The Guggenheim/NYC has a retrospective of Wassily Kandinsky through January 2010. This all encompassing exhibition is an abstract lover's dream: Kandinsky's artistic evolution and development are on display from the lower levels of the Guggenheim to the top, with 100+ large format paintings and 60 works on Paper exhibited.
I found myself as enamored of the building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1959, as the paintings circling around and around its many levels. The Guggenheim is an interactive work of Art, with museum goers participating by viewing all that is before them. We were, literally, inside Art looking at Art, very odd.
I took many photos of the museum, inside and out, its spirals, curves, and angles. It's my kind of building--a little off, maybe a fantasy--that makes viewers think. What IS going on here? When Wright molded form to function that became this museum, what inspired him? How does this building reflect the organic?
Early on, Kandinsky, too, molded form and function through bold colors and his exaggerated objects. He believed Art should provoke a psychic/spiritual connection in viewers. Later in his career, Kandinsky's work became non-objective. Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, details his theory of Art.
I am most drawn to Kandinsky's earlier paintings, with primary colors and identifiable landscapes. The colors are similar to ones used in my own paintings, quite comforting, that I'm not alone in re-creating this world.
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I found myself as enamored of the building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1959, as the paintings circling around and around its many levels. The Guggenheim is an interactive work of Art, with museum goers participating by viewing all that is before them. We were, literally, inside Art looking at Art, very odd.
I took many photos of the museum, inside and out, its spirals, curves, and angles. It's my kind of building--a little off, maybe a fantasy--that makes viewers think. What IS going on here? When Wright molded form to function that became this museum, what inspired him? How does this building reflect the organic?
Early on, Kandinsky, too, molded form and function through bold colors and his exaggerated objects. He believed Art should provoke a psychic/spiritual connection in viewers. Later in his career, Kandinsky's work became non-objective. Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, details his theory of Art.
I am most drawn to Kandinsky's earlier paintings, with primary colors and identifiable landscapes. The colors are similar to ones used in my own paintings, quite comforting, that I'm not alone in re-creating this world.
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The Guggenheim is a fabulous building, circular space. I always spend as much time looking over the railing at the space as at the paintings, but to see Kandinsky would be a joy! Glad you could have a NY art time.
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