parts cleverly dubbed "Left Clavicle". The piece is part of a series and not surprisingly evokes stained glass often seen in Cathedrals. The light from the outside makes the projection faint and the colors appear washed out. The colors fade into one another in an unexplainable way. The artist rejects rules of warm and cool colors; blues border pinks while greens and oranges flank one another.

Unlike "Left Clavicle" Steinkamp's other work "Daisy Bell" is figurative. The piece features flowers swaying in a ghost like breeze that move down the wall in a hypnotic fashion. As if a basket of flowers fell from the sky. Each unique flower appears as it does in nature but was produced by a computer generated program. Using nature as her inspiration and technology as her vehicle, Steinkamp artfully blends contradicting elements of synthetic and organic. With careful examination one can see the two bands of projected imagery fusing in the middle of the wall. The carefully calculated computer program is the heart of the piece but aesthetics is the most valued aspect.

Analogous to the way Italian Renaissance masters considered doorways and the function of a space when conceptualizing frescos Steinkamp takes full advantage of the architectural context of the gallery. The verticality of the space and the fact that the artist uses every inch of the wall further perpetuates a whole new world of brightly hued billowy clouds or floral patterns reminiscent Victorian wallpaper. Her beautiful optical illusions create a truly wonderful visual experience. Similar to watching a film the viewer is completely enveloped by darkness allowing them to escape and interact with the work by walking through the projection ultimately becoming part of the work.

The American Folk Art Museum

The American Folk Art Museum is an institution devoted to commemorating and displaying often unknown or shadowy personas of our American past through traditionally handmade artworks. In spite of this, its stone structure shares little character with the artwork that inhabits it. Folk art generally reflects craft traditions produced by people of little or no artistic education often with a provenance that is unknown or less then distinguished. Thus, when entering a space devoted to such work one would expect something homier. The wooden benches and gallery floors attempt to add warmth but in the end the stark, cold, textured cement prevails virtually destroying its role as a bearer of our cultural inheritance. The building merely feels like an extension of the Museum of Modern Art. Perhaps this is because the two museums are next door to one another.

Nonetheless a museum should be molded to its collection. When viewing Renaissance art I expect to see gold frames illuminated by warm lighting. The same goes for viewing contemporary art. The sterile white walls and slick lines provide a minimalist impression necessary for viewing contemporary pieces. The Metropolitan Museum phenomenally creates a new feeling and setting when visitors move from the Greek art section to the Cloisters and onto the more contemporary works.

One redeeming quality is how art is integrated into public spaces, such as the lobby, stairwells, hallways, and niches throughout the building offering continuity for the audience. Additionally the wall postings for the Asa Ames: Occupation Sculpting exhibition were exceptional. Providing an ample amount of information on an almost unknown American figure. Each piece exhibited is given its own informational wall posting. Unfortunately this was not consistent in the museums other exhibition “Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger”.

It is only fitting that the American Folk Art Museum would feature an exhibit commemorating Darger and his subsequent followers. Coined as an outsider, Darger certainly fits the mold of a folk artist whose self-taught genius and diligence is all inspiring. One thing is for sure the works displayed beside Darger’s are equally peculiar. However, there is a lost sense of emotional poignancy. Justine Lieberman’s photographs of ambiguous prepubescent bodies with child beauty queen faces inserted in Darger like landscapes seems like a even more eccentric attempt to update or recontextualize.

Amy Cutler has a better idea of paying homage to Darger with originality. Cutler’s piece Monkey Bars (2001) depicts a clashing group of girls battling in all different challenging positions on monkey bars. The muted tonality of the piece is further substantiated by the girls’ blue and white uniform dresses. The connected long hair and sameness of the girls force the viewer to question if this is just one girl battling her own internal war. Cutler presents a narrative not unlike a magical fairy tale or Sunday morning comic or even Darger’s Vivian Girls. Both Darger and Cutler include tribes of girls in conflict. Darger’s girls of course struggling to free children from slavery while Cutler’s battle to liberate themselves from domestic tedium. This message of is even clearer in Cutler’s piece, Traction (2002) where four girls fight to escape a house that appears to be a factory of girls with endless braided hair.

The exhibition overall is oddly setup and scattered. There are informational wall posting on many of the artists featured but not all creating a sort of hierarchy of whose work is more valid. Darger is mixed in amongst the more contemporary artists. Surely this was intentional but it lacks continuity and devalues some of Darger’s work.

The main problem with the exhibition is it leaves the viewer questioning the motives of the curator. Why pair this artist so well known for being an outsider with formally educated artists or insiders? Most certainly the fact that Darger has become something of a celebrity is a major factor. His work has not only inspired an “ism” undoubtedly fabricated by curator but also music mentioning Darger by Snakefinger to a full blown ballad for him by Natalie Merchant. Darger has a mythic stature not unlike his epic story that is oddly alluring. The artists featured with Darger appear inauthentic to be featured at a folk art museum. “Folk” implies ordinary or common people, which would preclude an extensive education. The inclusion of academically trained artists is a break from the institution’s ostensible mission. Although the architecture does not reflect its occupants the institution brilliantly convinces the viewer that folk art is noteworthy and precious enough to warrant being housed in its own museum.