Mapplethorpe at the Corcoran

 

The Corcoran Gallery of Art, which is not really the Corcoran any more, has mounted a show, "6.13.89" about the cancellation of the retrospective Robert Mapplethorpe: the Perfect Moment. ( In case you don't know, the Corcoran imploded several years ago and is now owned by George Washington University. )   

The exhibit is basically flat glass cases filled with documents that tell the story of the event. 

Here is the contract for the exhibit; here is the exhibition plan; here are some newspaper articles about the show in New York.  Here are letters of people complaining about the content of the exhibit.  Here are newspaper articles in which Jesse Helms rails against the NEA for funding obscene art.  Here is the press release saying the Corcoran will be backing out of the exhibit. 

Here is  the backlash.  

Here are internal memos from within the Gallery.  Here are membership forms covered with complaints, protests and cancellations.  Here are letters from artists  refusing to show their work at the Corcoran.  

It is in an interesting story, but I can't help but think that in the general emptying out of the Corcoran, someone opened a file cabinet and said, "Look at all this stuff about the Maplethorpe exhibit, this could be a show."  And so it is.

I think the saddest document is a letter from the lawyer of David Lloyd Kreeger, a longtime supporter of the Corcoran.  He has added a codicil to Kreeger's Will rescinding previously pledged gifts to the Corcoran.  

It's really the beginning of the end for the Corcoran, it would take about two more decades, but they lost credibility, they lost financial support and they mismanaged the rest of it. 

The whole thing comes across more like a wake than an exhibit.

The Glass Labyrinth

Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has a single path to the center, after which you turn around and follow it back out.  It is meant to be a slow meditative journey.  Robert Morris has constructed  a labyrinth of glass on the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City, MO. 

I entered the labyrinth close to twilight, there was no one else around.  I walked intentionally, searching for calm.  After a few steps, I saw the imprint of a face on the glass directly in front of me.  After that, I walked with a hand extended.  I quickly learned to look for the edges of plate glass, (the height was over my head);  but the sense of uneasiness began to build.  I think the fact that I can see through the walls adds to the tension.  I walk, and I turn, and I reach dead ends, but they are not dead, I am following a path.  By the time I reach the center of the labyrinth, I actually have reached a dead end.  The panic starts to rise in my throat.  "Oh my god, I am trapped in a glass box in Kansas City!  I am trapped here forever. The death of a mime is mine!!!!!"

Okay.

But then I realize, I just need to turn around and follow the path out. Breathe, Breathe, Breathe.  I resisted the urge to walk quickly or run, because that ends in a face print on the wall.  After a few more turns in the path, a man and a woman entered the maze and smiled at me.  "Don't worry. your almost out,"  they said through the glass.  What did they know?  But I was friendly and chatted with them as we passed each other.  With my hand on the wall, I finally made it back out .  I don't know if I have ever had a sculpture unsettle me so much.  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC has a strong emotional effect, but this was unnerving.  

Breathing deeply, I was so relieved to be out.  As I walked down the brick path running through the fresh spring grass, I began to relax.  I glanced back over my shoulder at the maze just in time to see the man bouncing off the wall with an audible "SMACK'.

I'm glad I got out of there without a bloody nose.

Fastest American You Don't Know

 Tommie Smith won a Gold medal for sprinting in the 1968 Olympics.  But what he is famous for is raising his fist on the Medal Podium in Mexico City.  The gesture was meant to show solidarity with  the Civil Rights Struggle as well as to protest human rights abuses around the world.  

But the press painted him as a radical black panther ungrateful to his country.  There was no Wheaties Box portrait for Tommie Smith.  There was no career as a commentator on Wide World of Sports.  

Almost 50 years later when artist Glenn Kaino met him, he felt that Tommie was stuck in that bubble of controversy from 1968.  Kaino spent several years collaborating with him on art projects: photographs were altered, sculpture was cast, prints were made.  

The resulting work is this exhibit at the High Museum With Drawn Arms.  The Healing power of art on display.