My head is spinning from a vacation that included 20 nights
in 10 different locations starting in western Massachusetts and ending in
coastal North Carolina, where we had a front row seat to the remnants of Hurricane Hermine.
Much to the delight of this drought-weary Angeleno, there was water everywhere.
From swimming in the Green River to the old mill buildings at MASS MoCA on the
Hoosic River, to the Potomac and the torrential rain of the aforementioned Hermine, not even the
accompanying heat and high humidity could keep me down. We visited so many
cultural attractions that I can’t write about them in one blog post. So I’ll
start in western Massachusetts with MASS MoCA, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture
Book Art and the Montague Bookmill.
Our first stop was the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
in Amherst (we had a
one-year-old grandchild in tow). Carle is the author and illustrator of the
1969 children’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Frankly, I expected to be bored, but was delighted to find an exhibition that appealed to me on an adult
level, Americana on Parade: The Art of Robert McCloskey, on view through
October 23. McCloskey is mostly known for his classic children’s book, Make Way for Ducklings, but comes from a fine art background. I love good drawing and
the many masterful pencil, ink and charcoal drawings on display from both his
children’s books and his fine art career were well worth the visit. And if you’re
travelling with children, there are plenty of activities to keep them happy.
The author's snapshot of a bridge leading to
the Sol LeWitt Retrospective at MASS MoCA.
If you’ve never visited MASS MoCA in North Adams, stop
what you're doing and go now! Even if you don’t care about art, just go to visit the 16-acre
collection of old mill buildings, bridges, elevated walkways and outdoor spaces that comprise the museum. If you can’t go, get a copy of MASS MoCA: From Mill to Museum. (It’s out of print, but used copies are available). There are essays
about the history of the site and the challenges of transforming the former
Sprague Electric Company buildings into a museum, and a mission statement by
MASS MoCA’s Director, Joseph C. Thompson.
The photos are by Nicholas Whitman who
began photographing the site before it was slated to become a museum. Both in
black & white and color, we see the stunning transformation from industrial
detritus to sprawling museum campus.
A highlight of MASS MoCA is the permanent installation of Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective. In a perfect blend of art and architecture, you can roam a maze of nearly an acre of
interior walls covered with 105 of LeWitt’s wall drawings. The exhibition is beautifully catalogued in Sol LeWitt: 100 Views, along with 100 short essays honoring LeWitt’s career.
The Montague Bookmillis a book lover’s dream and one of my favorite places on earth. This unique used book
store is housed in yet another old mill building, this one on the banks of the Sawmill River. Cozy
reading nooks with chairs and sofas overlooking the rushing river through tall
multi-paned windows, creaky wooden floors and old exposed plumbing add to the
ambiance. The mill also houses two restaurants (try the
yummy Udon Noodles at the The
Lady Killigrew Cafe), as well as outdoor terraces and walkways.
Welcome to my new blog! For those of you familiar with my
old blog, the new one will be more of the same. I’ll be talking about art, art
books, other books and occasionally, topics that fall more broadly under the umbrella
of culture.
If you use the Amazon.com links to purchase a featured
product, the blog gets a tiny percentage of the proceeds. Once you’ve clicked
through on one of these links, anything you buy from Amazon also helps support
us. (Thank you in advance.)
I would love to hear from you and for this to become a
dialog. You can leave comments below or email me at janechafinsblog@gmail.com.
I have a favorite coffee table art book these days. It
doesn’t just sit on the table like a trophy to show how cultured I am (I have
others for that :-). I keep it open and turn the page every couple of days to
marvel at and be inspired by its display of unbridled imagination in the
service of simple colored pencil drawings. Part art book, part encyclopedia, Luigi
Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus catalogs an imaginary world in an unknown
language, hand-written in a beautiful and indecipherable script invented by
Serafini himself.
First published in 1981, this 2013 edition has been redesigned
by Serafini and includes new illustrations. The gifted Serafini, who lives in Italy,
is also an architect, ceramist, glazier, painter, sculptor, designer,
opera director, set designer, and critic. Leafing through the Codex at random you might find a series
of ten diagrams showing the metamorphosis of a couple making love becoming a
crocodile who then leaves the bed and slithers away. Another random sampling
shows a chart of sixteen types of eyes, while opposite are rainbow colored
teeth, odd dental contraptions, toothpaste coming from tubes in delightful coils
and arabesques, and a game board where the objective seems to be to propel a recently
extracted tooth from your mouth into a goal at one end of the board.
Over and over again your eyes dart to the script for
clarification, only to be reminded you’re on your own – you don’t know this
language. Then there’s a page with schematics showing a fried egg from above and in two
elevation views, connecting grid lines running throughout. Beside it you see
three fried eggs in perspective on a grid with a single vanishing point. Dashed
lines, colored lines and annotations (in the unknown script) tell a story but
you’re not sure what it is. On the opposite page a child sits suspended in
front of an open refrigerator in a cantilevered seat that he operates with a
lever.
Video: Deciphering the Secrets of Codex Seraphinianus by Great Big Story
The only known languages in this book, are in the form of a pamphletted
essay by Serafini titled DECODEX and inserted into a pocket on the inside back
cover. Written in Italian and translated into five other languages, Serafini
tells the story of how the Codex and its invented language came into being. At
the end, he confesses who the “true” author of the Codex is, explaining that he,
Serafini, “was merely its manual executor.” This tongue-in-cheek confession
only adds to the surreal deliciousness that is the Codex Seraphinianus.
Click here to buy from Amazon.com I’ve just learned that Rizzoli will be releasing a new book
by Serafini in October, PULCINELLOPAEDIA SERAPHINIANA. From the press release: “As
he famously did in the Codex, Luigi Serafini, has created PULCINELLOPAEDIA
SERAPHINIANA in a unique language all its own, and has filled it with
fascinating and mysterious illustrations that will no doubt prompt devotees to
obsessively try to decipher the artist’s intention.” I, for one, can’t wait!
Installation snaphot of Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, taken by the author.
Good news for my adopted hometown, Pasadena, CA. Curator and
former Director of Gallery Programs at the Armory Center for the Arts, Jay
Belloli has been appointed Interim Director of the Pasadena Museum of
California Art. He is also curator of the current not-to-be-missed exhibition Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture which runs at PMCA
through September 11.
Almost hidden in a back room behind Belloli’s masterfully presented Falkenstein
show is Significant Details, an awe-inspiring exhibition of high contrast,
black and white photo abstractions by Brett Weston, the lesser-known but no
less talented son of Edward Weston. I’m so disappointed there is no
catalog for Significant Details. Over half of the works on view have never been
shown before, so this is our only chance to see them for now (on view
through September 11).
Untitled (Wall, Europe), 1971. Silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 inches, The Brett Weston Archive. Courtesy Christian Keesee Collection, 2016
