Wednesday, July 15, 2015

HARVARD


I spent much more time on the blog entry than I would have wanted to, primarily because the internet connection was slow, and the pictures I wanted were excruciatingly slow to up- and download.  So we left our room quite late, and stopped first for a bite to eat down the block at Prêt-à-Manger.  I think the sparrows enjoyed the muffins more than we did...


We navigated the subway for the first time, finding our way without great difficulty from Copley Square to Harvard, where we walked across the campus in what rapidly turned into quite a shower of rain.  After a brief stopover for shelter, we soon found the way to our destination, the Harvard Art Museums--another redesign and update architectural job by Renzo Piano.  Another fine, high atrium at the center of the various museums, now hung with a monumental sculptural installation of giant musical triangles by the Mexican artist, Carlos Amorales...


The newly coordinated university museums, now incorporated into a single architectural unit, form a wonderfully rich educational resource.  We started at the Fogg, with its fine collection of post-World War II art, including some stellar examples of work by Jackson Pollock...

Jackson... and me
... Jasper Johns, Nam June Paik and other leading artists of the period...

Kiki Smith, Kerry James Marshall (a former student of mine...)
Ed Ruscha
The next moment we found ourselves admiring magnificent Chinese objects dating back as far as 2,500 BCE...



(Love that little bear, and the turtle, and the hare...)

One of the loveliest Buddhas I have seen...
In the next architectural corner of the building, we came upon an equally excellent installation of European paintings and sculptures from the early 20th century, with fine examples of German Expressionism, Blaue Reiter, and early modernist abstraction--think Max Beckmann, Georg Grosz, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, El Lissitzky...


 and others, prime examples of each; and finally, in the fourth quarter, an exhibition of pre-Modern work by Van Gogh...

A wonderful early painting...
... Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, a fascinating Cezanne...


In all, if I were a teacher of art history, I would find in this confluence of museums the resource for almost everything I would need.  It was an enormously rich experience, simply to walk through these galleries.

And then... there was a second floor, which we missed, covering, it seemed, the intervening centuries of art history... we went on to the Special Exhibitions on the third floor, where "On View: Mark Rothko's Harvard Murals" offered numerous sketches and texts for the huge, but now seriously deteriorated panels that were created as site-specific paintings to hang in a faculty dining room.  In the main gallery, an intricate and sophisticated system of computer-generated projections, superimposed on the original paintings, sought to restore the original colors, pixel for pixel.  The result was visually brilliant, and yet... something was missing.  With all my years of experience with prolonged contemplation of paintings, I could not get through to the heart and soul of these digitally-restored paintings.  Perhaps, had I been able to sit for longer than the few minutes I had...  Who knows?

In the adjacent galleries, we found a truly fascinating exhibit titled "Jesse Aron Green: Ärtzliche Zimmergymnastik"--translated by the artist as "Medicalized Indoor Gymnastics."  It's a multi-component installation whose main attraction is a wall-length video installation documenting a performance on sixteen square platforms by sixteen male dancers/athletes/gymnasts, prime specimens all, enacting a series of exercises designed by the 19th century Dr. med. D.G.M. Schreber to optimize masculine health (both moral and physical!) ...

(Some leave for rest breaks... Here are a few)
The video was supplemented by photographs and drawings, as well as by the sixteen platforms used, stained by the performers' foot movement and body sweat, laid out on the gallery floor and hung in a sequence on its walls...


Given my abiding interest in all aspects of masculinity, I was fascinated by this show--by the regimentation and syncopation of the figures in their "dance," by the demonstration of male strength and stamina, and by the powerfully implied homoeroticism of these beautiful bodies--implied, yes, but only as a tease: this same Dr. Schreber was also the inventor of a device designed to thwart masturbation.

On, too hastily, really, to the final Special Exhibitions gallery, with its display of works donated to the university from the famed Dorothy and Herbert Vogel collection.  The Vogels are known for their extraordinary dedication to contemporary art and artists, and for their obsessive collection of art objects.  Never wealthy people--Herbert was a postal clerk--they managed over the years to put together a massive collection of more than 2,500 works on a shoestring budget; the current Harvard exhibition shows some fifty works from the total Vogel donation that went in part to all 50 states--mostly small, but choice examples, befitting the restricted living circumstances of the Vogels, displayed in a manner that honored the dedication of the donors.

From the museums, now that the rain had stopped, we wandered through the campus, past the magnificent library (we were denied access, I suppose understandably, given the huge numbers of visitors)...

On the library steps, looking out over the Harvard campus
... and out onto Harvard Square--so crowded with tourists and vendors that we decided to take the train back to our hotel, where I spent a good long while catching up with the previous day's blog entry.  Leaving for dinner, we crossed Copley Square...


... and, finding Trinity Church closed...

(Here seen reflected on the facade of an adjacent skyscraper...)
... back-tracked to the subway station and took the train out to the area around Faneuil Hall--not surprisingly, again crowded with tourists.  We enjoyed fish and chips in a quieter spot, around the corner...


... and strolled out after dinner along the quays, watching the boats on the bay and the planes taking off from Logan Airport, beyond.  And took a taxi home--in time to watch the last few (uphill!) miles of the 10th (?) stage of the Tour de France.  Bastille Day, le quatorze juillet! 





1 comment:

kfsartist said...

Love your tour, and I can revisit it any time in case I want to see the works again. (The Rothko images do not translate well on my computer. )