Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Part 3, permanent collection

As art museums go, Crystal Bridges is a neophyte, founded a mere 5 years ago. However, the founder was and is Alice Walton, of Wal-Mart fame, and who is ranked the 16th wealthiest person on the planet. With a $200 million endowment and Walton's support, the museum is making up for lost time. The permanent collection is very comprehensive. One of the things that made it interesting for me was the fact that, with a couple of notable exceptions, the works on display by the many familiar artists are not the familiar ones.

I'll make this brief. Just a small sampling of the huge collection. A few things that caught my eye.

I'll start with a couple of the exceptions. This isn't just any old painting of GW. If I'm not mistaken this one by Gilbert Stuart is the single most famous one.

This is Kindred Spirits, by Asher B. Durand, possibly the single most iconic painting of the Hudson River School. (See my recent review of the Hudson River School exhibit at Milwaukee Art Museum.) The acquisition of this painting was controversial but the controversy adheres primarily to the New York Public Library for selling it rather than to Crystal Bridges for buying it.

Valley of the Catawissa in Autumn, Thomas Moran, 1862

 The Hudson River School is well represented.

The Song, William Merritt Chase, 1907

How do you capture music in a painting?

Excavation at Night, George Bellows, 1908

Not a typical Bellows. I've never seen one quite like it and I love it.

Blackwell's Island, Edward Hopper, 1928

Although this is fairly typical Hopper, it was new to me.

This one's just plain fun, don't you think? Did you guess who painted it? Look at the round balls of trees and curve of the hill. Grant Wood. But, although it's a portrait of a real, specific person (a banker named Campbell in the wall label), he's titled it "The American Golfer."

The Tree, Helen Lundeberg, 1938

 Someone I've never heard of. A bit of allegory.

Big Red Lens, Frederick Eversley, 1985

Cleverly located, too.

Gallery view featuring a David Smith sculpture and paintings by Norman Rockwell and Gottlieb, among others. Eclectic mix.

Quarantania, Louise Bourgeois, 1953

I had to include this as I'd seen two very similar versions of it at MoMA and the Whitney in January.

Another artist I'm not familiar with, Evan Penny. Huge, superrealistic sculpture with a catchy title: "Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be. Variation #2." Begs at least two questions for me at least: Does he expect to die first? And, how many other variations of what he doesn't expect to become are there?

Venice Installation, Jenny Holzer, 1990

Holzer gets a whole courtyard built right into the museum to herself. Nice.

Landscape, Mark Tansey, 1994

This was a blast from the past. Having forgotten about him completely, upon seeing this (quite gigantic) painting I was immediately reminded of an exhibit of his paintings at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Probably in the 1990s.

Enassamishhinjijweian, Tom Uttech, 2009

OK, this was the biggest surprise at the museum, in more ways than one. First, although very similar to many I've seen, it's literally the biggest Uttech painting I've ever encountered--almost as big as the Tansey on the adjacent wall. It also takes pride of place at the culmination of the entire collection, on a wall of its own in the final gallery. I never expected to see the work of a professor of mine at UWM hanging in such a prestigious setting.

For the sake of brevity I've left out quite a few gems. If you're going anywhere near the northwest corner of Arkansas, I recommend a swing in the direction of Bentonville to see this museum. I bet it's even more stunning after the trees have leafed out.

I leave you with a "Hanging Heart" by Jeff Koons, which literally hangs in the cafeteria's grand hall at the heart of the museum complex, one of the "crystal bridges" that span the impounded waters of the creek running through the ravine.

This is part 3 in a trio of posts about Crystal Bridges. If you missed the first two and want to start at the beginning, click here. Part 1 is about the outdoor art and part two is about the photography exhibit called "The Open Road."

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Part 2

After exploring the grounds and outdoor sculptures surrounding Crystal Bridges I headed inside to see the galleries. (If you missed part 1, click here. Being a photographer myself and also being in the middle of a road trip myself, I started with their current temporary exhibit, called "The Open Road."

The museum likes to use supergraphics to promotes its exhibits. The (closed) door of The Open Road gallery was emblazoned with one of Stephen Shore's images.

Upon entering the gallery you are confronted with the following quote, stenciled in large white print on the charcoal gray gallery walls.

"Joy rides, voyages of discovery, wanderings, migrations, and travel diaries. Is America even imaginable without the road trip, and is the trip itself imaginable without the camera that records, expresses, and promotes such journeys?"

Well, yes. That bit of hyperbole comes out of privileged perspective, of course. But, hey, it's definitely one I can relate to.

Predictably, the exhibit began with the granddaddy of all American road trip photographers, Robert Frank. His famous book is even called "The Americans." (He himself was Swiss.) A reissued edition of The Americans is on my bookshelf, but I always enjoy seeing vintage prints. In Frank's case the surprise is always how small they are. Later in the exhibition the prints get very large.

Untitled, William Eggleston

Altogether the exhibit included 19 photographers. Each was represented by around six or seven prints. For the most part they were "the usual suspects." I won't try to cover all 19, just a few that stood out for me.

There were prints on the wall too, but I liked the fact that Ed Ruscha's groundbreaking conceptual book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations had pride of place in the vitrine on a large pedestal. The ipad next to it allowed visitors to page through and see all twenty six images in the book. If they wanted to.

Doughboy, Stamford Connecticut, Lee Friedlander

Los Angeles River, California

Joel Meyerowitz is usually known for his use of color and there were several of those in the show. But this one appealed to me in particular because of the setting on the concrete river.

As I mentioned in part 1 of this Crystal Bridges series, the museum is attended by a vast number of schoolchildren. This may account for the high level of interactivity interspersed with the actual photographs on display. I thought this was a clever activity. Magnetic strips were provided to allow kids (or adults) to crop the large photo however they liked.

U. S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973

Here is the Stephen Shore image without the door frame. I've always been a big fan of this one.

This is one of Shore's road trip journals, illustrating how meticulous he was about note-taking (in case the title didn't clue you in already.) Today it's tempting to let the digital camera's embedded metadata or even the iPhone do the note-taking.

Cemetery, Fountain City, Wisconsin

This is from Alec Soth's "Sleeping by the Mississippi" series. Love it. Been there. But never saw it like that, gotta admit.

Map, Taiyo Onorato

Onorato was one of only two photographers who were new to me. Including his work, which involves interventions in the landscape, in the road trip themed show seemed a bit of a stretch to me. But I liked it. In case it isn't clear enough what it is you're seeing on the tripod in the photo, here is a detail of it:

Onorato's actual prints were enormous. A striking contrast with those of Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander. Art has to be big these days, I guess.

Speaking of big, Crystal Bridges is. Part 3, the permanent collection, will have to be very selective indeed. Hope you'll stay with me. (To go back to part 1, the outdoor art, click here.)

Part 3, the permanent collection is online. Click here to go there.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Part 1

I've been eager to visit Crystal Bridges since it opened in 2011. One reason, of course, was always to see its collection of art. But a primary reason was to see the building and grounds. Designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie, aerial photos of the museum showed it curled like a snake in a wooded ravine. I have a particular fondness for architecture and art that relates to the natural environment.

So, when I decided to attend a conference in Houston I turned it into a road trip that included Bentonville, Arkansas, where Crystal Bridges is located within walking distance of the downtown city square. I spent the better part of a whole day there, both inside and out. It was a lot to absorb and far too much to fit into a single blog post. So, here is part 1, artworks that I saw on the outside of the museum.

If you drive to the museum the sculpture above, Yield by Roxy Paine, greets you at the entrance circle.

Then you park next to a mound on top of which rests Maelstrom by Alice Aycock, although "rests" doesn't quite capture how animated this aptly titled aluminum sculpture appears.

I arrived at the museum at 10:00 a.m., an hour before it opened. I used the interval to begin exploring the grounds. Here are some of the things I found.

Stella, by Andre Harvey

Vaquero, by Luis Alfonso Jimenez

Bachman-Wilson House

Yes, they have a whole house by Frank Lloyd Wright, a small gem in his Usonian style. The house was "rescued" from its previous owners in New Jersey, where it had been subjected to flooding and might have been demolished. I can testify that it has been beautifully restored.

Mille-Fleur by Kim Dickey

Robert Indiana's Love was literally loved by every school group (and I saw at least five or six) that poured out of the building, trailed by their chaperons. I surmised that school groups were allowed into the museum before the official opening time. When I finally got inside myself I asked about the number of school groups and was assured that this was a daily occurrence. Not only is the museum free to the public but bus transportation is provided free to schools.

No, I didn't stay after dark (although I could have since the museum stays open until 9) and this isn't the moon. It is the view of the cloudy sky through the aperture at the top of James Turrell's The Way of Color. I love Turrell's work, which I've seen in several different places. I didn't see this one when I was wandering around, so I asked about it inside. As I'd expected, they had one. It was farther away than I'd ventured. So I went back out.

If you've never seen one of these, here is what it looks like from the top on the outside, above and behind the entrance. It sits on the rim of the ravine with the entrance facing downhill. It's like a small shrine and the aperture through which one views the sky is unglazed. I find them magical and peaceful.

 Pop quiz: If it looks like a rock and is situated outdoors in a place where you expect to see rocks and is in fact surrounded by other rocks but this one is labeled "art," is it art?

 As you can see, there are multiples of this confounding phenomenon. In fact, there are 15 of them placed all around the museum grounds.

I would have thought they were rocks, myself, if they hadn't had those labels and numerals conveniently attached to identify them. Clearly, though, the museum considers them art, as does the artist, Robert Tannen.

Tannen has titled them, collectively, Grains of Sand, cleverly avoiding the obvious: "rocks." I didn't see all 15 but I can assure you that all of the ones I did see looked just like rocks to me. I'm just sayin'. And, sarcasm aside, I actually like the idea. So, what was your answer?

Having been deceived once by the rocks, when I came upon this in the woods I had to go back inside to ask if it was art (as this had no identifying label.) No. This isn't art. Just a handy device someone at the museum thought up to direct visitors' attentions to the scenery through it (which likely looks more scenic when the flowers have bloomed and trees have leafed out. Too bad there isn't a rock to look at through the frame!)

Finally ready to tackle the inside galleries, I discovered that entering the building required making my way past this enormous spider in the courtyard. It brought to my mind Tolkien's sinister Shelob, but Louise Bourgeois calls it Maman.

Stayed tuned. I hope to have time to share the pictures I shot on the inside. In addition to the permanent collection, they had a fabulous temporary exhibit of photography on the theme of the road trip. How cool is that?

Part 2 is up and running, so to speak. Click here to go there.