"Submission" Jimmy DeSana

    "Submission" at the Brooklyn Museum invites viewers to engage in a thoughtful exploration of sexuality, power dynamics, and the nuances of human desire. DeSana's unapologetic, visually jarring, yet stunning photographs challenge societal norms, sparking important conversations about personal agency, identity, and the boundaries of artistic expression. His distinctive visual style and boundary-pushing aesthetics have often been associated with the art and music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period during which Talking Heads emerged as a prominent and influential band of which he collaborated with on a frequent basis for a time. The treatment of the exhibit itself was committed to not only showing photographs but his contributions to zines, performance art, and collectives he’s involved in. DeSana's photos documenting club culture not only showcase the hedonistic aspects of the scene but also challenge traditional notions of beauty and identity. His images go beyond surface-level aesthetics, offering a nuanced exploration of the human experience within these underground spaces; some photos have a certain eligibility, more or less capturing the identity of the place rather than what's happening, contributing to the ongoing dialogue surrounding identity, self-expression at the time. The artist continued to resist commercialized narratives, using more abstract and unconventional ways to photograph even after contracting AIDS early in his life.

    It’s hard to say it was all seamless though. At times the show felt a little crowded for its own good, having such a vast variety of stylistic choices, some groups of photos didn’t necessarily have a sense of cohesion with the ones next to them. The exhibit was just perhaps too big. There was a large room separated from the rest of the show by a hallway that almost read as a different show entirely at first glance. 

- Matt V.

Gego: Measuring Infinity

    The Guggenheim’s Gego: Measuring Infinity exhibition is a display of works done by Gertrude Goldschidt (aka Gego) as the first major retrospective in the United States on her since 2005, after her passing in 1994. The museum displayed around 200 pieces of hers on the rotunda, going almost to the top of the ramps. They organized it chronologically, which is able to show us how her work progressed as she continued her practice throughout her life. You can see how she experimented with material and form, and how each piece influenced another. 

    Gego’s 3-dimensional forms are playful but show a skilled knowledge of 3D design and proportions. Every piece has a lot of personality. The constant stream of wire forms almost started to get repetitive, but as you keep going, and as you work your way through, you start to also see how she explored with mediums, and started working with printmaking. This was a really interesting divergence from her work, because you could see how she was using 2-dimensional elements in her work in multiple ways. For one, she used only (or majority) wire in her earlier works, which is a 2D material, to make 3D sculptures. Moving to her prints, she was able to translate her 3D work, and those same design elements into 2D pieces, while still maintaining the same personality. 

    The addition of her logo and branding exploration was a nice break in the exhibition, displaying work that was not necessarily her own, but showing how she started branding herself. This was also exciting to see as a way of showing how her work reflected her own personality. 

- Stella

Georgia O'Keeffe "To See Takes Time" at the MOMA

 The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibit “To See Takes Time”  explores all of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. Not just the oil paintings of the flowers that she is famous for, it showcases everything else in her career. This is why it took me a minute to connect the dots between O’Keeffe being the famous artist that made the abstract oil paintings of flowers and the show because I have never seen any of her other work in my life. The exhibit explains how she worked up to painting the flowers she is known for while also showcasing work most people have never seen to show her technique and growth as an artist. The exhibition features a lot of non-abstract pieces O'Keeffe made with pastels, graphite, and watercolor. It is almost uncanny to see the art she created that is not a flower. The portrait made with charcoal features is almost an anomaly compared to the rest of her work as even the figure paintings do not have faces. Which is why it stuck out compared to the rest of the pretty much abstract pieces, Throughout the whole exhibit you can see how her style progresses from going back and forth between less detailed colorful abstract watercolor paintings of sunsets to detailed graphite drawings of abstract compositions. The whole show puts together O’Keeffe’s work in a way that shows her exploration of art which got her to the point of creating her abstract paintings of flowers while only showing one of those paintings throughout the whole show.

-Vivian

Georgia O'Keeffe's "To See Takes Time" at the Museum of Modern Art

     Georgia O’Keeffe’s “To See Takes Time” at the Museum of Modern Art is a survey of one of the most famous woman artist’s drawings and watercolor paintings. O’Keeffe, who is widely known for her oil paintings, also has a vast collection of works on paper in the mediums of charcoal, pencil, watercolor and pastel. The years of 1915 to 1918 was a major period of exploration for the artist, and many of the works on show come from this time. Throughout the artist’s career, these pieces have been separated from each other and are now coming together under one show. By looking at these pieces, the viewer gets insights into the painter’s mind and method of working. Many pieces displayed look like preliminary sketches, but are so rich in information of O’Keeffe’s active decision making. A greater understanding of the artist’s color choices are displayed in her simple watercolors of the sunset or her master composition decisions in her abstracted charcoal drawings.  
In the show, the pieces are roughly displayed by category, a series of watercolor figures are shown together and then representational charcoal drawings of flowers are shown opposite. To see these works in conjunction with the title “To See Takes Time” the viewer is invited to be leisurely with the work. The title is almost an affirmation telling the viewer that it is okay, and encouraged, to look at the work slowly– to truly take it in. Tt can also be seen as O’Keeffe explaining the work, justifying the large amounts of studies and preliminary drawings. She is saying “This is what needs to be done in order to get to the end result. It takes time”.

Gego: Measuring Infinity at the Guggenheim

Upon entering the Guggenheim, visitors enter at the bottom of the spiral gallery space that displays an installation of abstract work by former architect and engineer Gego, or Gertrud Goldschmidt. This exhibition is a retrospective of Gego’s work from the 1950s to the 1990s exploring line, space, and its relationship to architecture. As guests walk up through the ramps of the museum they are first greeted with delicate, almost hair thin, silver wire sculptures hanging from the ceiling and freestanding on their own. Accompanying these sculptures are drawings, prints, textile works, artist’s books, and photographs of previous art installations and architectural projects. Her engineering background also allowed for optical effects to occur as a part of the experience of viewing her work. All of her works have a sense of line and space and you can see the progression of these explorations as you move up through the museum. As her art career progressed her work started as substantial and solid architectural sculptures and moved into intricate sculptures, all maintaining a relationship with line and space. You can see her architectural and engineering background come through more in her earlier works but as she developed her artistic process her work would begin to move further into the realm of fine art.

As a German-Venezuelan artist, Gego’s work is an important contribution to Latin American art influencing several art movements in Caracas, Venezuela, including geometric abstraction and kinetic art. Her work was vital in the development of Latin American modern and contemporary art. Although her work is lesser known within the United States, this exhibition will expand her artistic reach to a whole new audience to educate about contemporary Latin American art and architecture.

-Ella Mackinson

Gego: Measuring Infinity - Guggenheim (275)

The exhibition Gego: Measuring Infinity is a collection of around 200 two and three-dimensional form-focused works made by German-Venezuelan artist Gertrud Goldschmidt displayed at the Guggenheim. The show consists of five wrapping rotunda floors with pieces arranged uniformly and chronologically. The work utilizes a variety of mediums including sculptures, drawings, prints, and textiles, but most notable are the sculptures and their use of wire to create both geometric and organic shapes and patterns.

The wire sculptures feel both structured and delicate with designs ranging from simple to more complex forms, but all are quite minimal and clean. Most of the sculptures are neutral in color, and many of them seem to be precariously balanced and almost defy gravity with nothing but what appears to be clear fishing line holding them in place. Gego’s focus on form uses structure through lines and shapes to create and explore spatial relationships and movement. There is an element of illusion to the pieces with lines intersecting and overlapping, so as one moves through the space these same lines shift to create another perspective of the piece. 

In addition to the sculptures, other mediums like drawing and textiles cement Gego’s interest in geometric abstraction. Similar to the sculptures, these drawings use convergence of lines and shapes to create intriguing and eye-catching patterns and compositions. Unlike the sculptures, the drawings feel less minimal, utilizing more color and less negative space, which gave more context to Gego as an artist. 

Because the show chronologically displayed around 40 years of art, walking through the floors really felt like a look into the history of Gego’s work as well as progression of her ideas. 

-Gabrielle

Tom of Finland - David Kordansky - edit (225)

Tom of Finland’s exhibition Highway Patrol, Greasy Rider, and Other Selected Works at David Kordansky Gallery in Chelsea presents several different collections of graphite and ink drawings, as well as collages that explore masculinity, sexuality, and freedom by way of idealist and euphoric pornographic imagery. Finland used stereotypically masculine figures like police officers, cowboys, sailors, and bikers engaged in a variety of explicit homoerotic acts to subvert traditional ideas of masculinity and heteronormativity. He seems to both romanticize and simplify his characters by emphasizing and exaggerating the male figure, more specifically their muscles and genitalia, to the verge of being unrealistic. The repetition of these figures was used to create visual narratives, and highlighted Finland’s focus on anatomy and pose, which can also be seen in the collage studies of beautiful muscly men.

The scale of the pieces and similar sizing, stay close to letter sized with slight variations, which allows the work to remain intimate. The inarguably explicit drawings displayed traditionally, in standard gallery style within the large space, use thin frames and larger borders between the frame and art that makes the work more approachable. The provocative work feels tender when one is able to see the edge of the paper within the frames. There is a boyish charm where the work does not feel vulgar or offensive but rather unabashed and cheeky.

-Gabrielle