New work is inspired by Phillips’s Kandinsky symposium

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Klaus Ottmann

Leo Villareal, Scramble (2011). Light-emitting diodes, microcontroller, custom software, circuitry, wood, plexiglass, 60 x 60 inches. Courtesy of Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, D.C.

In June of this year I moderated a captivating conversation between artists Frank Stella and Leo Villareal at the Phillips Collection during a symposium held in conjunction with our exhibition Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence. I was very pleased to learn during our Phillips trip to the Miami Beach art fairs last week that Leo Villareal was so inspired by his encounter with Stella at the Phillips that he created a new light work in homage to the artist, which was unveiled in Conner Contemporary Art’s booth at the PULSE art fair. The work, entitled Scramble, consists of a square light box whose rapidly changing light-emitting diodes recreate the color-shift effect of Stella’s 1967 sets for Merce Cunningham’s dance piece of the same title. For Cunningham’s Scramble, Stella stretched vividly-colored cloth over rectangular aluminum frames and mounted them onto casters that were moved quickly around the stage resulting in an ever-shifting collage of purple, blue, red , green, yellow, and orange. Stella later created his celebrated Scramble series of paintings and prints made up of concentric squares of varying colors.

Frank Stella, Klaus Ottmann, and Leo Villareal at The Phillips Collection, June 11, 2011

A New Artist in The Phillips Collection

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Klaus Ottmann

Tobi Kahn, Lyie, 1991. Acrylic on board, 32 x 12 x 1-3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of Victoria Schonfeld in memory of her parents, Hilde and Sydney Schonfeld. Photo: Klaus Ottmann

Last June The Phillips Collection acquired its first painting by the New York artist Tobi Kahn, Lyie (1991). It has now been installed in the spiral staircase of the museum’s Goh Annex. Given by Victoria Schonfeld in memory of her parents, the painting is one of Kahn’s most important paintings of his mature period when forms other than landscape, such as flowers, became a dominant theme. Like most of Kahn’s paintings, Lyie is built up of about 20 layers, beginning with modeling paste containing marble dust on top of white underpainting, followed by opaque paint layers, and finally, a layer of translucent washes.

Earlier this year, Kahn gave an inspiring keynote address at the Phillips during its Art & Innovation Design Gathering, an annual meeting of creative minds that is jointly presented by the Phillips and the University of Virginia.

This week Kahn was invited to speak at Georgetown University by the Program for Jewish Civilization. In conversation with Ori Soltes who teaches theology, philosophy, and art history at Georgetown University, Kahn spoke passionately about how he does not consider himself a Jewish artist or a painter or a sculptor, but just an artist; yet at the same time he cannot separate the knowledge of his Jewish heritage from art history. This combination undoubtedly contributes to Kahn’s unique style of painting that seems equally influenced by Jewish mysticism, such as the color symbolism of the Kabbalah, and the tradition of American modernism, so richly represented by The Phillips Collection’s holdings of Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Toward the end of the conversation, Kahn expressed gratitude to The Phillips Collection for his painting being given such generous placement: “Artists always want to have more space, ” he added, “The Phillips Collection is the perfect space.”

Tobi Kahn in conversation with Ori Soltes at Georgetown University, September 20, 2011. Photo: Klaus Ottmann

It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon—

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Klaus Ottmann

August 10, 2011

It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon –
The Flower — distinct and Red —
I, passing, thought another Noon
Another in its stead

Will equal glow, and thought no More
But came another Day
To find the Species disappeared —
The Same Locality —

The Sun in place—no other fraud
On Nature’s perfect Sum —
Had I but lingered Yesterday —
Was my retrieveless blame —

Much Flowers of this and further Zones
Have perished in my Hands
For seeking its Resemblance —
But unapproached it stands —

The single Flower of the Earth
That I, in passing by
Unconscious was — Great Nature’s Face
Passed infinite by Me —

Emily Dickinson (1843)