E-mail This Article To A Friend:

artArt1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112053921PMFridayNovNovember1711/20/2009 10:39:21 PM6339433556143545642009112053921PMFridayNovNovember1711/20/2009 10:39:21 PM6339433556143545642009112053921PMFridayNovNovember1711/20/2009 10:39:21 PM633943355614354564false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000The big picture.2NA=1154&NC=1217&DI=4098&PS=58538&PI=7315Artfalsefalsespacernotembeddedart1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885191538992009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885191538992009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519153899false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000Hello, DalíBen DavisfalseThe surreal, high-concept showmanship of Urs Fischer.noHello, DalíThe surreal, high-concept showmanship of Urs Fischer.nospacer205180Click here to read a slide-show essay about the Urs Fischer show at the New Museum.falsefalse1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/SlideShowLaunchModule.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/SlideShowLaunchModule.jpg205180http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885196226552009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885196226552009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519622655false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000spaceryeshyperlinkUrs Fischer's Anti-Art Fun House9407351/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/slideshow_header_Interim.gif94054http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885196226552009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885196226552009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519622655false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000001/123125/122986/2111960/2116067/2116783/2116938/SlideshowFooter.gif94024http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885197789072009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885197789072009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519778907false200541844310PMMondayAprApril164/18/2005 8:43:10 PM632494393900000000200541844310PMMondayAprApril164/18/2005 8:43:10 PM632494393900000000FFFFFF000000spaceryeshyperlinkAt least one crowd-pleaser awaits visitors to Urs Fischer's just-opened show at the New Museum in New York. Called Service à la française, it consists of a collection of large mirrored boxes packed into the institution's warehouselike second-floor galleries. Each box is printed with images depicting various sides of a seemingly random object blown up to jumbo size so that you can inspect it in hyper-real detail: a green Top Shop shoe, a lavishly frosted pink cupcake, a vacantly waving Tweety Bird, a towering toy version of the Empire State Building. The landscape of boxes is supposed to remind you of walking among the skyscrapers of New York, though something about the whole thing—I think it's all the mirrors—also evokes a department store. (The artist calls it an "encyclopedia of banalities.")Service à la française is viscerally appealing and intellectually suggestive, accessible and provocative at once, which just about sums up what Urs Fischer does when he does it well. Not every artwork in his New Museum show has quite the same sizzle, but the show is also more than the sum of its parts. It stands as evidence of the kind of eclectic, high-concept showmanship that Fischer has perfected, the style that has made him an emblematic art-world figure of the last few years.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/1.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/1.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885197789072009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885199351592009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519935159false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, Service à la française, 2009. Silkscreen on mirrored chrome steel, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland. Installation view: "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty." Photograph by Benoit Pailley.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000 spaceryeshyperlinkBy most accounts, Fischer's approach to art-making is both calculated and semi-improvisational, equal parts Swiss rigor (he was born in Switzerland) and New York rowdiness (his studio is in Red Hook). A certain amount of unevenness is a natural consequence. The present show's curator, the talented and normally indefatigable Massimiliano Gioni, recently told The New Yorker's Calvin Tomkins that he had "thought a couple of times of killing" Fischer during the installation process. But Fischer's mercurial character is integral to his aesthetic. This is a guy who first stepped into the spotlight in the late '90s with sculptures that incorporated various food items: for example, a wall built atop a foundation of decaying fruit or a cabin assembled out of loaves of bread, designed to be slowly eaten away by birds living inside. Clearly, Fischer appreciates a certain preprogrammed potential for chaos.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/2.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/2.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885199351592009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885199351592009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519935159false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, Bread House, 2005, bread, wood, screws, expanding foam, light, 17.5 x 15.5 x 14-15 feet. Image courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkLike a lot of recent art, Urs Fischer's oeuvre picks up various "anti-art" ideas—art strategies incorporating ugliness, vulgarity, randomness, instability, or immateriality, all of which not so long ago implied some critical, even political, stance in their assaults on traditional taste. But he gives these ideas a fun-house twist. Fischer's diverse projects bubble over with half-submerged references to other artists or styles. Are the painted mirrors of Service à la française a hat tip to the brainy mirror paintings of the Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto? Probably. But Fischer's references are not particularly reverent. He uses past art the same way he has used food: not as a firm foundation but as raw material that disintegrates in the process of being incorporated into his scattershot constructions. In addition to his food sculptures, Fischer has also made his name by cutting holes in things. For a recent gallery show, he commanded that the interior of Gavin Brown's space in New York be completely excavated so that all there was to see was a gaping pit of dirt. This intervention riffed on older gestures by artists like Gordon Matta-Clark and Daniel Buren, who sliced and diced institutional spaces, claiming that they were making viewers aware of their underlying structures. In Fischer's hands, however, this idea seemed more a deliberate piece of theater than a consciousness-raising exercise. Spectacular but stripped-down, cynical but in-your-face—it felt almost punk-rock.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/3.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/3.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885200914112009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885200914112009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520091411false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, you, 2007, mixed media, dimensions variable. Image courtesy artist/Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkAt the New Museum, a particularly odd spectacle inhabits the third floor, probably the most lavish work in the new show. Except for a few spare sculptures, the galleries appear empty—until you realize that the room itself is the work. Fischer has papered over the walls with exact, to-scale photographic images of their own pristine surfaces, rendered a slightly different color, an atmospheric purple. He also dictated that the ceiling be lowered by 2 feet and that fake beams and new lights be installed. The gallery feels mostly the same. But the environment has been turned almost imperceptibly into a near copy of itself.Like his big dig at Gavin Brown, this type of thing calls to mind the art of "institutional critique," high-minded gestures that tried to throw into question the experience of being in a museum, often implicitly attacking the art world's underlying culture of money and power. Tellingly, however, the response to Fischer's new installation is less thoughtful contemplation of such matters and more "My God—how much did it cost?" The answer is "a lot," though the New Museum isn't saying exactly how much. spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/4.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/4.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885202476632009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885202476632009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520247663false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Installation view of third floor of "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty" at the New Museum, New York.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkA series of large aluminum sculptures command the final floor of the New Museum show: formidable, formless blobs that loom over you. These are lovably weird-looking and perfect examples of Fischer's romance with the irregular and the unexpected. Each is a greatly blown-up version of a small piece of modeling clay; its seemingly haphazard protuberances were determined by the way the substance squished through Fischer's fingers. The enlarged whorls of Fischer's fingerprints are in evidence on the towering hunks, giving you a sense of their original scale.Spinning art from randomness is, of course, an old avant-garde pastime, from the Dada sculpture of Jean Arp to the Zen compositions of John Cage. True to form, however, Fischer adopts this device while deliberately thumbing his nose at the ideals that gave it an aura of meaning—for instance, the old notion that the use of chance in art was a way to get around the limitations of rational, conscious thought. Having his random blobs monumentalized (manufactured in China, no less!) emphasizes that the whole thing is a calculated game. The works get their zip from the difference between the low-key, intimate manipulation of the original clay and the superexpensive, sophisticated process required to take these shapes and get them to their final form.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/5.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/5.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885202476632009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885202476632009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520247663false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Installation view of "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty" (left to right: Ix, David, the Proprietor, 4:15 p.m. & 4:15 p.m., Marguerite de Ponty, Miss Satin, Zizi). Courtesy the artist; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland; and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photograph by Benoit Pailley.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkOf all the Ghosts of Art History Past, though, Surrealism haunts Fischer's work the most—particularly Surrealism of the madcap Salvador Dalí variety. Sprinkled throughout the galleries of the New Museum are a few smaller sculptures illustrating the affinity: a life-size purple replica of a piano and bench as well as a pink lamppost and a pair of toothpaste-colored crutches. Each of these seems to be wilting beneath some invisible heat, evoking Dalí's swooning clocks. Similarly, a sculpture that incorporates a skeleton, posed so that it appears to be clamoring up onto a stack of cardboard boxes, echoes the morbid, fragmentary landscapes of Dalí's paintings.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/6.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/6.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885204039152009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885204039152009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520403915false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, Violent Cappuccino, 2007. Cast aluminum, lacquer, motor oil, glue, and dust, 79.75 x 51.125 x 28.75 inches (203 x 130 x 73 cm). Private collection; courtesy Giraud Pissarro Segalot, New York. Installation view: "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty." Photograph by Benoit Pailley.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkCupadre, which consists of a croissant dangling from a fishing wire with a butterfly tacked to it, might evoke Dalí's famous assemblage grafting a lobster to a telephone. It has the same kind of lurking, though indeterminate, sexual suggestion. It certainly has the same borderline silliness. Dalí is a fitting role model for Fischer: He was the Surrealist who turned the movement's high-flown rhetoric about exploring the unconscious into a kind of carnival aesthetic, becoming something of a cartoon of himself by the end of his life. Dalí's weirdness was unashamedly commercial, hyperactive, and populist. The title of Fischer's New Museum show, incidentally, is "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty," an obscure nod to a pseudonym that French experimental poet Stéphane Mallarmé used when writing for a fashion magazine. The title, in effect, stands for exactly the fusion of difficult avant-garde nihilism with hammy, high-impact spectacle that Fischer goes in for. (Asked by The New Yorker whether he actually read Mallarmé, the artist said "no.")spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/7.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/7.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885205601672009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885205601672009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520560167false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, Cupadre, 2009. Fishing line, croissant, and butterfly, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland. Installation view: "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty." Photograph by Benoit Pailley.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkIn the exhibition catalog, Massimiliano Gioni's interview with the artist is notable in that it shows the two men disagreeing over the fundamental meaning of the work. Gioni asks whether the artist picked the cultural flotsam printed on the mirrors in Service à la française because "they question assumptions of taste"—a bit of critical boilerplate. "No," Fischer replies. "I just like them. I think they look good." A little later, Gioni asks him whether his often fragmentary works aren't a "polemic against a certain polished look that has been so fashionable lately." Fischer calmly points out that the mirrored boxes are "about as polished as things get." (Indeed, at the press preview, a frequently heard comment was what great objects to sell they would be, which, to be fair, says as much about the art press as it does about Fischer.) The catalog's cover image is a self-portrait, picturing the tattooed artist peacefully asleep, a small dog trapped in his burly arm. The dog's eyes, collaged in, are human, supposedly Fischer's own. It's a great image and, as Gioni pointed out to me, something of a joke on the heroic portrait of an artist. Notably, it depicts Fischer literally unconscious, a rejoinder, perhaps, to those who try to read heady "critical" ideas into his works—though the detail of the eyes symbolizes that Fischer is very much conscious in the scene and self-conscious about what he is doing in general. His guilelessness is as much of an affectation as anything else.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/8.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/8.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885205601672009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885205601672009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520560167false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, self portrait, The Heart of the Ocean, May Yohe & Putnam Strong, Zero Year Curse, Tavernier Blue, Hope Diamond, 2006, from a suite of three framed prints.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000spaceryeshyperlinkIf you want a metaphor for the basic position of Urs Fischer's art in the world, look no further than Noisette. A small, golf-ball-size hole has been poked in the wall on the third floor, the room with the wallpaper and the fake ceiling. Pass nearby, and a robotic tongue thrusts out, wags lewdly, then darts back in. It's a PG-13 attraction for a contemporary-art Disneyland, high-concept entertainment spun from low-brow mockery of viewers who might well be looking for something—anything—that seems like a recognizable work of art. That probably about sums things up. You have to appreciate the pretensions of contemporary art to really get Urs Fischer. But if you're not willing to laugh at those pretensions, you're not going to get him, either.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/9.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2235777/2235782/9.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207164192009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207164192009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520716419false2009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM6339413503500000002009111895715AMWednesdayNovNovember911/18/2009 2:57:15 PM633941350350000000Urs Fischer, Noisette, 2009. Mixed mediums, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich, Switzerland; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York; and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Installation view: "Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty." Photograph by Benoit Pailley.20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000Click here to read a slide-show essay about the Urs Fischer show at the New Museum.truenotochyperlinkno20091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM63394140445000000020091118112725AMWednesdayNovNovember1111/18/2009 4:27:25 PM633941404450000000art1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885193501252009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885193501252009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519350125false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000Watteau the WandererChristopher BenfeyfalseWhat accounts for his enduring, elusive appeal?noWatteau the WandererWatteau at the Met.nospacer205180Click here to read a slide-show essay about Jean-Antoine Watteau.falsefalse1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/SlideShowLaunchModule.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/SlideShowLaunchModule.jpg205180http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885198188812009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885198188812009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519818881false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000spaceryeshyperlinkWatteau9407351/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/slideshow_header_Interim.gif94054http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885198188812009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM6339432885198188812009112034731PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:31 PM633943288519818881false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM6338982936200000001/123125/122986/2111960/2116067/2116783/2116938/SlideshowFooter.gif94024http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885206001412009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885206001412009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520600141false200541844310PMMondayAprApril164/18/2005 8:43:10 PM632494393900000000200541844310PMMondayAprApril164/18/2005 8:43:10 PM632494393900000000FFFFFF000000spaceryeshyperlinkThose who love the delectable 18th-century French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau (initial "V" and rhymes with gâteau) love him ardently. When a Watteau picture turned up in an English country house last year after going missing for 200 years, it sold at Christie's for $24.4 million (the highest auction price ever for a French old master) to a still-unidentified enthusiast. Jed Perl, longtime art critic for the New Republic, recently published a beguiling love letter to his favorite painter titled Antoine's Alphabet. Philippe de Montebello, who ran the Metropolitan for three decades before retiring in 2008, had two favorite paintings in the museum: a tiny Duccio acquired under his regime and this Watteau portrait of wistful guitar player, dressed as the lovelorn theatrical character Mezzetin, hopelessly serenading a woman of stone. Watteau is widely regarded as perhaps the most important European artist of the early 18th century, but the mood of festive frivolity in much of his work makes it hard for some people to rank him with Goya, say, or Chardin. An intimate exhibition at the Metropolitan, including the recently discovered painting, seeks to illuminate one aspect of Watteau's work by zeroing in on his intense engagement with the fantasy world of music and theater. It also offers an occasion to speculate about the complex sources of Watteau's enduring, if still elusive, appeal.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/1_Mezzetin.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/1_Mezzetin.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207563932009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207563932009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520756393false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Mezzetin, by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-20. Oil on canvas. © 1934 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Munsey Fund, New York.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000 spaceryeshyperlinkOne source of Watteau's magic is surely the sheer energy and accuracy of his eye. A self-taught and highly idiosyncratic artist, Watteau was one of the greatest of all French draftsmen, easily on a par with Ingres or Degas. Consider, for example, this deft preparatory drawing for de Montebello's beloved Mezzetin, with sketched-in beret and black stubble. The neck muscles are tensed in expectation, as though they're connected to the man's upturned eyes. Watteau carried around with him a book of such drawings with forms and gestures that he freely incorporated into his paintings. He also had a trunk of flamboyant costumes in which he clothed his friends and models—his own private drama for visual improvisation. Friends spoke of Watteau's "spirit of instability"—he was always on the move—but he found a sense of home in the fleeting world of the popular theater, a world in which, as Baudelaire wrote admiringly of Watteau, characters "flutter like moths as they go up in flame." In the pictures that resulted, he captured both a sense of alienation, mirroring his own uprooted background, and of momentary asylum, premonitions of our own unsettled world.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/2_Head_Of_Man.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/2_Head_Of_Man.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207563932009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885207563932009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520756393false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Head of a Man, by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-20. Red and black chalk on buff antique laid paper. © 1937 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, New York.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkAs the son of a roofer from the Flemish frontier town of Valenciennes, which had changed nationality in the recent wars between France and Spain, Watteau arrived in Paris around 1702, determined to win the patronage of the court of Louis XIV. He moved in bohemian circles, borrowing a bed from friends, never marrying, and settling nowhere. He made a splash in official society with his dazzling if still puzzling painting Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera in 1717. Critics still debate whether the "pilgrims" to the mythical island of Venus are embarking in eager anticipation or leaving disappointed. A work on the same theme from 10 years earlier has a kindred uncertainty. A couple of Cupids hovering in the sky urge the beautiful people to board the curtained Love Boat on the left. Why do they hesitate on the shore? Like many of Watteau's paintings, this one borrowed theme and mood from the French theater during the waning years of the Sun King's reign, when the Parisian theaters were shut down by a suddenly pious old monarch and troupes of wandering players flourished at informal seasonal fairs on the outskirts of the city. It was these improvised and promiscuous affairs that Watteau, himself a wanderer, seems to have frequented.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/3_Island_Of_Cythera.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/3_Island_Of_Cythera.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885209126452009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885209126452009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288520912645false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000The Island of Cythera (L'Isle de Cythère), by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1709-10. Oil on canvas. Courtesy the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkStock characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte mingled on the rural stage with French characters like Pierrot. These were mainly servant figures, forerunners of Figaro, who helped young lovers elude their killjoy parents. But Watteau took these familiar properties—"the ribboned stick, the bellowing breeches," in Wallace Stevens' words—in a deeply personal direction. Pierrot in his baggy white peasant's suit captures our attention as he does that of the two seated women, one of whom lifts a black mask toward him. With his back turned to us, he seems hesitant and aloof, a figure of profound alienation—Hart Crane in a poem refers to Pierrot's "exile guise." It's easy to feel that this Pierrot is a stand-in for Watteau. His guitar sports red ribbons but remains on his back unplayed, contributing to the silence of the scene, with two patches of cobalt-blue sky opening like spooky windows in the forested glade. There is a mood of trauma that pervades Watteau's comedians, who seem to be seeking shelter from some unnamed storm. spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/4_The_Foursome.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/4_The_Foursome.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885210688972009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885210688972009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521068897false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000The Foursome (La Partie quarrée), by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1714. Oil on canvas. © 1977 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum Purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkEven Watteau's most frolicsome paintings retain this hint of menace. It's there in The Surprise, the fittingly named picture that mysteriously turned up in an English country house after vanishing in the mayhem of the French Revolution. It's an oddly off-kilter composition. The guitarist, wearing Mezzetin's familiar pink and white stripes, tunes his guitar; a couple is executing a dance step or swooning in erotic embrace; and a worried spaniel is barking his concern. Katharine Baetjer, the Met curator who mounted the exhibition in conjunction with the art historian Georgia Cowart, writes that the male lover employs "force rather than gentility" and notes that "his kiss is not returned."spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/5_La_Surprise.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/5_La_Surprise.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885210688972009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885210688972009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521225149false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000The Surprise (La Surprise), by Jean-Antoine Watteau. Oil on wood. Private collection, courtesy Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkThe guitar appears in so many of Watteau's paintings as traveling companion to the lovelorn that it almost seems like a separate character. This exquisite guitar, made by a German luthier in Rome at a time when the guitar was becoming popular in French music by composers like Lully, is remarkable for its mother-of-pearl inlay, along with its exotic ebony, ivory, and bone. In his paintings, Watteau brought out the seemingly human attributes of musical instruments, such as the mustachioed bridge of this guitar—another indication of the intimacy of actor and personified instrument. The checkerboard pattern along the sides recalls Harlequin, the cunning male servant of the French stage.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/6_Guitar.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/6_Guitar.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885212251492009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885212251492009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521225149false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Guitar, by Giacomo (Jacob) Ertel. Spruce, ebony, ivory, bone, fruitwood, mother-of-pearl. © 1984, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchase of the Rogers Fund, Mrs. Peter Nicholas, the University of Chicago Club of New York, Mrs. Henry J. Heinz II and Lowell S. Smith and Sally Sanford Gifts, the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, by exchange, and funds from various donors.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkWatteau was attentive to how his musicians, often portrayed as isolated and aloof, played their instruments. Nothing gets more attention in his Mezzetin painting than the precise position of the guitarist's prehensile fingers as he lovingly presses the strings between the frets. They are every bit as expressive as the musician's features; Perl compares the fingernails to punctuation marks, "sharp and acute." And when Watteau hastily sketches a standing flutist he gets the posture exactly right. There's room on the sheet for two women's faces, divided by the diagonal line of the flute. Rendered in red and black with highlights in white chalk, they suggest, like many of Watteau's characters, the remote and doll-like figures of 18th-century European porcelain.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/7_Flutist_Two_Women.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/7_Flutist_Two_Women.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885213814012009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885213814012009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521381401false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Studies of a Flutist and Two Women, Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1717. Red, black, and white chalks on buff laid paper. © 1955, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkLater artists took what they wanted from Watteau, often missing the delicate balance of frivolity and unease. His influence was decisive on such later Rococo painters as Boucher and Fragonard, with their feathery brushstrokes and pastoral seductions. But the Met exhibition takes us in a more surprising direction, showing how something of Watteau's darkly theatrical wit survived in the best work of the new medium of porcelain. In this tour de force by Meissen master Johann Joachim Kaendler, one of the most distinctive and influential sculptors of the era, the well-known mezzo Faustina Bordoni sings to the accompaniment of a fox. So detailed is the music that we can read the notes and the lyrics, which refer to "seduction, dignity, and revenge." But what's with the fox, whose paws don't quite reach the pedals? Well, Faustina was having a love affair with a certain Herr Fuchs ("fox"). She was dancing, you might say, to his tune. Watteau would have loved the innocent-looking fox, who has some of the mysteriously blank yet seen-it-all expression of Pierrot.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/8_Faustina_Bordoni_Fox.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/8_Faustina_Bordoni_Fox.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885215376532009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885215376532009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521537653false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Faustina Bordoni and Fox, by Johann Joachim Kaendler, 1744. Hard-paste porcelain. © 1964, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of Irwin Untermyer.2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000spaceryeshyperlinkBut all this levity, alas, was too late for Watteau. In 1719, he made a shadowy trip to England, and among those who purchased paintings from him was a distinguished doctor who presumably treated him for the tuberculosis that would kill him. It turned out that he was right that the premonitions that haunt his art—of disillusion, exile, isolation, and death—would catch up with him sooner than he would have liked. He died in midsummer in 1721 at the age of 36. His entire astonishing, enigmatic, and restless working career had lasted barely a decade.spacer600450nono1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/9_Mezzetin_Again.jpghttp://img.slate.com/mediayesStandardImage1/123125/123118/2209169/2229695/2229696/9_Mezzetin_Again.jpg600450http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885215376532009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM6339432885215376532009112034732PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:32 PM633943288521537653false200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000200992915602PMTuesdaySepSeptember139/29/2009 5:56:02 PM633898293620000000Mezzetin, by Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-20. Oil on canvas. © 1934 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Munsey Fund, New York. 2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000Click here to read a slide-show essay about Jean-Antoine Watteau.truenotochyperlinkno2009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM6338990210600000002009930100826AMWednesdaySepSeptember109/30/2009 2:08:26 PM633899021060000000art1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM6339432884586843752009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM6339432884586843752009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM633943288458684375false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim MuseumFred Kaplan1/123122/2202502/kaplanf.gif4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM6339432884589968792009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM6339432884589968792009112034725PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:25 PM633943288458996879false2008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM6335984619600000002008101711636PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:16:36 PM633598461960000000falseFifty years after its opening, has the art finally caught up with the architecture?noFrank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim MuseumFrank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum.noClick here for a slide show about the art and architecture of New York's Guggenheim Museum.truenotochyperlinkno200981272035AMWednesdayAugAugust78/12/2009 11:20:35 AM633856584350000000200981272035AMWednesdayAugAugust78/12/2009 11:20:35 AM633856584350000000art1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034733PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:33 PM6339432885312950192009112034733PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:33 PM6339432885312950192009112034733PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:33 PM633943288531295019false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000Ready, Aim—Dream!Sarah BoxerfalseHas photography blinded us to the reality of the American West?noReady, Aim—Dream!The American West in photographs at MoMA.noClick here to read a slide-show essay on photography and the American West..truenotochyperlinkno20095670146AMWednesdayMayMay75/6/2009 11:01:46 AM6337719010600000002009731115335AMFridayJulJuly117/31/2009 3:53:35 PM633846380150000000art1/123125/2202562/art.jpg4242http://img.slate.com/mediafalse2009112034728PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:28 PM6339432884827471832009112034728PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:28 PM6339432884827471832009112034728PMFridayNovNovember1511/20/2009 8:47:28 PM633943288482747183false2008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM6335984700700000002008101713007PMFridayOctOctober1310/17/2008 5:30:07 PM633598470070000000Does Plastic Art Last Forever?Sam KeanfalseNot even close. Can a generation of synthetic objects be saved?noDoes Plastic Art Last Forever?A generation of plastic art objects are degrading like overused Tupperware. Can they be saved?noIn the early 1960s, curators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art noticed something funny about one of their modern-art sculptures: It smelled like vinegar. Worse, the once-clear plastic sculpture had begun browning like an apple, and cracks had appeared on its surface. By 1967, Naum Gabo's translucent, airy Construction in Space: Two Cones looked like Tupperware that had gone through the dishwasher too often.truenotochyperlinkno200971113203AMWednesdayJulJuly117/1/2009 3:32:03 PM633820447230000000200971113203AMWednesdayJulJuly117/1/2009 3:32:03 PM633820447230000000200311442654PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:26:54 PM631781584140000000200311442654PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:26:54 PM631781584140000000falsetruetruetruetruetruetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001102365433AMTuesdayOctOctober610/23/2001 10:54:33 AM631394168730000000