Larger Than Life

They are big, huge even. They are very different, yet stunningly eye catching. Though they are separate works by different artists it is difficult not to look from one to the other as they seem to dominate over the other works in the room.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary The Nasher Museum of Duke University is displaying many pieces in its exhibit, "Building the Contemporary Collection." The collection features works from many contemporary emerging artists of color, but it is two of the largest paintings on exhibit that I cannot pull myself away from.

Both portraits depict a single black man, and both portraits are larger than my 5’3” standing frame. There the similarities end. One is dark, the other bright. One is smiling, the other composed. One is dressed casually while the other is urban clad. One is completely imaginary, while the other is imaginarily set--so different, yet each demanding my attention.

It is the imagined element that I find intriguing. The darker portrait of a man in a cream turtleneck, sitting comfortably and smiling is completely fictitious. He is a product of the artist’s imagination. No such man exists, though he could. He could be the kind of man you’d encounter at a coffee shop relaxing after a day at the university talking of scholarly pursuits, interested in your thoughts on things like literature. How does one picture a non-existent being so well as to give him a sort of life?

The brightly colored portrait of an urban clad black man standing in the pose of an Old Master’s work presents a different element for the imagination. The artist has taken a real man of today, plucked him from the streets and cast him in a setting of regal, floral elegance. The man is not smiling; his face seems set in that appraising way of a man on the streets as he tilts his chin up respectful, yet wary in his acknowledgment of you. It’s almost as if I am beneath notice, and certainly will not be invited into a conversation unless I can prove more interesting.

These images are larger than life, and my mind obviously runs away with ideas provoked by them.

-Veronica Monique Ibarra

http://www.nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions_contemporary.php

Limited View

The window had been painted over with black, but a broken pane made a hole through which one could see the street below. Through this frame a photographer aimed his camera and captured life as it passed by.

The Jazz Loft Project: W. Eugene Smith in New York City, 1957-1965 is currently on display at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University until July 10, 2011. The exhibition features an array of photography and audio recordings of many big name jazz musicians. The originally planned three-week project became the unfinished four-year obsession of Smith. Exposing over a thousand rolls of film and audio reels Smith documented an astounding part of cultural history.

Like the camera he aimed at the street below, Smith set up shop in a five-story loft building, capturing the people and music that gravitated to the location. It is staggering the amount of work Smith produced while in this one location. Though his range was limited, the richness of what he recorded was not. Numerous musicians, as well as other interesting and sometimes questionable characters, came and went from the building. Life continued outside, even as the camera kept vigil. Even as the location stayed the same, the photographs show an ever changing, dynamic environment.

-Veronica Monique Ibarra

http://www.nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions_jazz_loft.php

http://www.jazzloftproject.org/

In Context

Looking at any art work alone leaves one to examine the subject, consider the technique, and ponder the inspiration. Inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere. When viewing a collection of similar works grouped by technique or by theme each piece begins to grow in significance.

An excellent example of this is currently on display at The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, NC. The exhibit is entitled Body of Christ which features two contemporary works by Spanish artist Javier Perez among several 12th through 18th century depictions of the Crucifixion. The installation has been on display since January and will remain on display until June 12, 2011.

Of the two Perez works on display the first to grab attention is the three dimensional skeletal human-tree hybrid expressive of the transmutation of life to death. Whereas this piece is startling and emotionally provoking it is the trio of three drawings hung separately, yet grouped in such a way as to be suggestive of the Crucifixion that in contrast demonstrates brilliance for the subtlety.

Staring at these three detailed drawings of a head and two hands intricately vein laden impresses a sense of mortality, but it is in stepping back to view the trio as a whole that the impression of a body appears. Any one of the trio of drawings would be an impressive display on its own, but it is in the placement of the three together that a bigger picture is formed. Step back farther to view the trio among the various other images and a clearer context becomes into focus adding depth and history.

-Veronica Monique Ibarra

http://www.nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions_boc.php