Deep Looking:

Agnes Martin/Richard Tuttle  

Installation View Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle: Crossing Lines,

Pace Gallery, New York, 2017,  

(left) Richard Tuttle (1941 - ): 43rd Wire Piece, 1972/2017, wire, graphite and nails, 

installation dimensions variable, 

exhibition copy number one measures 10 1/4 x 23 1/8 x 11 1/2 in.  (51,4 x 58.7 x 29.2 cm); 

(right) Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004): Untitled #1, 1990, 

acrylic and graphite on canvas, 72 x 72 in. (182.88 x 182.88 cm)

Photo:  Kerry Ryan McFate/Pace Gallery
© 2017 Estate of Agnes Martin /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York© Richard Tuttle

Courtesy of Pace Gallery

Pauline Oliveros (1932 - 2016), the late composer, accordionist, music theoretician and teacher, developed the concept of what she called "Deep Listening."  This involved training and encouraging professional musicians as well as non-professionals to focus on listening to sounds as opposed to simply hearing them.  To hear refers to the ability to perceive aural sensations.  To listen requires attentiveness and focus. One is involuntary; the other is voluntary.  Listening deeply heightens and enhances the musical experience opening up a new consciousness to the auditory environment.

The minimalist work of Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004) and Richard Tuttle (1941 - ) bring to mind the idea of "Deep Looking."  Their art intensifies the visual experience when the observer engages in deep looking as opposed to merely seeing.  The full beauty and inventiveness of their work reveals itself with sustained visual concentration.  

The perceptively curated Pace Gallery exhibition, Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle:  Crossing Lines, illustrates this point.  For the show, Tuttle created eight wire pieces in response to seven Martin paintings dating from c. 1960 to 2003.  Close friends for some forty decades, the two artists have not been shown together for almost twenty years. 

Installation View Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle: Crossing Lines,

Pace Gallery, New York, 2017,  

(left) Richard Tuttle (1941 - ): 29rd Wire Piece, 1972/2017,  wire, graphite and nails, 

installation dimensions variable, 

exhibition copy number one measures 34 x 31 x 13 in.  (86.4 x 78.7x 33 cm); 

(right) Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004): Untitled, c. 1960, 

oil on canvas, 65 x 65 in. (165.1 x 165.1 cm)

Photo:  Kerry Ryan McFate/Pace Gallery
© 2017 Estate of Agnes Martin /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York© Richard Tuttle

Courtesy of Pace Gallery

The installation calls for a few minutes of eye adjustment.  The gallery's walls have been repainted to blend with Martin's paintings and lighting has been heightened.  The experience at first is of a blinding light with only Martin's paintings discernable.  As represented in the images here, like apparitions, Tuttle's works appear only after visual acclimatization.  

Installation View Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle: Crossing Lines,

Pace Gallery, New York, 2017,  

(left) Richard Tuttle (1941 - ): 39th Wire Piece, 1972/2017,  wire, graphite and nails, 

installation dimensions variable, 

exhibition copy number one measures 26 3/4 x 32 1/2 (67.9 x 82.6 cm); 

(right) Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004): Untitled #8, c. 1989, 

acrylic and graphite on canvas, 72 x 72 in. (182.9 x 182.9 cm)

Photo:  Kerry Ryan McFate/Pace Gallery
© 2017 Estate of Agnes Martin /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York© Richard Tuttle

Courtesy of Pace Gallery

Martin paints subtle modulations of vertical and horizontal lines and grids.  Employing muted colors, the repetitiveness of the forms evokes a sense of peacefulness and spirituality.  Tuttle draws a pencil line on the wall and attaches a wire to the wall near the ends of the drawing.   The shadow cast by the wire completes his three part poetic compositions.  

Tuttle's pieces change according to the installation. The pencil line's thickness or thinness, the wire's configuration and the darkness or lightness of the wire's silhouette against the wall will vary according to the particular surroundings and the artist's manipulation.  These are quiet works like the Martin's paintings.  Together, the pairing offers viewers a respite from the visual cacophony of today's world.  They lead to an acuteness of looking while proffering serenity.  Go take a look.

Note:  Pace Gallery's solo exhibit of Richard Tuttle sculptures, Richard Tuttle:  100 Epigrams, is on view at the same time as Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle:  Crossing Lines.  In a room on the gallery's third floor, one flight up from Agnes Martin/Richard Tuttle show, seven of Tuttle's charming constructions attract and delight.  Ordinary, unremarkable materials are transformed into wondrous objects.  The pieces are Tuttle at his best. 

Richard Tuttle (1941 - ), 100 Epigrams, 2017, (A) vinyl tubing, metal, Elmer's glue, canvas, pine wood, wool thread, tape, paper clips, purple rice paper, and mixed media; (B) cardboard, pine wood, copper wire, glue, wool thread, Elmer's glue, canvas, paper clips, purple rice paper, and mixed media, 

(A) 29 3/4 x 20 x 6 1/2 in. (75.6 x 50.8 x 16.5 cm), 

(B) 30 x 20 1/4 x 8 (76.2 x 132.1 x 20.3 cm)

Photo:  GrandDude Web site

Agnes Martin, Richard Tuttle:  Crossing Lines

November 2, 2017 - January 13, 2018

Pace Gallery

32 East 57th Street, Manhattan

Hours:  

Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 6 pm

Only One Original Salvator Mundi

Only One Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Salvator Mundi, c. 1500, 

oil on walnut panel, 

 25 7/8 x 18 in. (65.7 x 45.7 cm) 

Private Collection

Photograph:  Courtesy of Christie's

The news of a Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) painting going on sale is a major event.  Leonardo was in a class by himself.  He was the consummate polymath - artist, inventor, engineer, scientist, writer, musician and more.  Although known primarily as a painter, fewer than twenty extant paintings have been in part or entirely attributed to him. Only one can be seen in the United States: his portrait of Ginevra de' Benci in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.   

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519 ), Ginevra de' Benci, c. 1474/1478, 

oil on panel, original panel only:  15 x 14 9/16 in. (38.1 x 37 cm),  

with addition at bottom edge:  16 13/16 x 14 9/16 in. (42.7 x 37 cm)

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Photograph:  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Web site

Another painting is going on public view from November 4 through 15 at Christie's New York.  The work is the artist's Salvator Mundi. It will be auctioned on November 15, 2017 at Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale. 

Far less well known than his Mona Lisa and Last Supper, the two most famous and reproduced paintings in the history of art, the work for sale depicts Christ as "Savior of the World" described in I. John 4:14: "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world."  "Salvator Mundi" is Latin for "Savior of the World."   Christ is represented rigid and frontal.  The pose is archaic dating back to sixth-century Byzantine representation of Christ as Pantocrator, "Ruler of All."  The same image was frequently depicted in the apse behind the altar in Romanesque churches throughout Europe.  

Leonardo's Christ holds a rock crystal orb in his left hand and raises his right hand in a gesture of blessing.  The orb has long been associated as symbolic of the world and kingship.  Rock crystal, during the Renaissance, was believed to have magical powers. The sphere associated with the divine.  

The composition shows the influence of the central panel of a polyptych by Giotto now in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina.  Giotto was an early Renaissance artist renowned for his increased naturalism in portrayals of the human figure as well as his realistic representations of nature.  Leonardo took from Giotto's Christ the gesture of crossed fingers on the blessing hand and the curve of the drapery across the figure's chest. The work also displays Leonardo's familiarity with images of Christ's face produced miraculously such as the one on Saint Veronica's veil, still in St. Peter's Basilica at this time. 

Giotto di Bondone (1276 - 1337) and assistants, Central Panel of the "Peruzzi Altarpiece", 

c. 1310 – 1315,  tempera and gold leaf on poplar panel, 

41 5/8 x 98 1/2 in. (105.7 x 250.2 cm)

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina

Photo:  Wikiart Web site

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi has long been known from a 1650 etching by the etcher, engraver and draughtsman Wenceslaus Hollar along with some twenty paintings that are copies and replicas by the master's students and followers.  

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607 -1667), Salvator Mundi after Leonardo, 

Inscription:  Leonardo da Vinci pinxit,  Wenceslaus Hollar fecit,  Aqua forti  Secundum Originale, A. 1650 (Leonardo da Vinci painting, Wenceslaus Holler did etching according to the original in 1650), 1650, etching, 10.24 x 7.09 in. (26 x 18 cm)

Photo:  Christie's Website

Image from University of Toronto Wenceslas Hollar Digital Collection 

Scholars conjecture that Salvator Mundi was commissioned by the French King Louis XII and his wife Anne of Brittany when the Duchy of Milan fell to the French in 1499.  They posit the work remained in the French royal collection until princess Henrietta Maria took it to England when she married King Charles I in 1625.  It was recorded in a 1651 inventory of Charles I's collection and documented in a 1666 list of paintings belonging to his son, King Charles II. Most likely it remained with James II, who ascended the throne in 1685 after the death of his brother, Charles II.  It is thought the painting passed to James' mistress and her descendants.  

In the eighteenth century, the work's whereabouts were lost with one exception.  There was a reference to it in a 1783 sale of artworks arranged by the illegitimate son of the Duke of Buckingham after the sale of Buckingham Palace to the king.  

The work resurfaced in 1900 when it was acquired by Sir Francis Cook, a successful linen and textile merchant.  Cook purchased it as a work by a Leonardo follower.  It was purchased for Cook by his art advisor. Where his advisor obtained it is not known.  By this time, flaws in the painting's supporting wood necessitated extensive overpainting.  The work was in bad shape. 

The painting disappeared again for over fifty years until 1958 when it was sold as a copy by one of Leonardo's pupils at a Sotheby's auction for £45, the equivalent of about $2,350 today.  The location of the painting was again lost for about fifty years when in 2005, still assigned as a copy by one of Leonardo's pupils, it was purchased by a group of art dealers from an American estate at a small regional auction house in New Orleans for approximately $10,000.   The dealers proceeded to have the painting restored and to prove Leonardo's authorship.  

In 2007 Dianne Dwyer Modestini, a world famous conservator, undertook the cleaning, restoration and conservation of Salvator Mundi.  Dr. Modestini completed her work in 2010 providing a detailed analysis of the painting's condition, materials and technique. Further inspection by leading Leonardo experts concluded in 2011 that the painting was the original Leonardo Salvator Mundi.  

The restored and authenticated Salvator Mundi was presented to the public in 2011 at London's National Gallery of Art in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci:  Painter at the Court of Milan.  Two years later it was once again sold through a private sale arranged by Sotheby's to an art dealer for somewhere between $75 million and $80 million.  The dealer subsequently sold the work to a Russian oligarch for $127.5 million.  It is now estimated to fetch approximately $100 million at the Christie's sale. 

Dr. Modestini's restoration was a major undertaking.  The background, for example, had almost entirely been scraped down to the wood panel. The choice of the now ivory black color - a rich black with a bit of warm brown undertone - for the background was the restorer's. Overpainting affected large areas and even included a mustache on the Christ figure which may have appeared too feminine for some.  Even so, enough of the original remained to discern Leonardo's workmanship.  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Detail of Salvator Mundi, c. 1500, 

oil on walnut panel, 

 25 7/8 x 18 in. (66.7 x 45.7 cm) 

Private Collection

Photograph:  Courtesy of Christie's

The rendering of the figure's hands, hair and parts of the forehead, relatively well-preserved, made the Leonardo attribution compelling. Comprehensive examination revealed that the painting technique - thin layering of the oils - and the pentimenti, indications of Leonardo changing his mind, were typical of the artist.  A case in point is the thumb on Christ's blessing hand.  It was initially drawn in a more upright position then altered as Leonardo worked out his composition. The palm of Christ's left hand was also revised in a manner consistent with Leonardo's working methods.  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Detail of Salvator Mundi, c. 1500, 

oil on walnut panel, 

 25 7/8 x 18 in. (66.7 x 45.7 cm) 

Private Collection

Photograph:  Courtesy of Christie's

Also characteristic of Leonardo are the marks made by the heel of  his hand above Christ's left eye.  The palm's pressure visibly softened the paint's appearance, making the depicted flesh seem more true to life.  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Detail of Salvator Mundi, c. 1500, 

oil on walnut panel, 

 25 7/8 x 18 in. (66.7 x 45.7 cm) 

Private Collection

Photograph:  Courtesy of Christie's

Two Leonardo red chalk drapery studies for Salvator Mundi in the English Royal Collection further strengthened the attribution of the panel as the Leonardo autograph primary version.  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Drapery Study for the  Salvator Mundi, c. 1500, 

red chalk and traces of pen and ink heightened with white chalk

 on pale red-ochre prepared paper, 

 8.67 x 5.47 in. (22 x 13.9 cm) 

Royal Collection, United Kingdom

(RCIN 912524)

Photograph:  Royal Collection Trust Web site

Christie's is showing the Salvator Mundi without glass.  To view a work directly, absent of reflections produced by protective glaze, is a treat. Go see for yourself.

Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi

Post-War & Contemporary Art 

Evening Sale

November 15, 2017 at 7:00 pm

Admission to this sale is by ticket only.

Christie's

20 Rockefeller Plaza, Manhattan

Public Viewing:  

November 4, 2017 - November 15, 2017

Monday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm

Sundays 1 pm - 5 pm

November 15, 2017 10 am - 12 noon

Addendum:  Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold for $450,312,500 at Christie's Post War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on November 15, 2017.  The price included Christie's Buyer's Premium - the additional amount a buyer pays to the auction house. The Leonardo netted Christie's over $50,000,000.  The sale was the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction.  The bidding lasted a bit less that 20 minutes.  The  purchaser, Saudi prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud, made the final offer via phone to Christie's co-chair Alex Rotter who relayed the winning bid to the auctioneer.  Prince Bader is said to be acting for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  Prince Bader is a distant relative and friend of Prince Mohammed.  12/8/17

A Duchamp Disclosed: Maybe Yes, Maybe No

Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968) Étant donnés *(1946 - 1966) exhibition view, 

August 15, 2009 - November 29, 2009,

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelpia, Pennsylvania,

assemblage, manuscripts, mixed media, ready-mades
Photographer:  Jason Wierzbicki

Photograph:  Artstor Website

If the question is posed "Which artist has had the most influence on twentieth and twenty-first century art?" the answer would very likely be Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968).  This French-American was not only a sculptor, painter, theorist, and art dealer/collector but also a writer and chess player.  His work led to and/or influenced conceptualism, installation, performance, appropriation and kinetic art.  His innovative readymades and gender identity/fluidity, language and text art resonates in today's art world.  

Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968) Étant donnés *(1946 - 1966) exhibition view, 

August 15, 2009 - November 29, 2009,

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelpia, Pennsylvania,

assemblage, manuscripts, mixed media, ready-mades
Photographer:  Jason Wierzbicki

Photograph:  Artstor Website

By the early 1920s, Duchamp appeared to have given up being an active artist.  He seemingly devoted himself entirely to chess.  Secretly, however, he was working on his magnum opus, Étant donnés, an approximately 8 feet long complex diorama viewed through two hardly perceptible peepholes cut into a barn door. The construction would occupy him for over twenty years.  It was his last artwork.  At his death Duchamp left a detailed manual plotting the work's dismantling and reassembling.  In 1969 it was installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art where it remains on permanent exhibition.  

Étant donnés provides viewers with an extremely strange and compelling vision.  A supine nude, legs splayed, lies on a ground of twigs in a rural landscape that includes a waterfall.  She holds up a lit gas lamp although the scene takes place in bright light, on a sunny day. The view through two holes enhances the eyes' normal stereoscopic vision and makes the tableau uncannily three-dimensional.  Its meaning has been the subject of much discourse.  No definitive interpretation has yet to be established.   Now Serkan Özkaya, a Turkish artist living and working in New York, has come up with an answer.

Illustration of Étant donnés as comera obscure by Lai Bahcecioglu and Sandra Chollet.  

Photograph:  Courtesy of  Serkan Özkaya and Postmasters Gallery

Özkaya postulates that Duchamp's work conceals the artist's self-portrait which is seen when the construction is transformed into a camera obscura. Duchamp then appears as his feminine alter ego, Rrose Sélavy.  The name was a pun.  When pronounced in french, Rrose Sélavy sounds like the saying "Eros, c’est la vie" that is to say in English "Eros, that's life."

Man Ray (1890 - 1976), Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy, 1920 - 1921, 

gelatin silver print, retouched, 8 1/2 x 6 13/16 inches (21.6 x 17.3 cm) 

© Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelpia, Pennsylvania

Photograph:  Artstor Website

Özkaya built a full-scale model of État donnés to illustrate his theory. He first set it up in Duchamp's old studio at 80 East 11th Street, room 403, New York City.  Özkaya worked three years on the project. He enlarged the size of the peepholes to create a bigger projected image.  

Work-in-progress at 80 East 11th Street #403.

Photograph: Deniz Tortum, 2017

Photograph:  Courtesy of Serkan Özkaya and Postmasters Gallery

The camera obscura was the darkened studio room.  Light from the installation passed through the two apertures projecting on the opposite wall an upside-down and reversed image of the interior tableau.  For two weeks in October 2017, the work could be seen at the old studio room only by appointment. 

Work-in-progress at 80 East 11th Street #403.

Photograph: Deniz Tortum, 2017

Photograph:  Courtesy of Serkan Özkaya and Postmasters Gallery

On October 21 the  reconstruction went on public view at the Postmasters Gallery where it was supplemented by additional pieces related to Özkaya's theory on Duchamp.  The exhibit is entitled We Will Wait which may be a word play on the pronunciation of  Étant donnés.  "Waiting" in french is "En attendant." 

We Will Wait. Photo illustration by Brett Beyer and Lal Bahcecioglu. 2017.

Photograph:  Courtesy of Serkan Özkaya and Postmasters Gallery

Özkaya is an artist concerned with issues of appropriation, calling attention to the meaning of originals and copies.  Other works in the show illustrate these questions and leave viewers much to ponder.  His replications of the photographer Denise Browne Hare's two prints of the Duchamp's closed and open studio door, #403 (exterior) and #403 (interior) are a case in point.  The photos of Hare and Özkaya are framed side by side.  Hare's door, photographed at more innocent times, lacks the extra security lock above the entry doorknob and the viewer peephole that are captured in Özkaya's shots.  

This viewer saw the room-size installation at both the Duchamp studio and gallery venues.  I could not make out Duchamp's portrait but picked out what appeared to be eyes.  Whether this vision was deliberate or by chance I don't know.  No matter, portrait or no portrait, the exhibition and premise is intriguing.  The show merits attention.  What you see is up to you.  C'est la vie.  

*The full title of Duchamp's work is Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gas d'éclairage (translated as Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas).  The complete medium description is mixed media assemblage: (exterior) wooden door, iron nails, bricks, and stucco; (interior) bricks, velvet, wood, parchment over an armature of lead, steel, brass, synthetic putties and adhesives, aluminum sheet, welded steel-wire screen, and wood; peg-board, hair, oil paint, plastic, steel binder clips, plastic clothespins, twigs, leaves, glass, plywood, brass piano hinge, nails, screws, cotton, collotype prints, acrylic varnish, chalk, graphite, paper, cardboard, tape, pen ink, electric light fixtures, gas lamp (Bec Auer type), foam rubber, cork, electric motor, cookie tin, and linoleum.  The dimensions are  95 1/2 × 70 × 49 in. (242.6 × 177.8 × 124.5 cm).  

Serkan Õzkaya

We Will Wait

October 21, 2017 - November 25, 2017

Postmasters Gallery

54 Franklin Street, Manhattan

Hours:

Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Thursdays hours extended 11:00 am - 8:00 pm