Exhibition of works from Thomas Ruff's latest press++ series opens at Sprüth Magers Berlin

Thomas Ruff, press++32.58, 2016. C-Print, 231 x 185 cm (framed) 91 x 72 7/8 inches (framed) © Thomas Ruff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2017. Courtesy Sprüth Magers.

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Exhibition of works from Thomas Ruff's latest press++ series opens at Sprüth Magers Berlin Installation view, Thomas Ruff, 'New Works', Sprüth Magers Berlin, July 7 - September 2, 2017. © Thomas Ruff / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2017. Courtesy Sprüth Magers. Photography by Timo Ohler. 6    BERLIN.- Sprüth Magers is presenting Thomas Ruff’s first exhibition at the gallery with works from his latest press++ series, all of which are exhibited here for the first time. In a multi-faceted practice that examines the ever-changing possibilities of photography, Ruff’s investigations into visual and cultural phenomena are indebted to an interest in how technology makes us see. This is evident in his vast array of subjects and methods, from portraiture and astronomical documentation to photograms and digital abstractions created by algorithms. Images that have been published in American newspapers and magazines from the 1920s to 1970s are Ruff’s source material for his press++ series, images that in themselves have even more diverse archival origins; the police, NASA, press agencies and press departments of institutions, to name a few. From the 1930s onwards, most of the photographs were no longer sent by mail from the press agency to the newspapers but instead sent as a wire and were then printed out by the newspaper, therefore showing the structure of the wire transmission. To produce these works, Ruff scans the front and back of each photograph and combines them digitally, taking into account the original image as well as crops, touch-ups, date stamps, scribbles and smudges. Each of these marks varies in line, colour, and implement used; a red stamp, an inky blue fingerprint, a biro squiggle. Ruff has commented how photo-editors at the newspapers had little respect for the photograph, significantly altering the look and meaning of the original with their retouching and comments. Despite how invisible the hand of the editor is typically made to seem, here they are placed front and centre. The unmistakable porcelain skin and sultry glare of silver screen sirens redolent in their inimitable Hollywood glamour populate the main gallery space. The source photographs for these works are the publicity shots used by casting agencies to promote the actresses on their books, with names scrawled on the reverse to identify them; Portland Mason, Connie Russell, Rosemary Clooney. Their faces are interrupted by paint enhancing contours or attached clippings of their final published version, for example the announcement for a new play starring the actress, creating a ghostly repetition within the image. Other images are more sparse, just a handwritten name to identify the subject or a frantic tick to indicate the approval of the editor. Another collection of works examines the images handed out by press departments of museums. A large stamp across a Joan Miró painting identifies its source as the Guggenheim, this textual addition intermingling with the artist’s own, meandering marks. The text may also detail the route of the photograph; a stamp reads ‘Please return to the Baltimore Museum of Art’, and a pencil note ‘Sunday Sun Feature Sect.’ tells us where it was published. The credibility of annotations and printed text on the image cannot always be trusted however, with a Chuck Close image labelled as Jasper Johns. Was this published incorrectly, or is this just a mix-up on file? Changes made by editors compromise the original image but also add the relevant context and show how it has been changed for its purpose, allowing the study of the historical, political and social context in which an image is produced and how it’s meaning can be interfered with and altered. There is also a strong resemblance to the Dada photomontages of the 1920s but without the surrealistic effects and political intent of these forbearers. For Ruff, the redistribution and rearchiving of the photographic image, which has been a core premise of his practice for many years, presents a number of problems in terms of truth and integrity. In these latest works, which make their debut in the exhibition, the image comes to be considered in terms of artistic value when it is slowly severed from its source, the information contained in it as a press image ebbing away. Thomas Ruff (*1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany) lives and works in Düsseldorf. He studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf from 1977 to 1985. Recent solo exhibitions include the the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, travelled to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary, Kanazawa, (both 2016); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2016); S.M.A.K., Gent, travelled to the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (both 2014); and the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2012). In September 2017 a major exhibition of his work will open at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.

The Arizona Pipe Factory That’s a Haven for Ceramic Artists—Including Tom and James Franco

ARTSY EDITORIAL

BY DEBORAH ROSS

JUL 3RD, 2017 12:00 PM

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  Firehouse Art Collective Members. Photo by Alex Diana. Courtesy of Metric Cosmetics.

An industrial factory that churns out giant clay pipes for municipal sewer systems may seem like an unusual place for artistic experimentation. Yet it’s one such site in Phoenix, Mission Clay Products, where numerous noted ceramic artists have created intriguing and unexpected artworks over the past decade.

Two of the most recent artists to work with Mission Clay’s eight-foot-tall pipes is Tom Franco, a Bay Area artist, and his older brother, actor James Franco. Collaborating on-site in Phoenix and remotely, the Franco brothers worked together to create nine ceramic pillars that have been carved, painted, and fired. The works were then hauled into a gallery for a mostly whimsical, yet oddly attractive exhibition—we’re talking about sewer pipes, after all.

The show, aptly titled “Pipe Brothers: Tom and James Franco,” debuted in mid-June at the nationally known Ceramics Research Center, an arm of Arizona State University in Tempe.

The Franco brothers join an exclusive circle of artists who, over the years, have been invited to work at the pipe-fabrication company, which is tucked into an industrial corner of southwest Phoenix. Mission Clay makes more than 15,000 tons of vitrified clay pipe (VCP) annually, using locally sourced clay. The company originated in California before branching out to Arizona in 2007.

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  Photo by Alex Diana. Courtesy of Metric Cosmetics.

Under the leadership of Bryan Vansell, the company has also nurtured a program called Mission Clay: Art + Industry, which aims to offer an environment to foster artists’ creativity and inspire fresh ideas.

For more than three decades, the company has welcomed artists to share space alongside factory workers, fostering dialogue and engagement between the two groups. In the 1980s, the Art + Industry program even held “Clay Pipe Symposiums”—festive weekend events with guest artists and panel discussions. The lineup included names like Tony Hepburn, Al Johnson, Judy Moonelis, Stephen De Staebler, Christine Federighi, and Ron Nagle. Sculptors Jun Kaneko, Susannah Israel, and Alan Chin also have a long association with Mission Clay.

As for the Franco brothers, the venture into clay pipes sprang from a conversation with John Toki, the noted Bay Area ceramicist and teacher, who has mentored Tom over the years. Tom’s work has typically centered on paintings and found-object assemblages, while James has focused on large-scale paintings.

As Tom recalled in a phone interview, Toki saw the Franco brothers’ work as a natural fit for Mission Clay. The prospect excited the younger Franco, who notes that Toki has a “huge fascination with progressing the ceramic arts.” Toki has long worked with massive proportions of clay in his barn-size studio. Today, he serves as the associate director of Art + Industry.

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  Tom Franco and Mission Clay owner Bryan Vansell. Photo by Alex Diana. Courtesy of Metric Cosmetics.

Tom Franco traveled to Phoenix four times over the course of a year, accompanied by a team of four artists from the Firehouse Art Collective, a Bay Area network of affordable residential/gallery/retail spaces that he helped found. Sometimes working in extremely hot conditions in the vast factory, the team got a taste of the physical energy needed to work with massive towers of wet clay.

The pipes are extruded from a 50-foot-tall machine and then carefully forklifted into the artists’ work area. Franco and fellow artists often worked on ladders, putting muscle into shaping, scraping, and puncturing the clay. The beehive-shape kiln area is bigger than a house, Franco estimates, and the drying, firing, and cooling process can take up to several weeks.

Franco says he tackled the sculptural end of the work with glee, feeling the primal aspects of so much raw clay. “The fun of it is, how far do you go into the clay? Because the pipes are five to six inches thick.” He adds, “The cylinder is a funny form, too, because it’s not flat, it’s very strong. and it supports itself.”

Seven pipes in the show are Tom’s, while two are attributed to James, who submitted detailed designs and asked Tom and his team to bring them to life. James’s busy schedule as an actor, writer, and filmmaker precluded a trip to Phoenix. Most likely, his work will garner plenty of attention, especially the pipe called Jimmy (2017), which depicts the actor in a scene from the 2001 television movie in which he played James Dean. It includes Dean’s infamous Porsche. The other pipe, Harry (2017), bears an oversized, beatific feline, evidencing the actor’s known affinity for cats.

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  Tom Franco at Mission Clay. Photo by Alex Diana. Courtesy of Tom Franco and Metric Cosmetics.

Tom’s work has a flair for the narrative and includes figures, representations of nature, and fantastical elements; titles include Frog & Bunny Jump Rope (2017) and Outerspace Ships (2017). All nine pillars are 7 ½ feet tall—the pipes shrink slightly during the firing—and 18 inches in diameter.

But what should not be overlooked in the “Pipe Brothers” show are selected works by four internationally known artists, all of whom have also taken up the challenge that Mission Clay presents. Toki is represented by Synchronicity (2011), a black-and-white pillar evoking Asian ceramics, alongside columnar forms made by David Kuraoka, Don Reitz, and Patrick Siler.

The pipes on show range in weight from 750 to 3,000 pounds each and are arranged in the gallery according to which parts of the floor could safely support them, says Garth Johnson, the Ceramics Research Center curator. “Installing the show has been half the adventure,” he quipped on opening day (a time-lapse video captures the elaborate installation process, which involved cranes, gantries, and forklifts).

According to an ASU press release, the Franco brothers’ pipes will eventually become public art. “It’s ideal for public art because they’re durable,” Johnson said. “They’re made to last hundreds of years.”

—Deborah Ross

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza opens exhibition of works by Sonia Delaunay

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Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza opens exhibition of works by Sonia Delaunay Sonia Delaunay, El Bal Bullier, 1913 (The Bal Bullier). Óleo sobre lienzo. 50, 2 x 73 cm Merzbacher Kunststiftung. MADRID.- This summer the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is presenting Sonia Delaunay. Art, design and fashion, the first exhibition in Spain to be entirely devoted to this artist. As such its intention is to emphasise not only her important role as an avant-garde painter but also the way in which she successfully applied her aesthetic ideas to everyday life. Delaunay’s work as a painter will be exhibited in the Museum’s galleries alongside her designs for books, theatrical sets, advertising, interiors, fashion and textiles as well as items of clothing. In total there will be more than 200 exhibits loaned from public institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée de la Mode de Paris and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, as well as from private collections. The exhibition, which is benefitting from the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid, will thus reflect recent art-historical researc ... More Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza opens exhibition of works by Sonia Delaunay Sonia Delaunay, Portuguese Still Life, 1916. Óleo y cera sobre papel sobre lienzo. 66 x 92,1 cm Colección privada, Suiza. 20    MADRID.- This summer the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is presenting Sonia Delaunay. Art, design and fashion, the first exhibition in Spain to be entirely devoted to this artist. As such its intention is to emphasise not only her important role as an avant-garde painter but also the way in which she successfully applied her aesthetic ideas to everyday life. Delaunay’s work as a painter will be exhibited in the Museum’s galleries alongside her designs for books, theatrical sets, advertising, interiors, fashion and textiles as well as items of clothing. In total there will be more than 200 exhibits loaned from public institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée de la Mode de Paris and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, as well as from private collections. The exhibition, which is benefitting from the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid, will thus reflect recent art-historical research which has reassessed Delaunay’s career with the aim of highlighting the multi-disciplinary nature of her work which allowed her to explore supports and techniques other than painting. Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was born into a modest Jewish family in the Ukraine. As a child she went to live with her maternal aunt and uncle in Saint Petersburg, receiving a cosmopolitan education from them. She started studying art in Karlsruhe (Germany) in 1904 and two years later moved to Paris to continue her training. In order to be able to remain in France she married the German art dealer Wilhelm Uhde, at whose gallery she first exhibited her work in 1908. It was through Uhde that she met avant-garde artists such as Picasso, Braque and Robert Delaunay, whom she married in 1910 following her divorce from the gallerist. From that date onwards the artistic exchange between the two would be an ongoing and constant one although from the outset of their relationship Sonia differed from her husband in combining her activities as a painter with other disciplines such as embroidery and interior and fashion design. She thus became a multi-disciplinary artist, concerned to express the language of the avant-garde on the widest range of supports and making use of bright, lively colours and a range of techniques that reflect her Russian origins. Around 1912 the Delaunays moved towards abstraction and championed the basis of a new art which rejected traditional media and was founded on the power of colour. This led Robert Delaunay to develop the theory of Simultanism, a neologism taken from Eugène Chevreul’s treatise on the simultaneous contrast of colours, a text that argues that the tensions and optical vibrations generated by the relationship between complementary colours suggest movement in a way comparable to the rhythmical model of dance and music. The Delaunays associated Simultanism with modern life and urban progress and aimed to extend it to all possible areas of creative activity. For the two artists Paris was the Simultanist city par excellence. It became their source of inspiration and the place where they started to analyse the effect of light on colours. However, it was in Madrid in 1917 that their experiments in translating the ideas of Simultanism to everyday life moved into the public realm. It was there that Sonia began to work with performance arts and also opened a boutique in which she sold her clothes and interior design objects. This phase in Madrid, which took place exactly 100 years ago, was one of great freedom and experimentation for Sonia Delaunay and would influence all her subsequent artistic development from the 1920s onwards and following her return to Paris. Sonia Delaunay. Art, design and fashion aims to present those Madrid years as a key moment in her career and they are thus the subject of the central section of the exhibition, which is structured into four chronological parts that also include the phases immediately prior to and following Delaunay’s time in Spain. Early Paris years  At the start of the second decade of the century Simultanism dictated Sonia Delaunay’s activities as she painted and made objects and clothes that reflected this new and colourful aesthetic. A bedspread for her son’s cot is the first object traditionally described as Simultanist. This was followed by a painted toy box, book covers, everyday objects and clothes sewn together from different pieces of cloth. Delaunay combined her avant-garde experiments with the influence of Russian folk art. Her first creations reveal her quest for a total art, illustrating her desire to introduce the Simultanist aesthetic into popular culture. The Delaunays’ apartment, a Sunday gathering place for artists and intellectuals, was the first venue where these Simultanist creations were exhibited in the manner of an art gallery. Sonia was committed to focusing without distinction on the widest range of supports, considering all forms of artistic expression to be of equal merit and worthy of exhibition. Thus, for example, at the famous Autumn Salon in Berlin in 1913 she exhibited paintings, poster designs, book bindings and domestic objects in the company of works by Robert Delaunay, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Lyonel Feininger, Franz Marc and Paul Klee, among others. It was this context, in which fashion, painting and avant-garde were closely interconnected, that gave rise to the “Simultanist dress” as a form of introducing the public to the new visual language. The Delaunays wore Sonia’s creations and transformed Parisian dance halls such as the Bal Bullier into laboratories where they experimented with Simultanism in an initial attempt to renew the aesthetic of the city through colour. With their provocative mixtures of colours and materials, they caused a sensation and the couple became “reformers of how to dress” in Apollinaire’s words. During this period Sonia produced paintings that are among her most important works. Above all, however, she exhibited Simultanist objects alongside Robert’s paintings. The present exhibition includes oils such as The Bal Bullier from the Merzbacher collection (1913), Simultaneous Contrasts (1913), and Electric Prisms no. 41 (1913-14), advertising posters for Zenith and Dubonnet (1914) and fashion designs, including the Simultanist dress and waistcoat made in patchwork in 1914. Also on display will be a copy of La prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France [Prose of the Trans-Siberian Railway and of Little Jeanne of France] (1913), one of the masterpieces of avant-garde literature and visual art and a collaborative creation between the poet Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay which represents the first complete fusion of poetry and painting. The book takes the form of a vertical fold-out measuring 2 metres long which the user both looks at and reads simultaneously. Cendrars’ free verses are reflected in Delaunay’s drawings in an interlinking of forms and colours that suggest the forward movement of a train passenger. First period in Madrid and Portugal  World War I broke out while the Delaunays were on holiday in Spain. As a result, in late 1914 they decided to settle in Madrid. They were fascinated by the city’s light, which contributed to the culmination of their investigations into colour at this time. Separated from the avant-garde, they looked for inspiration among the masters of the past and in 1915 Sonia registered as a copyist in the Museo del Prado. Her canvases and Simultanist dresses for the Bal Bullier gave way to an interest in folk art and in Flamenco singers and dancers involving a degree of return to figuration. In the summer of 1915 the couple were invited to Portugal by a group of Futurist artists who had settled in Vila do Conde, a small village in the north of the country and they decided to move there for a while. Nonetheless Sonia continued to be inspired Spain, evident in works such as Large Flamenco (1915-16) and Small Flamenco (1916), which are exhibited here alongside drawings, watercolours and drawings of this period. Second Madrid period and total art  Madrid provides the core of this exhibition and the time Sonia Delaunay spent there resulted in a major change of direction in her career as it allowed her to put into practice the idea that Simultanism could extend to all areas of life. Following the victory of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 she no longer received her allowance from her family which had previously given her financial stability. She thus decided to launch her creations on a commercial basis. In Madrid the Delaunays coincided with Sergei Diaghilev who had also taken refuge in Spain. Sonia started to collaborate on the design of sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes, marking the start of a close relationship with the performance arts that would continue throughout the rest of her career. This section of the exhibition includes some of her costume and set designs for the Ballet Russes’ Cleopatra (1918) which was created in Sitges and first performed in London. It also shows photographs of the complete redesign that Sonia Delaunay undertook of the old Teatro Benavente in Madrid, transforming it into an innovative theatre-concert that opened with the name of the Petit Casino in 1919. “I opened a Maison Sonia for interior decoration” the artist recalled in her memoirs, “In wealthy houses and historic palaces I did away with sugary pastels, gloomy colours and deadly frills and furbelows.” The opening of this business, which also focused on the design of fashion and accessories, marked a turning point in Sonia Delaunay’s career and can be considered an important precedent for her intense focus on interior, textile and fashion design that began in the 1920s. Newspaper cuttings and photographs of the period make it possible to reconstruct this period in the exhibition and to present it as a key moment in Delaunay’s career. This documentation is accompanied by a selection of her fashion sketches and a painted and embroidered linen jacket (1928) which evokes the spirit of what the Madrid press came to call “the Sonia style”. During these years in Madrid the Delaunays also established contacts with avant-garde poets such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Guillermo de la Torre. Following her return to Paris in 1921 and inspired by the spirit of Dada, Sonia decided to decorate the walls of her house with poems by her many poet friends, including Gómez de la Serna’s “Fan-poem” (1922). In her constant desire to expand the boundaries of the arts Sonia also designed “Dresses-Poem”, for which two designs are on display in the exhibition. Return to Paris In 1921 the Delaunays returned to Paris. The Spanish experience encouraged Sonia to produce clothes for Parisian women based on the designs of her paintings in the manner of tableaux vivants [living paintings]. During those years she worked with Dada and Surrealist groups on theatrical and film projects, including Le P’tit Parigot (1926) by Le Somptier. In 1925 Delaunay enjoyed success with her participation in a decorative arts exhibition and she began to work for one of the large Dutch department stores, Metz & Co., a commercial relationship that lasted until the 1950s. This section of the exhibition emphasises the artist’s multifaceted and versatile manner of approaching artistic creation, from painting on canvas to textiles, tapestries, lithographs, set design and even commissions for murals. Objects displayed in this section include a jacket (1924), two dresses never previously included in an exhibition (1926), a swimming costume and a matching beach parasol and bag (1928), together with a number of earlier designs and the oil painting Simultaneous Dresses (1925) in which the garment worn by the central figure is similar to the overcoat that Delaunay designed for the actress Gloria Swanson that year and which is also on display in this gallery. Complementing these exhibits are the fashion photographs taken by Delaunay herself and a colour video which she made in 1925 to promote her designs. Finally, there is an extensive section on her textile designs which reveals the creative process behind her clothing, from the initial drawing on paper or light card to the final product and including the correspondence that the artist maintained with the Metz & Co., department store, to which she sent samples of cloth and guidelines for the production of her creations. In 1937 Sonia participated with Robert on the decoration of two large pavilions for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, for which three preparatory designs are included in this section. In the Railway Pavilion Sonia evoked her journey to the Iberian Peninsula, once again demonstrating the significance of that period in her life. After Robert Delaunay’s death in 1941 Sonia continued with her work and with the promotion of abstract art. In 1964 and following her donation of a hundred of her and Robert’s works, she became the first living woman to be honoured with an exhibition at the Musée du Louvre. The exhibition closes with three large abstract compositions from the artist’s final phase: Coloured Rhythm no. 694; Rhythm Colour; and Horizontal Mosaic.