Category Archives: Director’s Desk

Director’s Desk: Same Wavelength

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Ogata Korin, Rough Waves, c. 1704-09. Two-panel screen; ink, color, and gold on gilded paper, 57 11/16 x 65 1/8 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1926.

I read the review this morning of the new exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Japan Society in New York of the Japanese Rimpa painters. I couldn’t help but notice the wave images by Ogata Korin and Sakai Hoitsu which made me think of the beautiful paintings currently on view in our Vradenburg Café by the contemporary Brazilian artist Sandra Cinto.

Dorothy Kosinski, Director

Sandra Cinto, One Day, After the Rain, 2012

Director’s Desk: Treasure Hunt

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Anish Kapoor. Underground

Anish Kapoor. Underground, 2005. Photo: Dorothy Kosinski

As I settle back into the office routine at the Phillips, my mind drifts back to Tuscany.  Last time I wrote about the surprise of a powerful Antony Gormley exhibition in San Gimignano.  I want to share a photograph of another contemporary sculpture, a large site specific work by Anish Kapoor.  The cone shaped concrete form was nestled within the fortress walls that ring the hilltop town.  It took some work and persistence to find the piece, but was worth the effort.  It felt like a secret, an art treat that revealed itself especially for us.

Dorothy Kosinski, Director

Director’s Desk: Dispatch from Italy

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Antony Gormley's human figures perched atop a tower

One of Antony Gormley’s human figures perched high atop a tower over the town of San Gimignano. Photos: Dorothy Kosinski

After fulfilling my teaching assignment with the Legatum Institute summer seminar, my husband Thomas and I spent a week in nearby Siena, a town that I love. Our final day in the area was devoted to a trip to the beautiful hilltop village of San Gimignano. I always make that pilgrimage to see the fabulous frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli in the monastery church of Saint Augustine or the painting cycles in the main cathedral, the Collegiata, including the gory damnation scenes by Taddeo Bartoli. What a 21st-century treat, however, to see the absolutely vast and wonderful exhibition of works by Antony Gormley at Galleria Continua! They had also installed Antony’s powerful figures in the town, including high on one of the many towers. We were pampered by one of the gallery owners, Mario Cristiani, who offered us a beautiful Tuscan lunch al fresco out in the garden on a terrace overlooking the beautiful surrounding landscape (with a two-figured marble Gormley nearby). Of course I loved the tie back to our own Phillips Gormley installation.

Dorothy Kosinski, Director

Clockwise from top left: Thomas and Antony Gormley’s Another Time XV in the town of San Gimignano; moving among Gormley’s Two x Two II; Gormley’s Vessel on view inside Galleria Continua; Mario Cristiani and Gormley’s Drift I.