Visit to MOMA and Guggenheim in New York October 2016

Whilst on a short break in NY over Columbus weekend, MOMA and Guggenheim were visited.

MOMA

Bouchra Khalili's The Mapping Journey Project. 2008–11 explores the journeys of eight individuals who have been forced by political and economic circumstances to travel illegally and whose covert journeys have taken them throughout the Mediterranean basin. Khalili (Moroccan-French, born 1975) encountered her subjects by chance in transit hubs across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Following an initial meeting, the artist invited each person to narrate his or her journey and trace it in thick permanent marker on a geopolitical map of the region. The videos feature the subjects’ voices and their hands sketching their trajectories across the map, while their faces remain unseen.

Bouchra Khalili. The Mapping Journey Project. 2008–11. Eight-channel video (color, sound). Installation view, Bouchra Khalili: The Mapping Journey Project, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, April 9–August 28, 2016. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fund for the Twenty First Century, 2014. © 2016 Bouchra Khalili. Digital image © 2016 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Jonathan Muzikar

The beauty of this piece is the movement - it would have nowhere near the same impact as static images. Movement by the unsophisticated use of a marker pen reinforces the paradox of a very challenging journey, yet carried out in a very simple way by people with little idea of where they were going, how they would get there, or what they would find at the end. They had virtually no possessions; it all makes a stark contrast to pre-planned, equipment laden journeys of Westerners. With a two second sweep of a pen, one contributor marks his journey across the Sahara. a journey that took months during which he lost what few possessions and money he had. 

A constant theme is the dastardly and cynical way these people were taken advantage of by those they met. yet they showed extraordinary resilience, patience and optimism. Some of the 'journeys' involved stops of years, so lasted nearly a decade in a couple of examples. These predate the terrifying short-term migrations of Syrians and others so well broadcast on television in last 18 months. They make some of the journeys discussed in Section Two (not least my mighty effort of walking from Porthcawl to Port Talbot) rather insignificant.

It is a moving (metaphorically and literally) exhibition, a fine example of documentary art.

Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter explores the ways in which contemporary architecture and design have addressed notions of shelter in light of global refugee emergencies. Projects by architects, designers, and artists reflect the complex circumstances brought about by forced displacement, and focus on conditions that disrupt conventional images of the built environment.

Brendan Bannon. Ifo 2, Dadaab Refugee Camp. 2011.

The exhibition is eclectic, and in my opinion carries less impact than Khalili's work as a result; it lacks a central message. But a couple of works caught the eye:

finding one’s shadow in ruins and rubble. Tiffany Chung, 2014

An example of 'late' photography, Chung exhibits a series of images of bombed and abandoned cities and towns in Syria on a series of video boxes placed on the floor. Against the dark background the back lit images appear more powerful than hung on the wall.

Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter at The Museum of Modern Art, October 1, 2016 – January 22, 2017

This tapestry chimes with Khalili's piece: a representation of myriad journeys across the planet in search of security and/or  better prospects. The use of incomplete balls of wool is symbolic in context.

Guggenheim
 

The Guggenheim (or Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to give it the full title) is known rather more for the building than its rather limited exhibition space. The current exhibition celebrates the lifetime work of Agnes Martin, introduced this on the website:

For more than forty years, Agnes Martin (1912–2004) created serene paintings composed of grids and stripes. With an attention to the subtleties of line, surface, tone, and proportion, she varied these forms to generate a body of work impressive both in its intricacy and focus. Martin’s commitment to this spare style was informed by a belief in the transformative power of art, in its ability to conjure what she termed “abstract emotions”—happiness, love, and experiences of innocence, freedom, beauty, and perfection


One example of Martin's works suffices here (because of the fine detail, the works do not photograph well):

 

Martin was a sensual, thoughtful artist who wished to inspire. One of the information panels claims that her paintings 'have sometimes been associated with the landscape', which indicates how far away from the actuality of green hills, sublime mountains, picturesque valleys et al. one can go in exploring Landscape imagery. Martin's is a more sensual paradigm:

"I want people, when they look at my paintings, to have the same feelings they experience when they look at landscape....It's really about the feeling of beauty and freedom that you experience in landscape." (quoted on information panel, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)

It is different. I have similar thoughts of this as have with other abstract and intellectually challenging art: is it clever, or is it just abstract for the sake of it? Recently saw Caryl Churchill's Blue Heart at Tobacco Factory in Bristol. Churchill is renowned as one of our best living playwrights butcertainly not by virtue of being populist or even comprehensible. She steadfastly refuses to discuss the meaning of her works. In the second half of the play, words are progressively replaced by 'Blue' and 'Kettle' such that these form virtually all the dialogue by the end. Why, might one ask? Is it merely to be different; to take the audience from its comfort zone; to adduce some reasoning behind this? Similarly, the work of Martin and others challenges us to see meaning and emotion in abstraction. Or is it just to be different....?