Labels

303 GALLERY AGE OF AQUARIUS AI WEIWEI ALDO MONDINO ALIGHIERO BOETTI ALLORA & CALZADILLA AMSTERDAM ANDREAS GURSKY ANDREAS SCHON ANDY CROSS ANDY WARHOL ANISH KAPOOR ANNE IMHOF ANSELM KIEFER ANTON CORBIJN ARNDT ARNOLFINI ART PROSPECT ARTISSIMA ARTIST BOOK ATTILA CSORGO BALI BARBARA KRUGER BARCELONA BASEL BASQUIAT BEATRIX RUF BELA KOLAROVA BENJAMIN DEGEN BEPI GHIOTTI BERLIN BERND E HILLA BECHER BETTY WOODMAN BIENNALE BORIS MIKHAILOV BRISTOL BROOKLYN MUSEUM CAI GUO-QIANG CAMILLE HENROT'S CANDIDA HOFER CARDI GALLERY CARL ANDRE CAROL RAMA CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN CARSTEN HOLLER CASTELLO DI RIVARA CASTELLO DI RIVOLI CATHERINE AHEARN CENTRE POMPIDOU CHARLES RAY CHARLINE VON HEYL CHICAGO CHRIS BURDEN CHRIS WATSON CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI CHRISTIE'S CHTO DELAT COLOGNE CONCEPTUALISM COPENHAGEN COSMIC CONNECTIONS CRISTIAN BOLTANSKY CY TWOMBLY DAMIEN HIRST DAN GRAHAM DANH VO DANIEL EDLEN DANIEL RICH DANNY MC DONALD DAVID ZWIRNER DIA ART FOUNDATION DIET WIEGMAN DIETER ROTH DOCUMENTA DUBAI DUSSELDORF ED ATKINS EDEN EDEN ELGER ESSER EMILIO ISGRO' ESKER FOUNDATION ETTORE SPALLETTI EVA HESSE EVA PRESENHUBER FANG LIJUN FAUSTO MELOTTI FELIX GONZALES-TORRES FILIPPO SCIASCIA FONDATION BEYELER FONDATION CARTIER FONDAZIONE MERZ FRANCESCO BONAMI FRANCESCO POLI FRANCESCO VEZZOLI FRANCIS BACON FRANKFURT FRANZ KLINE FRIEDMAN GABRIEL OROZCO GABRIEL YARED GAM GARY ROUGH GEORGE BURGES MILLER GEORGE HENRY LONGLY GERHARD RICHTER GILBERT & GEORGE GIULIO PAOLINI GLADSTONE GALLERY GREENE NAFTALI GUENZANI GUGGENHEIM GUGGENHEIM BERLIN GUGGENHEIM BILBAO GUILLAUME LEBLON HAMBURG HAMBURGER BAHNHOF HAMISH FULTON HANGAR BICOCCA HAUSDERKUNST HAUSER & WIRTH HE XIANGYU HELENA ALMEIDA HEMA UPADHYAY HENRY MOORE HIROSHI SUGIMOTO HOWIE TSUI HUANG YONG PING IAN BREAKWELL ICA ICHWAN NOOR INSTALLATION INTERVIEW ISABELLA BORTOLOZZI ISTAMBUL JAMES LAVADOUR'S ROSE JAMES MELINAT JAMIE XX JANET CARDIFF JANNIS KOUNELLIS JASSIE BOSWELL JEFF KOONS JEPPE HEIN JESSICA WARBOYS JIVYA SOMA MASHE JOAN FONTCUBERTA JOHN BALDESSARRI JOHN MCCRACKEN JOHN STEZAKER JON RAFMAN JORG SASSE JOSEPH KOSUTH JOTA CASTRO JURGEN TELLER KARA TANAKA KARL ANDERSSON KARLSRUHE KAVIN APPEL KONRAD LUEG KUNSTHAUS KUNSTMUSEUM LARRY BELL LIA RUMMA LISSON GALLERY LIU YE LONDON LOUISE BOURGEOIS LUC TUYMANS LUCIAN FREUD LUCIE STAHL LUIGI MAINOLFI LUISA RABBIA MADRE MAM PARIS MARC QUINN MARCO CASSANI MARIA CRISTINA MUNDICI MARIAN GOODMAN MARINA ABRAMOVIC MARIO MERZ MARK LECKEY MARK ROTHKO MARTIN KIPPENBERGER MARTIN McGEOWN MARZIA MIGLIORA MASSIMO DE CARLO MATTHEW BARNEY MAURIZIO CATTELAN MAX SCHAFFER MAXXI MIAMI MIKE PARR MILAN MIMMO ROTELLA MING WONG MOMA MONTREAL MOUSSE MUMBAI MUYBRIDGE NATIONAL GALLERY NEW YORK NICO MUHLY NOBUYOSHI ARAKI NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY NY OFCA INTERNATIONAL OLAFUR ELIASSON OSCAR MURILLO OTTO PIENE PACE GALLERY PAOLA PIVI PAOLO CURTONI PARIS PAUL MCCARTHY PERFORMANCE PHILIP GLASS PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA PHILIPPE PERRENO PHILLIPS DE PURY PHOTOGRAPHY PIA STADTBAUMER PIPILOTTI RIST PORTRAITS PRISCILLA TEA RAPHAEL HEFTI REBECCA HORN RICHARD LONG RICHARD SERRA RICHARD T. WALKER RICHARD TUTTLE RINEKE DIJKSTR ROBERT MORRIS ROBERT SMITHSON ROBERT SMITHSON'S ROBIN RHODE ROMA RON MUECK RUDOLF HERZ RUDOLF STIEGEL RUDOLF STINGEL SAM FRANCIS SANTIAGO SERRA SARAH SUZUKI SCULPTURE SHARJAH BIENNAL SHIGERU TAKATO SIMON THOMPSON SOL LEWITT SOPHIE CALLE SPY STEDELIJK MUSEUM STEPHAN BELKENHOL STEVE MCQUEEN STEVE REINKE SUBODH GUPTA SUSAN PHILIPSZ TALA MADANI TATE BRITAIN TATE BRITIAN TATE MODERN TERESA MARGOLLES THADDAEUS ROPAC THE RENAISSENCE SOCIETY THOMAS EGGERER THOMAS HIRSCHHORN THOMAS RUFF THOMAS SARACENO THOMAS STRUTH TIM FAIN TOBIAS ZIELONY TOM FRIEDMAN TONY COKES TONY CONRAD TONY CRAGG TOO MUCH TOTAH TOZER PAK TURIN TURNER PRIZE UGO RONDINONE UK ULAY VANESSA BEECROFT VENICE BIENNALE VERA LUTTER VICTOR MOSCOSO VICTORIA MIRO VIENNA VIK MUNIZ VOID SERIES WHITE CUBE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY WIELS WILLIAMS PRESENHUBER WU TSANG YAN PEI-MING YANG YONGLIANG YOHJI YAMAMOTO YOKO ONO YUSUKE BENDAI YVES KLEIN ZHANG DAQIAN ZURICH

2.3.13

STANLEY KUBRICK | A RETROSPECTIVE

The filmmaker's first retrospective in the United States breaks with strict chronology 

and instead creates clusters of visual and informative "microclimates" within the 

exhibition hall — a different weather for each film. 

An art report by Katya Tylevich


At the entrance to the impressive Stanley Kubrick retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), a small sign announces the current efforts of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (co-presenting the show) to create "the world's foremost motion picture museum" — to be located next to LACMA, and designed by Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali. The sign is there as if to whet the palate for Kubrick, the filmmaker's first retrospective in the United States, and to raise awareness and generous support for the museum endeavour. The announcement underscores the importance of film as art and the need for a place to "hang" it, especially in a place like Los Angeles. Because, come on, Los Angeles should already have a foremost motion picture museum. 

All this to say that I certainly hope we're past the point of having to defend film as an art form — though what better way to beat that dead horse than by looking back at the remarkable works of Kubrick? However, we may not be past the point of discovering new ways to present that art form within the static confines of white walls. Short of screening Kubrick's opuses in full, how can an exhibition do justice to the atmospheres, techniques and perhaps even neuroses created by a director, without deviating from the works in question, oversimplifying them or, God forbid, hyper-intellectualising?

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Stanley Kubrick breaks with strict chronology and instead creates clusters of visual and informative "microclimates" within the exhibition hall — a different weather for each film discussed, as it were, with meaningful asides to present Kubrick's work as a photographer for Look magazine in the 40s and his research for two unrealised films, referred to as Napoleonand Aryan Papers. In doing so, the retrospective conveys quite well the "bodily" experience of immersing oneself in a world or point of view through film. At the same time, it provides a necessary cerebral lifejacket: just enough background text, comparison, and thematic cohesion to buoy the viewer from drowning in the various dramas on display.

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Although the exhibition takes care to remain inviting to those uninitiated in the films of Kubrick, the show is, of course, most satisfying for those who come to it having seen at least some of his masterpieces. Half the fun is staring at familiar scenes in this unfamiliar context, wherein the heavy chewing has been taken care of already. Looking at a gorgeous scene fromBarry Lyndon (1975), for example, one need only turn an eye to the ready-to-think text outlining how the film "offers a stunning arrangement of symmetries and doublings, of intense colours and perfectly realized tableaux copied from eighteenth-century paintings by Joshua Reynolds, Johann Zoffany, William Hogarth, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Stubbs." Visual examples are likewise provided by way of history and art books, flipped to just the right pages. Well, that's one less trip to Wikipedia! Other such nuggets matter-of-factly discuss the colour red in Kubrick's films, stating that he "developed a constellation of meanings and sensations surround the colour" and offering a very convincing palette of stills as example. The matter of fact tone and direct nature of such captions throughout the show do well to allow Kubrick's work to do most of the talking, and refrain from clashing with the artistic flourishes of the director or the personal reactions of the viewer.

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

The retrospective, which originated in Frankfurt's Deutsches Filmmuseum, has already been traveling Europe for years, and its arrival in Hollywood seems a no-brainer, albeit an exciting one eliciting long lines and positive reviews. Like flies in honey, people in attendance seem to clump most notably around projections of A Clockwork Orange (a looping segment of Alex slumped at the Korova Milk Bar) and Full Metal Jacket ("this is my rifle, this is my gun"…). The garland of humans around these projections, and others, underscores just how mesmerizing they are. But perhaps the most moving element of the exhibition is those pages ripped from various scripts, heavy as they are with Kubrick's notes, his handwriting, his changes, his thoughts. This might be as close as we can get to putting a frame around a process, or entering that limbo wherein internal thoughts and ideas hang out before they're edited and articulated and handed to the public in that final, irreversible step.

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

Stanley Kubrick, installation view at the LACMA. Photo by Museum Associates/LACMA

On the LACMA website there is a free app available for download, which allows for more in-depth, documentary-style discussion of Kubrick, his life and his works. Addressed in some detail is Kubrick's physical separation from Hollywood via a life in the UK, as well as the "myth" of Kubrick as an introverted genius… a separation of the director as he was from the director as he was imagined. After all, those who worked with Kubrick depict him as demanding, yes, a perfectionist, but certainly a warm and engaged human. Such depictions, discussed in the app but also running subtly throughout the exhibition by way of quotes, small facts, and many photographs of Kubrick on set, allow the auteur to play the role of human, even on a stage shared with his legendary work. 

Katya Tylevich