Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
April 28, 2009–November 29, 2009 (weather permitting)


I teach an art course for undergraduates at Fordham University in the Bronx, NY. The class is primarily a studio class, but I try to infuse as much art history into the lessons as I can. My students are extremely bright, and catch on to concepts very quickly. However, when it comes to basic art history they always seem one step behind. I guess I can't blame them, I don't recall knowing all that much about Willem de Kooning and Clifford Still when I was their age and I have always been an artist. So whenever I get the chance I drag my class to the local museums in New York and we get an eye full. I always believed that you could never really "get" these concepts until you saw the real thing. You can paint your whole life, but if you never stand in front or a Rembrandt, you will never see how much color you can put into dark spaces. If you never sit and stare at a Monet, you will never appreciate how much you can do with color and light.

Last week we went on a field trip to see the Modern and Contemporary wings of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I won't bore anyone with the play by play of how my students reacted to the work there. All I will say is that I think the majority of them really enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of it. Something that was unexpected and truly wonderful was the exhibit on the roof of the Met: Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom. The work surprised us all and we ended up spending most of our time enjoying the beautiful fall weather, the spectacular view of Central Park and the exciting and sublime work of Roxy Paine.



The exhibition consists of a large, multi-part sculpture made out of stainless steel piping and bars. The piece is 130 feet long and 45 feet wide and evokes the root system of plants, tree limbs or other organic life. This juxtaposed with the highly polished stainless steel materials and the view of the park creates an interesting dialogue with the urban environment, natural forms and the history of landscape painting, sculpture and installation. The work comes alive as you walk through, each angle and passageway between the "branches" unveiling new ways of seeing the work. Before I knew it I was deep inside it, tangled in it and looking at the world outside it in a new way. Some straggling limbs shoot out off the roof beyond the wall and seem to stretch longingly towards the park below. Like the tin toy of a tree wishing it could run and play with its real live brothers and sisters below. Other parts of the sculpture sit heavy and anchored to the roof floor, ominous, powerful and unwilling to let go of their perch.



The work is up until late November and I think it would be worth it to see the sculpture in different times of year. See it against the back drop of the full green park and then as the trees change color and finally drop their leaves. Paine's piece remains unchanging against this ever-changing environment; an organic shape cast in steel. Catch it now before the winter chill comes and the roof closes.

The roof of the Met also has a great bar. Enjoy a cocktail while enjoying the art and the view.

All photos by Jessica Guerrette

Central Park Sketch

This will be brief , but as I was taking my lunch break today in Central Park, I cam upon a few people talking about painting and drawing. They were all sitting around this one guy who was painting a small oil sketch of the fountain. I was watching him paint and noticed that all the people were wearing little "Hello, My Name is..." stickers. I hate to be that guy who bothers people in public when they are working, but I had to ask what kind of a class or group this was.

Turns out they are part of a thing called meetup.com and the group is called The Central Park Sketching and Art Meet Up ( http://www.meetup.com/sketching/?a=wm1_gn).

Very cool idea, and even cooler website if you have never seen it before. All these different groups of strangers meeting up doing all sorts of stuff. These are the grass roots movements that will plant seeds to a new art world that is really an art world, not just an art market.

Pierre Bonnard: The Late Ineriors

Before Diner, oil on canvas, 1924

Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors
@ The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave NY, NY
January 27, 2009 – April 19, 2009
Robert Lehman Wing (1st Floor)


As wind and cold whipped around buildings and ice sheets caused me to slip and crash down my stairs, I found warmth, sun and solace at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an unprecedented showing of Pierre Bonnard’s late paintings of interiors and still lives.

I had actually slipped and slid down the front stoop of my apartment that Friday morning when I left to go and see the show. I was meeting an artist friend of mine to see the Bonnard when I was greeted with a thin layer of frozen rain and slush on my stairs. I found myself with my ass on the sidewalk. Why do I mention this? Because it’s been that type of a winter here in New York; cold with a chance of freezing and bitter…

The artist I was meeting up with, Gary Tenenbaum had turned me on to Bonnard while we were both doing a residency in Paris in 2007. I had always considered Bonnard a lesser impressionist or just another fluffy French painter; not quite Matisse, not quite Monet. One similarly cold and cloudy day in Paris, Gary took me to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. In their holdings are some of the most stunning Bonnard paintings, especially one of his self portraits and his paintings of his wife Marthe de Meligny in the bathe. The color and absolute abandon in those paintings blew me away. I had never seen anything like it and was enraged that I had wasted this much time without acknowledging them. So, when I saw that the Metropolitan was putting on this show of his late interiors and still lives, I called my Bonnard junkie in crime and we headed off in the cold.

To say these paintings “warmed me” on that cold, blistery day may sound cliché, but I welcomed the cliché! The paintings at the Met not only warmed me, they made me hot. They made my blood boil, and my heart quicken with excitement and absolute passion for painting and color. Is that a ridiculous statement? Maybe. Did I have the uncontrollable sensation to rush home and paint? Yes. For Gary and me the degree to which a show is “good,” is whether or not you run out wanting to make art. I haven’t felt that in a long, long time.

Where to begin with Bonnard’s Late Interiors? There is so much information to pull from and so many different aspects to touch on. However, for this the first posting I am making in almost a year, I am going to keep it honest and simple. For me, Bonnard is a painter’s painter. If I had to sum it all up in a few words: touch, composition, color. Within these simple elements Bonnard has an ability to turn the most mundane objects, still lives and tabletops into beautiful pictures of the most importance.

Flowers on the Mantelpiece at Le Cannet, oil on canvas, 1927

Maybe that is the important thing to take form these late paintings. For Bonnard, the still life objects have the same significance as the human elements in the work. A teapot or plate is created and sculpted with the same care and absolute abandon as the figures and landscapes, spaces and objects in the room. Bonnard doesn’t simply paint a picture like a window shade pulling from top to bottom. He paints in a holistic way, he moves from every corner to every corner and in and out like a fly buzzing and landing on different spots. From the exhibition I learned that Bonnard rarely made paintings from life, rather he worked from sketches made at the scene and then painted the actual canvas in his studio. All that color and space he essentially “made up.” And yet, Bonnard’s pictures don’t seem entirely unreal. This shift from live sketch to studio painting enhances that impeccable touch. The paintings maintain freshness and immediacy dancing the line between sketch and finished work, real and abstract space.

Work Table, oil on canvas, 1926/1937

Bonnard also never lets you forget you are looking at a painting. He leaves under drawing revealed, and often white space is actual raw canvas that Bonnard left unpainted. When he does use it, Bonnard applies white in an unbelievable way. I am a painter myself and I know how hard white can be to control. The difference between “light” and chalky pastels is extremely difficult to work between. Bonnard creates luminosity with his whites and his yellows and reds. By combining contrasting colors within the lights Bonnard creates energy in the color; yellows in the violets, blues in the reds and orange/reds. These combinations of color create these electrified canvases.

One of the most striking works in the exhibition is Bonnard’s own self-portrait. Made towards the end of his life, Bonnard paints himself in the bathroom mirror. His expression melds into the color and his form becomes as innocuous as his many teapots and table linens, that is to say it is painted with care and fresh perfect touch. In the end the artist is no more or less important than the objects he loved to paint. He is stripped bear, ghostly, a part of his own work.

Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, ca. 1938 - 40