Daniel Salemi, Ikea vs. Beuer, 2009, c-print. Courtesy of Kris Graves Projects.

Not able to see Swoon’s Swimming Cities, or Bruce Nauman’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale in person this year? Well, you could opt to visit what is being touted as the Biennale’s “largest pavilion” here, or just take advantage of an abundance of homegrown activities this weekend and beyond:

TONIGHT: Honey Space hosts a benefit and celebration for Swoon’s Swimming Cities of Serenissima, with a silent auction that includes works by many of the artists on the boats’ crew, and a raffle for original artwork by Swoon and Thomas Beale. 7-9pm, $10 admission.

Artists Daniel Salemi and Austin Thomas have concurrent openings of their work tonight in the main and project spaces of Kris Graves Projects. Salemi’s photographs and Thomas’ drawings and collages share an affinity for architectural forms. 6-9pm

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF presents Big Idea Night, featuring the delicious stylings of Mission Street Food. 9pm-3am. FREE, RSVP recommended.

Friday June 5th: Varnish Gallery hosts a party to raise awareness about eminent domain issues with guests Jello Biafra, Matt Gonzalez, etc. The gallery is one of over 30 local businesses and residences being evicted by a San Francisco city agency under the property law. 7-Midnight, 21+. Free.

Saturday June 6th: As part of Michael Cataldi and Nils Norman’s The University of Trash at Sculpture Center in Long Island City, guest artists McKendree Key and the neuroTransmitter collective have been invited to give public courses at the museum. Key will teach a family workshop on making recycled paper and paper-pulp sculptures, and neuroTransmitter will lead a radio transmitter building workshop. 1pm. Courses available with $5 admission to museum. ($25 materials fee and a reservation for the transmitter class is recommended.)

Your last chance to see Sophie Calle (and 107 other women)’s collaborative breakdown of a breakup, Take Care of Yourself at Paula Cooper Gallery.

Saturday & Sunday, June 6th & 7th: Oakland’s Pro Arts Gallery presents the 2009 East Bay Open Studios. Over 400 artists exhibit their work this weekend and the weekend of June 14th-15th. Visit site for more info.

Sunday June 7: The Exploratorium hosts a talk, reception and book signing by scholar Edward Shanken, author of the new book Art and Electronic Media, interviewed by arts commentator Dorka Keehn. Innovative Bay Area electronics artists Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul DeMarinis, Ken Goldberg, Jim Campbell, Survival Research Labs, and Alan Rath are among the over 200 artists featured in Shanken’s book. 3pm. Free with Exploratorium admission.

Monday June 8th: David Byrne will perform a selection of music created with Brian Eno at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of BRIC Art’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. Other performers this summer include Femi Kuti, Blonde Redhead, Big Daddy Kane and They Might Be Giants. 8pm, gates open at 6:30pm. FREE, first come first served.

Tags: Alan Rath, artists, auction, Austin Thomas, benefit, Big Idea Night, Brian Eno, BRIC Arts, Bruce Nauman, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Daniel Salemi, David Byrne, Dorka Keehn, East Bay Open Studios, Edward Shanken, eminent domain, Exploratorium, festival, Honey Space, Internet Pavilion, Jello Biafra, Jim Campbell, Ken Goldberg, Kris Graves Projects, Matt Gonzalez, McKendree Key, Michael Cataldi, Miltos Manetas, Mission Street Food, Nils Norman, Oakland, paper, Paul DeMarinis, Paula Cooper Gallery, Prospect Park Bandshell, radio transmitter, Rafael Rozendaal, recycled, Sculpture Center, Sophie Calle, Survival Research Labs, Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon, Take Care of Yourself, University of Trash, Varnish Gallery, Venice Biennale, workshop, Yerba Buena Center,  Art and Electronic Media,  Lynn Hershman Leeson,  neuroTransmitter.

In celebration of the extraordinary range of artistic expression in the Muslim world, Asia Society, BAM, and New York University Center for Dialogues proudly present Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas. Muslim artists and speakers from as far away as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and as near as Brooklyn will gather for an unprecedented ten-day festival and conference, offering New York audiences the opportunity to experience the cultural diversity and multiple perspectives that represent the Muslim world.

Official festival events will take place at the Asia Society, BAM, and the American Museum of Natural History, with a 2-day, 150-vendor outdoor souk at BAM during the opening weekend. There will be related events and programming around the city and on public television at WNET Channel THIRTEEN, and in celebration, the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Borough Hall will be lit green from June 5—7.  

Our top picks include:

Thursday, May 21st (Festival Partner Event): The Seen and the Hidden: (Dis)covering the Veil- 14 contemporary artists from the Middle East, Europe, and New York, including celebrated graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi, present approaches to the ideas that surround both the literal and metaphorical meaning of the veil. Opening reception from 6-8pm at the Austrian Cultural Forum. Free, through August 29th.

Friday, June 5th: Opening reception for New York Masjid: The Mosques of New York City. Photographer Edward Grazda and CUNY Professor of Architecture Jerrilynn R. Dodds not only documented the mosques and analyzed their architectural forms, but conducted interviews with community members, revealing an alternative image of American Islam in the process. Natman Room at BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp Building, though June 28th.

Monday, June 8th: Shirin Neshat presents a rare screening of Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad’s landmark short film The House Is Black (1962), which has had a profound influence on the New Wave in Iranian cinema as well as Neshat’s work. Neshat will also screen excerpts of her own films. At BAMcafé. 7pm, $10 ($5 for members), reception follows. 

Friday, June 12th & Saturday, June 13th: BAMcafé Live presents contemporary Muslim musicians in concert- Brahim Fribgane and zerobridge perform on Friday night, and Saturday night features global hip-hop by Muslim-American artists such as Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Kenny Muhammad The Human Orchestra, and Nihan Devecioglu, selected by the fantastic beatboxer and composer Adam Matta. 9:30pm both nights, FREE.

Tags: Adam Matta, American Museum of Natural History, artists, Asia Society, Austrian Cultural Forum, BAM, BAMcafe, beatbox, Brahim Fribgane, Brooklyn, concert, Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Edward Grazda, Forough Farrokhzad, Iran, Islam, Kenny Muhammad The Human Orchestra, Marjane Satrapi, mosques, Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas, New York Masjid, Nihan Devecioglu, Shirin Neshat, souk, The House Is Black, The Seen and the Hidden: (Dis)covering the Veil, zerobridge.

DON’T MISS: Our City Dreams, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, April 9-12, 2009

(This review is from the New York theatrical premiere at the Film Forum, February 4-27:)

Chiara Clemente’s film opens with grainy, 16mm establishing shots of New York as we see it for the first time, driving into it with our chins tilted up to the sun, looking at the sky rush between the skeleton cables of the Brooklyn Bridge as we’re pumped along the vein, toward the corporeal city. The sun shimmers pink and red along the length of the bridge and the camera turns to the streets, tracking city buses, milling crowds, Columbus Circle, uniformed schoolchildren along the Museum Mile, and the evening lights on the water as night falls. These are the people and places of today’s Manhattan, but through Clemente’s lens, they could just as well have been filmed thirty or fifty years ago, previous generations performing seemingly eternal New York City rituals to the mournful woodwinds and piano of Thomas Lauderdale’s score.

It is in the context of the perpetual metropolis that the filmmaker introduces us to the subjects of her documentary Our City Dreams, a portrait of five iconic female artists representative of the five most recent generations of contemporary women artists, whose creative lives and aspirations have been nurtured and sometimes subsumed by the place they call home.

While following Nancy Spero, Marina Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer, and Swoon in New York and abroad, Clemente was fortunate enough to have made her documentary over a period of time (2005-07) that coincided with a number of important milestones in each woman’s career. During these two years, Swoon had her first solo exhibition, with works commissioned by MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum, and traveled along the Mississippi River with the Miss Rockaway Armada project. Amer began a new body of artwork in Egypt, in addition to becoming a Harlem homeowner for the first time. The Turin Winter Olympics commissioned an installation by Smith, as her retrospective traveled across the country. Abramovic reprised seven seminal performance pieces of the 1970s at the Guggenheim Museum and created a site-specific work during the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Eighty year-old Spero’s installation Kill Commies/Maypole is included in the Venice Biennale for the first time, and she returns to Paris after a thirty-year absence.

We often assume that younger people are more open-minded about the choices they make in life than their forebears, yet the most remarkable element of these artists’ stories as they unfolded was the increasing willingness of each successive, older generation to embrace disparate aspects of their personal and artistic lives. Our City Dreams begins by documenting the immediacy of Swoon’s nascent post-college years, told without much autobiographical background, and concludes with a segment on Spero that encompasses the whole of her family life, artistic background, and career.

The interviews are fluid, not confrontational or staged- it’s as if we are getting to see and hear the best parts of long, ongoing conversations between friends. Clemente seems to have chosen her subjects not only for what their works add to the historical evolution of contemporary or feminist art, but with the awareness that these women’s stories are simply compelling to watch. Her interviews are personal and lovingly conducted, not academic in tone, and she uses different, deliberate visual and musical cues when introducing each artist into the film. For example, at the start of Kiki Smith’s segment, the camera moves around slowly in an impressionistic, close-up study of the colors in Smith’s doorways, and returns to stills of the delicate and contemplative textures in her work throughout- wax casts, closeups of feathers, ‘Eve’ sculptures, crystal stars and delicate chalk drawings on black paper.

There is a satisfying joy in watching long, uninterrupted takes of each artist preparing for and making work in their homes and studios. The camera lingers just as much on the technical aspects of pieces being created as it does upon the presentation of completed works; the repositioning of a collaged mouth, a maquette for a carpet, bodies training in harsh weather, the repetition of a printmaking roller across linoleum or wood, and the carving and cutting of paper, clay and metal. The artists’ familiarity with Clemente, combined with the filmmaker’s intuitive understanding of the creative process, goes beyond what is normally seen in documentaries on artists, providing us with a heightened sense of communion with her subjects.

Smith speaks about not having the confidence to become an artist until after her father passes away, and the experience of casting her mother’s fingers at her funeral. Amer discusses her mother’s legacy of oppression, Abramovic belittles the physical weakness of the women students who had come to Thailand to participate in a performance, and Swoon freely admits that being represented by an art dealer has changed the course of her work “quite a bit”.

However, despite the frank nature of these conversations, the idea of companionship for the women Clemente follows is not directly addressed until she reaches Spero’s story. This choice may have been made in order to more clearly delineate their artistic achievements, but in constructing intimate portraits of their lives, leaving out their thoughts about finding or not finding meaningful partnerships is somewhat puzzling.

With the exception of Leon Golub’s major role in Spero’s life as fellow artist, activist, husband and father (and to a lesser extent, the inclusion of clips featuring the performer Ulay in Abramovic’s story,) none of the other women elaborate on the idea of companionship, instead choosing to make statements about the sacrifice of personal relationships that seem to promulgate the singularity of their vision:

“I need to be alone- I’m a strange person- I feel that a family becomes your life…. I’m too consumed, I’m too in love with making things.” - Swoon

“Then I realized that… art was my priority. And my mom was telling me, you’ll never get married! You are too involved in art.” - Ghada Amer

Perhaps by growing up the daughter of a successful male artist with access to the kind of support network that few women receive, and that many men take for granted, Chiara Clemente has been able to see alternatives to forfeiting companionship and family for one’s work. There is subtle, yet notable evidence of a wistfulness for a more comprehensive resolution to this dilemma when we see her camera pan over the images of happy neighborhood children featured in Swoon’s work, and follow a small child playing in the empty gallery at Amer’s show while the artists rebuff the notion of having families of their own in voiceover.

There are additional autobiographical details incorporated as we move from Amer’s to Smith’s to Abramovic’s segments; we hear Smith’s receptiveness to making changes in her life when she says, ”I’m much more comfortable with myself now, than I was when I was twenty-something…you don’t want to stay the same- you don’t want to be attached to your past in a way that you try to stay there…life is moving along and you’re kind of moving along with it.” But because Spero was the only artist to expound upon the realities of supporting a family, making work that was independent of her husband’s, and being a feminist activist against the war, each artist whose story led up to Spero’s seemed to lack a similar consummation of what it might mean to fully realize the possibility, as Spero has, of achieving a balance between art and life. In the narrative arc of Clemente’s gorgeous film, Nancy Spero’s story reads as an ideal resolution of the challenges and choices that younger generations of women continue to face while attempting to stay true to their creative vision.

Our City Dreams trailer and website

Tickets online or at Yerba Buena Center box office

Tags: April 2009, Chiara Clemente, documentary, female artists, Film Forum, generations, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Leon Golub, Marina Abramovic, Nancy Spero, Our City Dreams, Swoon, Yerba Buena Center.

Dam Stuhltrager Gallery, photo c. Stephen Kosloff, 2006

Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery is currently accepting submissions for:

“SUMMER SESSION 101″
Nurturing Emerging Artists in an Unsupportive Financial Time 
Curated by Leah Stuhltrager, Rebecca A. Layton & Paige King

“It is especially important at this moment to open dialogue that examines differences in funding pioneering art and artists, vs. sustaining, chasing or defining commercial interests.”

- Leah Stuhltrager 

In this moment, the art world (like the rest of the world) is prioritizing where and how funds are spent. From museums to galleries to artists, from organizations to publications, creative minds have had to recently reevaluate, refocus and reinvent their way of spending.

Instead of financing a summer of exhibiting produced artwork, Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery will be funneling their funds directly back into artists creating. “SUMMER SESSION 101″ explores what happens when a gallery directs funds away from presentation and into artists themselves.

In “SUMMER SESSION 101″, two artists selected from an open call will be given the Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery to use as studio space for two months. The artists’ progression towards a finished work will be the gallery exhibit. In addition to exposure to the general public and a reception during the gallery’s regular business hours, the artists will also have 5 different VIP guest “visits” from professionals who have achieved success and have insight into what no one ever learns in school.

CALENDAR:
Submission Deadline: May 1, 2009
Artist Notification: May 15, 2009
“SUMMER SESSION” install: July 7 - 10
“SUMMER SESSION COMMENCEMENT RECEPTION”: July 11, 2009
“SUMMER SESSION”: July 11 - Aug 30
“SUMMER SESSION” deinstall: Aug 31 - Sept 3

ENTRY FORM / CHECKLIST:
All genres and mediums are encouraged to apply.
We ask artists avoid extremely caustic materials that would permanently damage the gallery space.

For consideration, submit the following materials:
___ Entry Form/Checklist
___ 7-10 images of work created within the last 2 yrs on CD (300dpi JPEGs) or DVD (No more than 5 min.)
___ Printed CD/DVD Image List w/thumbnails
___ Artist Statement
___ $25.00 submission fee (Check or Money Order. Payable to: Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery)
Materials will not be returned. Notification will be made by email.

Mail to: “SUMMER SESSION”
Attn. Rebecca A. Layton & Paige King
(c/o Dam, Stuhltrager, 38 Marcy Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211)

ARTIST CONTACT INFORMATION:
Artist Name:
Address:
Phone:
Email Address:
Email:
Website:

Tags: call for submissions, Dam Stuhltrager, Summer Session 101.

image from the book, Vandal Squad, courtesy of powerHouse Books

In conjunction with powerHouse Books’ publication of Vandal Squad: Inside the New York City Transit Police Department, 1984-2004, the powerHouse Arena will host an open forum between former members of New York City’s infamous Vandal Squad and graffiti writers, with the intent of opening discourse on issues regarding the methods that the Squad employs and their impact on the lives of the writers themselves. Panelists include Vandal Squad author Joseph Rivera, former Commanding Officer Lieutenant Steven Mona, original Vandal Squad Lieutenant Ken Chiulli, graffiti legend COPE2, graffiti activist Ket, and street artist ELLIS G. The event will be moderated by Stern Rockwell.

Founded in 1980, the Vandal Squad’s mission was to protect the subway system from hardcore criminal acts of destruction. It was only with the Clean Car Program of 1984 that graffiti became the primary focus of this specialized unit. Using every means available, including the NYPD computer database, search warrants, subpoenas, and even vandals themselves, the Squad had to identify and locate graffiti writers who were often so transient they were referred as “ghosts”. These strategies, as well as concerns about the publication of the book, will be the focus of the conversation. 7-9pm, free. RSVP required.

Tags: arena, books, COPE2, ELLIS G., graffiti, Joseph Rivera, Ken Chiulli, Ket, NYPD, powerHouse, Stern Rockwell, Steven Mona, subway, transit police, vandal squad.

Trevor Paglen, Four Geostationary Satellites Above the Sierra Nevada, C-Print, 48 x 60 inches. Courtesy Bellwether.

Though the focus is on the art fairs this week, The Totam has still found plenty of concurrent happenings to provide balance to the collector frenzy that usually descends upon the west side of Manhattan:

TODAY, March 4th: The New Museum and Creative Time present It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, a new commission by British artist Jeremy Deller. A revolving cast of participants including veterans, journalists, scholars and Iraqi nationals have been invited to take up residence in the New Museum’s gallery space with the express purpose of encouraging discussion with visitors to the Museum. Through March 22nd.

Thursday, March 5th: Armory Arts Week opens to the public at Pier 94 in New York. In addition to special projects like Kenny Scharf’s customized, donut-delivering golf-cart being mounted onsite, sister fair VOLTA NY will present curated invitational projects and a launch event for Humble Arts Foundation’s Collector’s Guide to Emerging Art Photography. Public events include tours of arts districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Contemporary art fairs exhibiting during the same week include Pulse, SCOPE, Fountain, Bridge, and PooL. Through March 8th.

The discards of industry and technology found in Sergio A. Fernandez‘ photos form a unique counterpoint to Dana Gentile’s collages, which focus on modern agriculture. Opening at Kris Graves Projects, 6-9pm.

Friday, March 6th: Bay Area artist Trevor Paglen’s spacescapes and other astronomy-themed works open in New York at Bellwether Gallery, in conjunction with his SECA Award exhibit at the SF MoMA.

Saturday, March 7th: Past, Present, Future of Food at the Bushwick Library. As part of the Arts in Bushwick Festival, librarian Nate Hill and cook Gabe McMackin will engage in an open public discussion exploring how Brooklyn and Bushwick in particular went from being a rich agricultural community to the desert it is today, and talk about what people can and ARE doing to grow food locally. 1-4pm. Free.

The Yerba Buena Center for Contemporary Art’s Screening Room in San Francisco presents a double bill of films by Chinese directors, distributed by Strand Releasing: Wayward Cloud by Tsai Ming-Liang, and Help Me Eros, by Lee Kang-Sheng. 7pm. Advance tickets available, or with gallery admission.

Sunday, March 8th: The last day to catch the adaptation of Adam Mansbach’s novel Angry Black White Boy at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco, a satire about race, Hip-Hop pop culture, identity and violence in the 21st century. 8pm, $15-25.

Monday, March 9th: As part of its recent project/exhibition, Branding Democracy, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School presents The Rogue State- a panel lecture on fundamental (in)divisibility of sovereignty using philosophy, history, and art as a framework. 6:30-8:30pm. $8

still from The Wayward Cloud, 2005

Tags: Angry Black White Boy, Armory Show, Art Fairs, Arts Week, Bellwether, Branding Democracy, Bridge, Collectors, conversations, Creative Time, Dana Gentile, fairs, Fountain, Gallery, Guide to Emerging Art Photography, Help Me Eros, Humble Arts Foundation, Intersection for the Arts, Iraq, Jeremy Deller, Kris Graves Projects, lecture, Lee Kang-Sheng, New Museum, novel, play, Pool, Pulse, SCOPE, screening, SECA Award, Sergio A. Fernandez, SF MoMA, Strand relasing, The Rogue State, Trevor Paglen, Tsai Ming-Liang, Vera List Center, VOLTA, Wayward Cloud, Yerba Buena Center.

Martin Kippenberger, detail from The Happy End of Franz Kafka's "Amerika," 1994/1999, installation of tables and chairs and mixed media on Astroturf

This week’s Totam choices are all about fun; fun with monsters, technology and science. Possibly even more fun than finding a rare Francis Bacon rug in your storage closet, but I doubt it. (C-Monster)

Thursday, February 26th: Shepard Fairey, Lawrence Lessig, and Steven Johnson discuss “remixed” culture at the New York Public Library’s LIVE series. This event is sold out but there may be standby tickets at the door. 7pm

Friday, February 27th: During Southern Exposure’s 9th Annual Monster Drawing Rally at the Verdi Club in San Francisco, a rotating cast of thirty from over 100 of the Bay Area’s most prominent emerging artists, including Paul Madonna, Amy Franceschini and Andrew Schoultz, will be making $60 original monster drawings for purchase before your very eyes. Proceeds from the event provide direct support for Southern Exposure’s exhibitions and Artists in Education Programs. 6-11pm, $5.

Saturday, February 28th: The Future Is Not What It Used To Be opens at Postmasters Gallery. Ten artists making work that addresses internet culture, including Marc Horowitz‘ Twitter drawings. 11am-6pm

On a related note, catch the last day of Ben Jones‘ psychedelic new-media installation The New Dark Age at Deitch Projects‘ Grand Street location. 12-6pm

Sunday, March 1st: Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective opens at the MoMA. A must-see for anyone who still believes in iconoclasts. And brilliant minds full of humor. Is there anyone out there who wants to buy me the catalogue? 10:30am-5:30pm

Tuesday, March 3rd: The Rock-It Science Festival at the Highline Ballroom. Billed as an event “celebrating the interface between music and science”; where else are you going to mingle with esteemed neuroscientists, musicians, and Dee Snider at the SAME TIME? 6:30pm, $25

Tags: Bay Area, Ben Jones, C-Monster, Dee Snider, Deitch Projects, emerging artists, Francis Bacon, fun, group, Highline Ballroom, internet culture, Lawrence Lessig, live, Marc Horowitz, Martin Kippenberger, MoMA, Monster Drawing Rally, neuroscience, New York Public Library, Postmasters, remix, Rock-It Science Festival, rug, Shepard Fairey, Southern Exposure, Steven Johnson, technology, Verdi Club.

The latest offerings from local cultural institutions with The Totam’s picks for the week:

TONIGHT: Bob Colacello, legendary Interview editor and Andy Warhol’s go-to guy of the 1970’s speaks at the San Francisco DeYoung Museum’s Koret Auditorium as part of their Warhol Live exhibition programming. 6:30 PM - 7:15 PM

Also, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Observant Eye series offers participants the opportunity to study particular works of art selected from the Museum’s collection over informal discussions with distinguished educators and curators in the galleries of the Museum. 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Sunday, February 22nd: PS1’s spring cycle of exhibitions opens with shows by artists Kenneth Anger, Jonathan Horowitz, and Lutz Bacher. DJ Big Vern Burns on the 3rd Floor. 12-6pm

Why not continue your tour of Queens from PS1 in Long Island City to The Queens Museum in Corona Park, and start some spring cleaning to boot? Artist Derick Melander will be collecting secondhand clothing in the Museum’s parking lot every weekend until April 26th for his participatory project “Into the Fold” (2009), creating a site-specific work from folded and stacked second-hand clothing with the help of museum guests.

The Whitney Museum of American Art is offering a $5 recession special admission price through March 8, for those who join their email list- see here. A perfect opportunity to see the newly-opened Sites exhibit and catch up on Alex Bag’s video installation on the ground floor.

Better yet, see some free art presented by the MoMA during your commute: the museum takes over Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station, filling it with reproductions of over 50 works of art from the MoMA’s collection as a gift to the city’s subway riders. Make your experience interactive via their mini-site by downloading a free audio tour and posting photos of your visit to share.

Tags: admission, artworks, Atlantic Avenue, audio tour, Big Vern Burns, Bob Colacello, Brooklyn, collection, commute, Derick Melander, DeYoung, interactive, Koret, Metropolitan, MoMA, Museum, Observant Eye, Pacific Street, PS1, Queens, Queens Museum, secondhand clothing, Sites, spring, subway station, Warhol Live, Whitney.

Alexander Calder in his Paris studio, 1931. Photograph by Marc Vaux / Necklace (Silver wire, string, ribbon), c. 1943. Images courtesy of Calder Foundation.

Along with iconic modernist mobiles and outdoor sculptures, the American artist Alexander Calder also translated his aesthetic into jewelry, producing over 1,800 pieces in his lifetime. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently featuring a broad selection, ranging from necklaces, brooches, and bracelets to tiaras and hair combs. Calder’s jewelry-making, like many of his contemporaries, including Man Ray and Picasso, was another natural extension of his wide artistic oeuvre.

The jewelry was created mainly for family and friends including Peggy Guggenheim and Georgia O’Keefe, though some pieces were sold for extra cash during the war. A section of the exhibit features pieces he made on birthdays and anniversaries for his wife Louisa James Calder. One such piece is a brass bracelet that reads in looped script “Medusa,” a nickname Calder gave his wife because of her long ringlets. A similar brooch reads “Dolores,” made for Dolores Miró, painter Joan Miró’s daughter. The playfulness is felt not only in these pieces but from the entire exhibition and one can get a sense that Calder was always playing as he created.

Calder’s more noted works of art are heavily felt in these wondrous pieces - his skeletal mobiles have been scaled down here in various ways. A brooch entitled, “V for Victory” was made in commemoration of the end of World War II and has the similar curved metal and geometric shapes his mobiles feature. The hammered dots and larger oblong oval cleverly symbolize morse code: dot, dot, dot, dash stands for the letter “V.”

V for Victory Brooch (silver and steel wire), c. 1944. Image courtesy of Calder Foundation.

Left: Earring (silver and steel wire), c. 1942. Image courtesy Calder Foundation. / Other mobile-like earrings

Calder’s influences ranged from African tribal art, scuplting “bones” from wood or metal, to Celtic symbols as seen in his repetitious use of tight coils which represent the ancient spirals of the Celts.

Though most of the jewelry in the exhibition was made between the 1930s and ’40s, the pieces felt immediately contemporary and timeless, even seventy odd years later. His use of text is still heavily practiced today in jewelry-making, as is the delicate hammering technique he applied to his pieces. Although Calder disliked using gold, and preferred more working class metals such as silver and brass, along with simple materials such as raffia and string, he ultimately turned those lesser metals into these stunning works of wearable art.

Until March 1, 2009.

Tags: Alexander Calder, Celtic art, jewelry, Joan Miro, Man Ray, Metropolitan Museum of Art, mobiles, Peggy Guggenheim, Picasso, scuplture, tribal art, World War II.