Phillips Collection

The new exhibit at the Phillips, “Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens” opened Saturday and I had a chance to stop by.  (I recommend joining for this reason– if you’re in the area and have 30 minutes to spare you can just swing through.)  My hopes were not especially high for the exhibit since I don’t know much about photography.  Knowing a lot about photography isn’t a prerequisite to enjoying most photographs, since they usually feature people or scenes that cause some sort of emotional reaction apart from the technical aspects of the shot (or it’s all intertwined to have an impact).  But most of the photographs in the exhibit are of staged objects, which I somehow thought would require an appreciation of lighting, focus, etc. etc.

The great thing about the exhibit, though, was that the Phillips actually had a lot of the objects on display next to the photographs, so it was very clear the effect Man Ray (and the other modernist photographers) wanted the object to have on the viewer.  Also, the Phillips displayed other images, like book covers and fashion magazines, that showed the effect the photographs had on pop culture in the 1920’s and 30’s.  Ray’s pictures were some of the first (Western) portrayals of African objects as art rather than anthropological artifacts.   

This untitled photograph features a statute of a queen from Cameroon:

Predictably, though, my favorites featured people along with objects.  This may be one of Ray’s most famous photos, “Noire et blanche.”  Interesting contrast between black and white, hard and soft, male and female: 

This one is “Mode au Congo (Adrienne Fidelin),” featuring Man Ray’s lover.  The checkerboard seems heavy-handed but it does add a nice effect:

I snuck in under the wire and went to see the Paint Made Flesh exhibit at the Phillips Collection yesterday.  Today is the last day, and I’ve been meaning to go, well, since it opened.  I decided to join the museum, since a basic membership is only $60 and grants free access to all the exhibits throughout the year, along with other benefits.  Paint Made Flesh was $12 anyway, so it seemed to make sense.  Also I work nearby and have ambitious plans to occasionally drop by the museum during lunch.  

The exhibit was great, and much more expansive than other exhibits I’ve seen at the Phillips– it takes up the whole third floor of the new building.  It also seemed to feature a lot more high-impact works by prominent artists than other exhibits the Collection has offered.  I especially liked the two on display from John Currin, Lucean Freud’s  ”Naked Man, Back View,” and “Woman” by de Kooning.      

Here is one by Currin, “Hobo,” modeled on his wife:

Here is the painting by Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud, called “Naked Man, Back View.”  The subject is a popular London drag queen and performance artist, but here he is striped down and looks vulnerable:

Here is “Woman,” by de Kooning.  I’m ambivalent about it because it is a vicious portrayal of a woman (the colors and brush strokes are violent and she is practically bearing her teeth), but de Kooning’s emotion really comes through.  The placard next to the painting said it was evidence of de Kooning’s “conflicted” feelings about women because the subject is portrayed as aggressive and appalling but soft and seductive at the same time.  The latter description didn’t come through for me, but I was still drawn to the piece:    

If you have time to make it to the exhibit today before it closes, you should.  If not, you can see a video tour of the exhibit here.