Textile Museum Visit

I took the leap. I went somewhere that wasn't my own house or wasn't my friend's garden! 

An artist friend, Ginette Legaré and I went to a museum. OMG. The Textile Museum of Canada.

It's a small museum. It was perfect. I wore a mask. There was 2 other people in the entire museum because of their preordered tickets and timed entry. We saw them once but technically we didn't pass them as they were sitting down in one of the rooms. I walked to the museum and back. Good exercise!

We went to see Anna Torma's, Permanent Danger. Thirteen large-scale works. 

The gallery blurb says works from 2011...But exhibited was Party with Dionysos which was started in 2008 and finished in 2015. 

It's difficult to say when you start piece, there is much thinking and planning before you actually start and then sometimes the piece gets pushed aside for even a few years before you take it out again to finish it.  

The artist is from Hungary but immigrated to Canada in 1988. She lives in New Brunswick. I have been following her work for more than 15 years now.

My friend said when she and her sister go to see an art exhibit, they select one work they'd like to own. Mine was this one below.

Permanent Danger, 2017
Hand embroidery, reverse appliqué on three layers of linen fabric,
silk thread.

reverse side of Permanent Danger

I love all the embroidery on this piece. I love the back...maybe even more then the front. I'd hang it so you could see both sides. 

Artist Judith Martin often has the backs of her works hung so they are visible and are part of the message. 

BIG

I have always wanted to be in a giant room with a giant painting.... ALONE. And it happened at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Orleans, France, this summer.

I mean, when do you go to a museum and NO ONE is in a room?

A rare occurrence.

I was so happy. I was there for half an hour - alone- enjoying this giant art piece, getting lost in it.  It was so big. No one talked. No one walked in front of me. Bellissimo!!

Heaven.

Art work by Simon Hantai, born in Hungary in 1922. Died in Paris in 2008.
Etude, 1969
oil on canvas

Padova for the Day

A few weeks ago I spent the day in Padova with a friend.

The Venetian symbol seen in many places in Padova

We had a day of ART and inspiration.

Book stores, AltreVoci

The smell of fresh lilacs greeting you was fabulous! It is a wonderful shop.

Art galleries,

Mandala...incompiuto
by Maria Rosa Migliorini
46 pieces of ceramic
85 cm in diametre

a ceramic patchwork

live music in the piazza,

Cant find his name!
He is the famous pianist
that plays in odd places in the world,
like on a gondola in Venice
or the top of a mountain.

architecture,

the back of the Duomo

frescos.

ceiling in the Battistero del Duomo
photo taken from a postcard
as there are no photographs allowed inside. 

We stopped in to admire the work of artist, Gesine Arps.

Le api e i santi dicono la stessa cosa
100 cm x 100 cm

Pittrice
120cm x 120cm

There is something about her paintings that reminded me of the work of Hundertwasser.

She had a very interesting sculpture in the midst of her paintings- all about love and peace.

The sculpture was sewn together.

There were several openings in the body of the bird. One of the openings was filled with special thoughts and wishes. I picked the following.

Un tempo è andato, l'altro non è ancora iniziato, 

ciò che conta è il presente. 

Concentrati e vivilo pienamente.

It means: A time has passed, another has not started yet. The thing that counts is the present. Concentrate on that and live it fully.

It is so fun taking a one-hour train ride and being in a new, wonderful place with a friend.

Quilts at the MOMA

American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) worked in COMBINES- works in which he affixed cast-off items to a traditional support.

Bed (1955)
by Robert Rauschenberg
oil and pencil on pillow, quilt and sheet on wood supports
(photo courtesy of Sophia Reford)

They say that the bedding used in Bed was actually his own, making this a very intimate piece, almost as intimate as a self-portrait. 

Using cast-off items is very much in my vein of thinking.

I have used discarded items before, even an antique quilt which was badly damaged when I got it.

The previous owner had cut out a few blocks that were probably in better condition and my guess is  a pillow was made with them.

I used the damaged quilt as a starting point for "Pages of My Life" (2011).

It is an homage to my grandmother. 

"Pages of My Life" was exhibited in Toronto and in Italy
and was shown on OMNI newscast.

She came to America and started working in a clothing factory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 

Her job was to embellish "mistakes" in clothing therefore using her creativity to hide the mistake. The one-of-a-kind garment was often sold for more money.

I repaired the quilt and in doing so told some of the story of her life.

Subway Art

A patchwork of stone.

A detail of a mosaic in the Spadina subway station in the city of Toronto, Canada.

Click here for more on art and architecture at the Spadina station.

Hundertwasser's Eastern Influence

The Orangerie at the Belvedere Palace has an exhibit on right now showing many of Hundertwasser's work.

The Big Way, 1955, was used as the advertisement
for the exhibit.

The Belvedere in Vienna.

I spent 3 hours in a small room looking at his work and reading and seeing other artists' work inspired by the writings of Zen Buddhism.

I love his art and his philosophy about creativity and life.

The curator chose some of his photographs for the exhibit. He had an image of a sewer grate covered in garbage.

Hundertwasser explained his photographs.
He said something like-
It looks like a simple sewer grate but it resembles a
prison window of our civilization. Only the filth lying
over it seems like something liberating.
It frees us from spiritual poverty and
the rectilinear structures of our modern era.

 I  was living in Vienna while he was still living there! He created a stamp for the United Nations in the 80's while my dad was working there. I have that stamp somewhere!! (when I get back to Toronto one of my first big jobs is to clean out the basement boxes!! I am sure it is in one of those.)

The Lower Belvedere where I had lunch

In 1983, while I lived inVienna, the construction of the Hundertwasser House as a public project was undergo.

He died in 2000 on the Queen Elizabeth 2 returning from New Zealand.

Art in Vienna

After a melange at my favorite place, Café Bräunerhof, I spent the morning at the Albertina.

The vertical part of the steps leading
to the main entrance of the Albertina
are painted advertising their latest exhibit, Monet bis Picasso.

I had been there since they renovated the space.

The Albertina seen from the side of the painted steps

The main walkway leading to the exhibits.

I went to see 180 works by Max Ernst.

He and some art colleagues founded the Dada group and he was a pioneer of surrealism. I particularly liked his collage work. I made a few sketches in my journal. Not being allowed to take photographs of the exhibit made me look at the work more closely.

I went to get my hair done before my ballet friends and I got together.

The hair salon, Thoma & Bari,
 is on the third floor in this building.

It was great catching up with my dance friends.

Degas' Two Dancers, c. 1905

Some I hadn't seen in 29 years!

Art Everywhere

Imagine hundreds of art galleries in one spot.

Inside Grand Palais for the Art Paris Art Fair

 Imagine me walking around with my mouth open soaking in everything! 

I was at the Art Paris Art Fair for 4 hours yesterday and didn't even get to see everything! (I had to leave because the bakeries were closing and I needed a baguette for dinner!)

I stopped to talk to many art dealers that were exhibiting textile work. What insightful conversations! 

work by Elise Morin in the entrance of the Grand Palais

I learned so much about specific international textile artists and about consumer behaviour towards textile medium.

Morin's work made using wooden embroidery hoops,
plastic bags, plastic ties.

I got a chance to promote some of the Canadian textile artists who in my opinion do spectacular work.

Fossile 1990
4m x 8m

There are some that say it is better to be in your own corner to be able to design/ create how you want  and not be influenced by the same things that are influencing others in your field (article from B of F) and I agree but right now I am finding it exhilarating to be surrounded by art of all mediums in the great City of Light.

I will be posting more about textile artists I discovered at this event.

Dali Exhibit

We tried to see the Dali exhibit on Saturday...

paper collage/sketch of Dali stuck to a pillar
outside the museum...artist??

but the line up to get in was 1.5 hours...

line up at the Centre Pompidou in Paris

plus the security guard told us there was another line inside to buy the tickets and still another one to get to the exhibit so we went back on Sunday morning at 9am.

The exhibit is closing this weekend
It is open for 24 hours on March 22, 23,24
and till midnight on March 25! That's Paris!

We waited for 45 minutes in the freezing cold and the line didn't even move. So with frozen toes and sore throats we went to have coffee and croissants instead!

It is on tomorrow until midnight...very tempting. They say it is really well done.

If you want to see other things that I have seen at the Centre Pompidou click here.

More Plastic Bags

You may remember my post from Rome about an art piece that used plastic bags as a medium. The bags looked like NEW plastic bags, which to me defeated the purpose of the artist's statement.

There was a similar piece in Paris. The artist's name is nowhere to be found! The work can be seen at Gare St. Lazare.

top detail

This week while on break from my sketching class at the Toronto School of Art, I saw a wonderful exhibit of work made by students of the Media Exploration Class using plastic bags-used ones!

Very creative stuff!