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Museums are full of small-scale changes of exhibition that are worth seeing but easily missed because they don’t get any publicity. Sometimes it’s as simple as replacing one of our usual displays with a rarely-seen object because the better-known piece is being loaned to another institution. Other times it’s a matter of repainting a wall so the objects displayed there look completely different. I think many of us are guilty of believing that we don’t need to visit the permanent collection galleries of our local museums because we’ve already seen them, but in truth most of those galleries are in constant flux. It’s worth revisiting even the most familiar collection because you never know what new discoveries you might make.

Xie Shichen (Chinese, 1487 - c. 1567), Landscape. Fan, now mounted flat: ink on gold dusted paper. Overall: 7 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (19.1 x 49.5 cm). The Brooklyn Museum: Gift of H. Christopher Luce, 1993.193.

A great example of a big change that takes place in Brooklyn’s permanent collection galleries without even a whisper of P.R. is the Museum’s annual rotation of Asian paintings. Every January we change out all the paintings in the Asian galleries, usually selecting the new group to represent a single theme that runs through several different cultures. It amounts to a mini-exhibition, but one that appears interspersed with the rest of the Asian objects on permanent view.

This year the theme of the rotation is landscape. We put up 19 paintings in January and they look absolutely gorgeous.

Great tomes can and have been written about the significance of landscape in East Asian art and culture. I’m not going to try to cover it all here. Suffice it to say that the landscape painting tradition has its roots in the belief that time spent in a natural setting is therapeutic and enlightening, offering benefits and lessons that no amount of culture or scholarship could. This is an idea that lots of Westerners share, but the Western world came to it much later. (Think about how “new” Thoreau’s Walden seemed in its time.) Chinese, Japanese, and Korean landscape paintings are mostly not the antique equivalent of Sierra Club calendar photos, however, because most of their artists weren’t recording the actual appearance of mountains and shorelines. Most of the paintings were created indoors, and first-hand knowledge of the wilderness was not always a prerequisite for a successful painting.

Like much great art, East Asian landscape painting is a means of communicating many levels of meaning in a reasonably compact way. The viewer of a landscape painting can approach it from several directions at once:

Noro Kaiseki (Japanese, 1747-1828), Landscape. Hanging scroll: ink and light color on silk. Image only: 50 x 19 1/2 in. (127 x 49.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of Dr. Richard and Ruth Dickes, 84.134.1

- First, one must make sense of the scene. This isn’t always easy, since often much is obscured by bands of clouds or general haziness. Twisting rock forms that “should” read as far-away peaks often seem to be impossibly top heavy, leaning in from above with no discernable base. In figuring out the spatial progression of the scene (or lack thereof), one starts realizing that this isn’t a real place. This isn’t a window onto a landscape but rather a landscape used as a window onto other concerns.

- After one is oriented, one can try to place oneself in the scene, to imagine what it would be like to be there. Artists often provide winding footpaths and little pavilions so the viewer can wander around and settle into parts of the landscape. Having entered it, one can discern the moisture in the air, the loose rubble under foot, the vast distance that lies between shores or mountain peaks. For all the abstraction of a landscape, it should still offer the viewer a familiar feel or experience.

- A knowledgeable viewer might recognize certain features that identify the scene with a specific site (although most paintings represent a fantastic landscape, imagined by the artist) and then remember that that site was mentioned in a celebrated poem. The landscape then brings to mind the emotional content or “lesson” of the poem. The viewer can assess the artist’s presentation of the scene with reference both to the poem and to other paintings that allude to the same verse: does this painting capture the same emotions as the words? Does it add anything to our interpretation of those words? Does it do so differently than other paintings of the same subject?

Kim U-beom (Korean, 19th century), Landscape with Bare Plum Trees. Hanging scroll now mounted flat: ink and light color on paper. 30 5/16 x 13 in. (77 x 33 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of John M. Lyden, 84.197.3.

- Similarly, one might recognize certain features in the landscape that are highly symbolic, for instance gnarled pines (representing longevity) or blossoming plum trees (hope for new beginnings) or bamboo (resilience). This symbolism adds flavor to the overall effect of the painting. Again, some of these elements, singly or in combination, might bring to mind famous passages of literature.

- One might recognize segments of the painting that look like the work of other, well-known artists. If you spend some time looking at Asian painting, you discover that there are literally thousands of ways of applying ink to paper (or silk), and that each way offers different coloristic and textural effects. Certain types of brushwork came to be associated with individual masters and their schools, as did certain compositions and other features. A painting that quotes any of these features becomes a riff on Art History; by referencing earlier paintings it recalls moments in time and well-known artistic personalities. The viewer can weigh the contributions of the painting at hand against those of its predecessors, and the comparison might reveal something new.

Watanabe Shiko (Japanese, 1683-1755), Landscape. Hanging scroll: ink on paper. Image: 13 x 17 1/2 in. (33 x 44.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of Mrs. Harold G. Henderson in memory of Professor Harold G. Henderson, 74.201.3.

So a well-made landscape painting speaks to the knowledgeable viewer on many levels: it offers an imaginary journey as well as a wealth of literary and artistic allusions to bigger issues. What’s interesting to many Western viewers, who were raised to expect landscapes to be picturesque, is that most of these paintings were not designed to elicit an “ooh, pretty” response (although many of these paintings are indeed quite pretty). Instead, an awful lot of East Asian landscape painting inspires emotions that even the most avid tree-hugger would tend to avoid in everyday life: feelings of isolation and discomfort, a sense of one’s own mortality and insignificance. So why go there? Because looking at pretty things usually doesn’t teach us as much about ourselves as looking at disturbing things does. And some of the most complex and fascinating experiences can be found in a combination of disturbing and pretty.

In any case, I invite you to come by the Museum any time before January 2010 to admire a fine selection of Asian landscape paintings in the second floor galleries. I have illustrated a few of them here, but they’re much better (and bigger!) in person.

Newly on view on our 4th floor: Italian Post-World War II Design

The Brooklyn Museum has been at the forefront of collecting Italian twentieth century design since the mid 1950s. One pivotal event made consumers in the United States aware of the diversity and accomplishments of modern Italian design and initiated the collecting of this material at the Museum—the exhibition Italy at Work, which traveled to twelve venues between 1950 and 1954. The exhibition was initiated by the Art Institute of Chicago in partnership with two organizations devot­ed to the promulgation of Italian design, Handicraft Development Incorporated in the United States and its corresponding institution in Italy, CADMA. Italy at Work included hundreds of objects by more than 150 artisans and manufacturers and featured furniture, ceramics, glass, textiles, metalwork, jewelry, shoes, knit clothing, and industrial design. The exhibition opened at the Brooklyn Museum, and at its conclusion, when the objects were dispersed among the host institutions, the lion’s share, more than two hun­dred items, came to the Museum.

Carlo Mollino (Italian, 1905-1973). Table, circa 1949. Made by F. Apelli and L. Varesio, Turin. Laminated wood, glass, brass. Gift of the Italian Government, 54.64.321 a-c.

Some of the objects on view here have not been seen since 1954 when Italy at Work closed, such as the mosaic by Gino Severini and the table by Paolo di Poli. In addition, some of the more recently acquired works are having their debut Museum installation here as well, such as the chairs by Alberto Meda, Ettore Sottsass, Jr., and Joe Columbo.

Ettore Sottsass, Jr.  (Italian, b. Austria, 1917-2007). “Casablanca” Cabinet, designed 1981. Manufactured by Memphis. Milan. Wood, plastic laminate. Gift of Furniture of the 20th Century, 83.104.

Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977). Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps, 2005. Oil on canvas. Collection of Suzi and Andrew B. Cohen, L2005.6. Photo taken in the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Lobby of the Brooklyn Museum courtesy rubykhan via Flickr.

If the large equestrian portrait in the Brooklyn Museum lobby didn’t catch your eye, you need to look again. It’s a portrait by Kehinde Wiley imitating the posture of Napoleon Bonaparte in Jacques-Louis David’s painting “Bonaparte Crossing the Alps at Grand-Saint-Bernard.” Wiley substitutes powerful figures drawn from seventeen century Western art with anonymous young Black man dressed in contemporary clothing.

In the last few years, Wiley has lived and worked in different countries around the world appropriating local influences. This is evident in his current show entitled The World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar now on view at the Studio Museum in Harlem (July 17th – October 26th, 2008). It definitely a must see for this summer.

Don’t miss out on seeing more work by Wiley in our upcoming Fall exhibition entitled 21: Selections of Contemporary Art from the Brooklyn Museum.

Also,

New on view on the 5th floor is an installation of works by Petah Coyne from the collection. These works are individual pieces that have been envisioned as an installation. For this, she created flowers and bows to complement and unify the hanging sculptures. In case you’re wondering where it’s located, you can’t miss it. It’s just outside the 5th floor elevator.

Petah Coyne (American, born 1953). Left: Untitled #750 (Bird Wedding Cake), 1993. Wax and mixed media. Gift of the Rothfeld Family in memory of Harriet Weill Rothfeld, and designated purchase funds, 2008.17.2. Center: Untitled #698 (Trying to Fly, Houdini’s Chandelier), 1991. Mixed media. Gift of the Rothfeld Family in memory of Harriet Weill Rothfeld, 2008.17.1. Right: Untitled 816 (Dr. Zhivago), 1995-96. Formulated wax, steel, antique birdhouse, wire, cable, ribbon, silk flowers, candles. Anonymous gift in honor of Charlotta Kotik, 1997.191. Photo courtesy bachullus via Flickr.

Petah Coyne’s fantastical forms, presenting a beauty that slides into the grotesque, allude to death and decay. Her large, arresting sculptures are neither abstraction nor figuration, but exist somewhere between the two. Using a wide range of nontraditional materials including hay, wire, black sand, specially formulated wax, silk flowers, ribbons, artificial birds, earth, hair, and trees, Coyne often veils or covers objects as though they were artifacts frozen in time. Often hanging from the ceiling, her sculptures project a sense of unease and fragility. Although the materials appear delicate, one senses the weight and density of the works (the gossamer-like Untitled 816 (Dr. Zhivago), for example, weighs three hundred pounds).

Coyne is part of a generation of feminist sculptors who came of age in the late 1980s after Minimalism. Like many of her contemporaries such as Ursula von Rydingsvard, she seeks to integrate themes of nature and the self in her works, which become metaphors for the human experience of the life cycle.

To see more, stay tuned she will be having a solo show at Galerie Lelong later this year.

The history of Coney Island from the 1890s and through the first decade of the 20th century is very much the history of three successful amusement parks: Steeplechase, Luna Park, and Dreamland. The Tilyou family had been influential in developing Coney Island ever since Peter Tilyou established one of the area’s first hotels and taverns in the 1860s, and the first of the three important parks was also a Tilyou creation. In 1897, Peter’s son George combined the family’s many sprawling concessions around the Bowery and opened Steeplechase Park on the beach between West Sixteenth and West Nineteenth streets. He was inspired by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and by an earlier enclosed amusement park at Coney, Paul Boyton’s Sea Lion Park. Tilyou charged admission and provided affordable entertainment (a roller coaster, a scenic railroad, a Ferris wheel, a funhouse, a bathing pavilion, food, and dancing) for a mass audience inside an enclosure that was supposed to keep crime and violence outside. The main attraction was a mechanical horserace that gave the park its name and reflected the popularity of horseracing at Coney, at this time the country’s horse-racing capital. (Racetracks had been built at Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, and Gravesend to serve the wealthy and fashionable clientele in the 1870s and 1880s.) Tilyou rebuilt Steeplechase after a fire in 1907, and many of the rides, from the Earthquake Stairway to the Human Pool Table, were moved indoors to the Pavilion of Fun, a large steel and glass building. The most long-lived and profitable of Coney’s three historical amusement parks, Steeplechase did not close its doors until 1964, and even today, Tilyou’s emblem, the funny face, is considered Coney Island’s mascot. (more…)