Henry Taylor: The Art of Empathy

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Show seen: Henry Taylor: B Side @ the Whitney Museum

See Alice Jump, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, as are all the Paintings in this piece, unless specified. From the wall card- “The track-and-field legend Alice Coachman, depicted here, set a record in the high jump at the 1948 London games, becoming the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. By altering the photo and positioning Coachman as if she is jumping over houses in a neighborhood, Taylor metaphorically alludes to the social and economic barriers she overcame growing up in the segregated South.” The pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any picture for full size.

I’ve had my eye on Henry Taylor since I reported that he was Having a New York Moment,” as I called it in 2017 when he received the High Line Mural Commission simultaneously with being one of the “stars” of the 2016 Whitney Biennial. Okay, both eyes. The Artist returned to NYC in 2019 for a solo show at Blum & Poe, at which I met him.

Henry Taylor modifying/ammending his wall-sized Mural with my Sharpie at Blum & Poe, September 24, 2019.

I lent him my Sharpie which he proceeded to use to modify the large Mural that was the centerpiece of his show as I watched with my mouth open. I then followed him to the terrace where he inscribed his outdoor installation with it. I’d never seen an Artist modify a work (or two) hanging in a show in my 40+ years of show-going before.

Needless to say meeting Mr. Taylor that night was an extraordinary experience made unforgettable by his being quite nice to me, and I don’t think it had to do with the pen. I came away feeling Henry Taylor is one very hard not-to-like man. I wondered if that might have been born in the fact that Henry Taylor is a “30-years in the making overnight sensation.” All this being said, everything I express about his Art here I felt before I met Mr. Taylor. Almost exactly four years to the day later, Mr. Taylor’s Art returned to NYC in Henry Taylor: B Side at the Whitney, his mid-career Retrospective, which only expanded my appreciation of the depth of his accomplishment and filled in the gaps.

Gettin it Done, 2016, at the show’s entrance.

B Side is the most powerful Painting show I’ve seen since Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the lost and lamented Met Breuer in 2017.

Now, or never! 4:30pm, January 28, 2024. One and one-half hours before Henry Taylor: B Side closed for the last time. Installation view of one of the two, large parallel galleries I mention further below. The other is behind the wall to the left.

This is remarkable because Henry Taylor was so late in getting his Art career started.

Hammons meets a hyena on holiday, 2016. Henry Taylor is a student of Art history and an entire gallery was devoted to works inspired by the work of other Artists. Here, he riffs on Dawoud Bey’s famous Photo of David Hammons selling snow balls one winter day from 1983.

The first thing that might catch a viewer’s eye is his palette. On a number of occasions his colors caught my eye from hundreds of feet away across large rooms. For that reason alone, a full Retrospective of his work over 6 galleries of the Whitney Museum’s 5th floor this winter, was a thing of beauty.

Untitled, 2021, Acrylic on linen. In fitting with the show’s title, here the Artist “covers” a Painting he saw in London’s National Portrait Gallery of King Henry V. This could be a play on his nickname- “Henry the VIII,” being the youngest of 8.

But life is not full of blue skies, roses, or bowls of cherries, and neither is Henry Taylor’s Art. There’s much, much more to be seen in his work. As enchanting as his palette is, it’s the depth of his content and his unique way of presenting it that sets his Art apart.

Untitled, 2022. A Portrait of the Artist’s brother, Randy, a former Black Panther (with a large one looming behind him) and now a dog breeder in Texas, depicted looking like he’s about to give a speech as he did in those earlier days.

That content speaks to a very wide range of subjects. Perhaps, most well-known for his Portraits, which as Antwaun Sargent points out, differ from the work of Kerry James Marshall in his preference for “the outcast,” as he calls them1. This is fitting for a show titled B Side, which is a reference to the other side of a single 45rpm record. The B Side of a hit 45 was almost always something overlooked and rarely played, except by devoted fans. It can also be a collection of lesser known or cover songs (like the album B-Sides, by Oasis). Both seem to fit the show. Yet, along with outcasts, B Side contains numerous Portraits of icons- political, Musical, and athletic. Throughout, it seems to me Henry Taylor Paints his subjects from the inside, out. Something quite remarkable. My impression is that he does it through empathy; from connecting and relating to the person he’s depicting in some way- even if he’s never met them, as in the Portrait of Alice Coachman up top. As good as his Art is, in the end, empathy might be what separates Henry Taylor.

Too Sweet, 2016. This extraordinary Portrait is based on a Photo the Artist took from inside his car as this man approached seeking help from passing motorists. A whopping 132 x 72 inches, its monumentality is furthered by viewing the figure from below. It’s also an example of the Artist selectively blurring facial details, in this case his eyes, which occurs off and on in the show, and which I find endlessly fascinating. I wasn’t a bit surprised to find out that MoMA has acquired it.

B Side complements his Portraits with a wide range of scenes from everyday life, with the specter of racism, and its impact, hovering as the omnipresent horror it is and has been, never far away. Of course, Mr. Taylor is well-acquainted with the reality of racism. Some of his Paintings on the subject of his grandfather hint that his 1933 murder in East Texas may be a continuing influence, as could well be expected. In fact, this was the subject of the large Mural, Ancestors of Genghis Khan with Black Man on Horse, 2015-17, which graced one of the lobbies of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, as I showed here.

Resting, 2011, Acrylic and collage on canvas. Taylor depicts his niece and nephew sitting on a couch at home with a reclining figure behind them. Further back is a Corrections Corporation of America truck, a line of uniformed men, and a wall with “WARNING SHOTS NOT REQUIRED” stenciled on it. Before the couple are Canteen Correctional Services forms for family members to authorize items prisoners can purchase at the commissary.

Most often, but not entirely, his subjects are Black, and with the body of work he has created over the past 30 years, Mr. Taylor has emerged as “one of the most powerful and poignant observers on what it means to be Black in America working today1.”

Wegrett, 2006, Acrylic and cardboard collage on linen. One of the most unique Portraits of an Artist with his mother in Art. The collaged cardboard seems to read “WE REGRET.” The wall card says- “Here, the words may allude to the pain he feels about the hardships his mother faced in her life. As Taylor explained, ‘I painted a picture of myself on my knees in front of my mama, and I don’t know why I painted that, but I just did, and I know I cried on that.'”

To complement his range, the show has been arranged by theme. As a result, B Side is a bit like a story with chapters; beginning with family, moving to his early creative days, and then to the subjects that hold his attention as a mature Artist. His current level of success doesn’t seem to have changed him or his Art one iota. Everything he’s done has that feeling of having been cut from the same cloth.

Untitled, 2016–22. Dr. Martin Luther King plays football with some kids while 3 ominous figures watch from the rear.

The first two galleries are devoted to Portraits, with an emphasis on his immediate and extended family, and some Self-Portraits. It’s hard to think of another Artist who has Painted his extended family so often and so strikingly (as in Untitled, 2022, shown earlier, of his brother, Randy- one example). Throughout B Side, I was fascinated by the Artist’s choices in creating his Portraits. Specifically, his choices of when and which facial details to include (as in Untitled, 2016–22, above, and Too Sweet, 2016, earlier). Are these done to cause the viewer to look elsewhere besides the face, or to make them look closer? This is a bit reminiscent of what Edward Hopper did on occasion, as in his Room in New York, 1932, as I discussed here.

First work. A collection of Henry Taylor’s Portrait Drawings of patients he worked with at Camarillo State Hospital, 1985-95, Graphite on paper. One is Pastel, colored pencil and ink on paper. These date from during his time as a student at Oxnard Community College and then the California Institute of the Arts (aka CalArts).

The third gallery took the viewer back to Henry’s beginnings as an Artist. Born in 1958, he spent the decade from 1984 to 1994 working as a psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Mental Hospital, Camarillo, CA.3. During this time, he created his earliest known work, Drawing and Painting a number of the patients he worked with: adults living with developmental disabilities or mental illness as well as those seeking treatment for substance use disorders, developing close relationships. 

“I learned not to dismiss anybody,” he recalls. “It just made me a little more patient, a little more empathetic. It taught me to embrace a lot of things. A lot of people will avoid a person who doesn’t appear normal, but I’m not like that.” Henry Taylor, in a must-read 2016 interview, here.

Untitled 1992. One of the earliest Paintings in the show. When B Side opened in October, I was buried in my piece on Van Gogh’s Cypresses which I published in November. Cypresses mostly takes place when Vincent was a patient in an insane asylum. Therefore, it was impossible for me not to make a connection between Henry’s experiences and Vincent’s. When I first saw this Painting, I was immediately reminded of Photos of the bath tubs Vincent was assigned to for therapeutic treatment in the San Remy Asylum almost exactly a century earlier.

For the last half of that decade as a psych tech, he was also a student at CalArts where he was at least a decade older than his fellow students, graduating in 1995 (among numerous others, Ed Ruscha was a 1961 graduate). Henry began his Art career at 37. After struggling to find representation and recognition, the world has gradually caught up with him to the point that 30 years on, he’s now one of our more influential and respected Artists, with a blockbuster Retrospective that appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), L.A. before moving to the Whitney.

Screaming Head, 1999, Oil on canvas. Just wow.

Working with his patients turned out to have a decisive impact that would continue in everything he’s done. Early on in his career after graduating, Paintings, like this one, continued to speak to his Camarillo experiences. 

From there the visitor emerged into two large parallel galleries that lie at the center and heart of the show largely focused on being Black in America. The first one ranges from a 4th of July cookout to incarceration to the show-stopping THE TIMES THAY AIN’T A CHANGING FAST ENOUGH, 2017, depicting the murder of Philandro Castile. On the other side of the wall, the other large gallery features Paintings related to the Black Panthers and a large installation recreating a Black Panther speech with appropriately attired mannequins.

THE TIMES THAY AIN’T A CHANGING FAST ENOUGH, 2017. Per the wall card- “Taylor has said that he was motivated to paint this scene immediately upon learning about it- ‘I don’t even think I thought about ever showing that one when I painted it; it was just something I had to get out of my head.'”

THE TIMES THAY AIN’T A CHANGING FAST ENOUGH is the most powerful Painting I’ve seen this century. It’s hard for me to think that history worn’t regard it as akin to a (Goya’s)  The Third of May 1808  of our time.

“Taylor’s paintings occupy a new and different space within Black radical aesthetics,” Charles Gaines, Artist4.

too much hate, in too many state, 2001. From the wall card: “This painting places the viewer in the vantage point of James Byrd Jr., a Black man who was abducted and murdered on June 7, 1998, in Jasper County, Texas, by three white supremacists who chained his ankles to the back of their pickup truck and dragged him to his death. The brutal murder led to a national outcry, prompting calls for stronger hate crime legislation.”

While it’s front and center in  THE TIMES THEY AIN’T A CHANGING FAST ENOUGH, and too much hate, in too many state, “social criticism” in Henry Taylor’s work is often equally subtle, but always sharply on point. On the other side of the wall was a large gallery centered around the Black Panthers, including this remarkable installation-

Untitled, 2022, Mannequins, leather jackets, and posters, including a Colin Kaepernick 49ers jersey.

The wall card informs us that Mr. Taylor created this installation to honor the Black Panthers and his brother, Randy, who was active in his local branch. Adjacent to it were Photographs of many of those recently killed by police, bringing past and present together. On the other two walls of the gallery were Paintings of former Panthers Huey Newton, and this remarkable rendering of Eldridge Cleaver, looking like you-know-who out of James Mc Neill Whistler.

Eldridge Cleaver, 2007.

Along with the outcast, B Side also showed figures who have gone on to attain and achieve: quite a few of them.

A counterpoint to his Portraits of the overlooked and outcast, was a room of Portraits of celebrities, that included Chuck Berry, Jay Z, and Haile Selassie, were this Portrait of Jackie Robinson, A Jack Move-Proved It, 2011, right, and Michelle & Barak Obama, Untitled, 2020, left, sporting a copy of the Henry Taylor Rizzoli monograph of their coffee table.

And then there was this remarkable pairing-

That Was Then, 2013, left, depicts an older Black man who has probably heard the racist slur surrounding him many times, and Watch Your Back, 2013,

Fresh, exciting, bold, beautiful, direct yet mysterious, subtle and powerful, the Art of Henry Taylor has something for everyone, and I suspect that people many years in the future will continue to find that in it. B Side was a show that honored “outcasts” and the inspiring achievements of icons side-by-side, while pulling no punches about the world both of them, and the rest of us, live in.

For all those reasons Henry Taylor: B Side was a landmark show. A near perfect mid-career Retrospective in my view.

Man, I’m so full of doubt, but I must Hustle Forward, as my daughter Jade would say, 2020. Ladies & gentlemen, the one and only Henry Taylor.

It seems to me that to be able to face ALL of this with dignity and empathy for others is a remarkable thing; something all-too-rare today. As great as Henry Taylor’s Art is, this says even more about Henry Taylor, the man.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Sign O’ the Times” by Prince, performed live here in 1987 during Henry Taylor’s Camarillo days-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 1/2 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal to allow me to continue below. Thank you,  Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

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  1. Antwaun Sargent on Artsy in 2018
  2. Antwaun Sargent on Artsy in 2018
  3. Where Charlie Parker was famously sent for six months in 1946, and supposedly immortalized it in “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” though he hated that title his producer gave it. It’s also rumored to be euphemistically referred to as “Hotel California” in the Eagles song of the same name.
  4. Henry Taylor: B Side Catalog, P.60

Forgotten Songs I Will Love Forever #3: Yes- Close To The Edge

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Part 3 of an occasional series. #1 is here. #2 is here.

“Close to the Edge,” as performed by Yes on the classic album of the same title from 1972. Written by Jon Anderson & Steve Howe.

1- “The Solid Time of Change” (the sections of this piece are named after the 4 sections of “Close to the Edge.”)

When I was a kid I was passionately into exploring Art & Art history. Before 3rd grade started, the school asked students if they wanted to learn an instrument. For some unknown reason my best friend at the time, Doug, chose trombone. Not to be left out, I did, too. Huh? A serious accident just before school began that year forced me to miss the first 3 months of lessons. This included all the basics on the instrument and how to read Music! The teacher refused to go back or help me make up what I missed. Somehow, I managed to go on and play in every group, orchestra, and band from grade 3 through high school graduation without knowing how to read Music!1 And, no one ever found out! I was first in line when the high school marching band entered the stadium for Saturday football games. It was quite a feeling not knowing for certain if anyone was behind me! Also, while on the soccer team, I once got kicked in the face, which made me unable to play the trombone. The band teacher refused to let me miss a game because they needed my spot in the formations on the field!

As a high school junior, Doug announced he was starting a band, Already a loner, I could already feel myself being cut off. I decided to take up bass and another friend of ours, Rich, transferred from clarinet to drums. It turns out Doug was very into Blues (Robert Johnson, BB King, Muddy Waters…great stuff). Having delved into Music, I began casting a typically wide net. I quickly discovered Jazz, which I found much more interesting for a bassist (I thought, unfairly selling the Blues short. Actually, I had discovered Jazz years earlier, but I’ll save that story for another time.) While I explored Jazz, and he, Blues, Doug and I did agree on the English band Cream. He, an Eric Clapton fan, and me a big fan of the exceptional, late bassist Jack Bruce (who went on to make his own mark in Jazz and experimental Music after Cream). 

The 12-bar structure of the Blues felt limiting to me at the time (yes, short-sighted. Hey, I was 15.). This led me to explore further. I discovered the so-called “Progressive” bands- Genesis, with Peter Gabriel (I saw them on their first U.S. tour after Foxtrot was released.), the amazing and sadly overlooked Gentle Giant, and Yes. I fell so hard under the spell of Yes that it felt unescapable at the time. The amazing bassist, Chris Squire, became the focus of my listening with his unique sound on the Rickenbacker 4001 bass. I managed somehow to get one in beautiful cherry red. 

My LP worn out, I replaced it with this copy of the 1st release on CD. The striking background gradient for the cover Art by Roger Dean reminds me of Ed Ruscha’s Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, from 1969, just three years earlier. Coincidence? Hmmm…

2- “Total Mass Retain”

“A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun”*

The peak of Yes’s brilliance for me (which many Yes fans will challenge) remains their epic, Close to the Edge, from 1972. Its 18 minutes and 50 seconds filling the entirety of Side 1 of the now classic album of the same name. Even Genesis, who were fond of stretching and breaking the limits of the traditional song-form hadn’t as yet gone that far. One of the peak Musical monuments of the 70s, earning the awe of all the Musicians I knew, it’s in a bit of eclipse these days. Singer Jon Anderson has said he co-wrote Close to the Edge (with guitarist Steve Howe) with Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, a novel loosely based on the life of the Buddha, in mind. I read it around the time the album came out and it inspired me to check out Eastern Philosophy for the first time. In it, Siddhartha achieves an enlightenment while sitting along the banks of a river. “Close to the edge, down by a river,” the chorus goes.

“Two million people barely satisfy
Two hundred women watch one woman cry, too late
In charge of who is there in charge of me
Do I look on blindly and say I see the way?”*

Along the way, it’s mystical lyrics seem to cover a lot of ground, from war to inequality to the duality of life (“I get up, I get down”), to spiritual awakening.

“A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace.”*

Reaching your “higher self” by way of your liver, considered the seat of emotions in the middle ages (according to an annotation on genius.com)- “The Solid Time of Change”, the title of  section 1 of “Close to the Edge” indeed. Somehow, in spite of everything going on in the world, it all comes back to mastering ones self, is my take. No wonder it took almost 19 minutes to get it all in!

In 1975, I left the Manhattan School of Music to join a band and wound up going on the road with them for 5 years. When I first joined, they were covering Yes, among others. That was always a show-stopper. People couldn’t believe we were covering them. We did “Roundabout” and  “I’ve Seen All Good People.” Along the way, Yes covers have largely disappointed me. Perhaps it’s because I realized the shortcomings in my own performances. Even post-1972 Yes disappointed me compared to what had come before. Why?

Yes, c.1971-2, in their greatest iteration in my opinion. Clockwise from upper left, Jon Anderson (vocals), Bill Bruford (drums & percussion), Eddy Offord (producer), Steve Howe (guitars & vocals), Chris Squire (bass & vocals), and Rick Wakeman (keyboards) Photographed, presumably, at the Close to the Edge recording sessions as seen in the booklet.

Before their follow-up to Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, their extraordinary drummer, Bill Bruford, left the band. He’s reported to have said in an interview when asked why he left, “After Close to the Edge, what was left to do?” The rhythm section of he and Squire were something the likes of which I had never heard before- even in Jazz. Together, they were masters of the odd time signatures (time signatures in other than 4/4. Much of Close to the Edge is in 6.), locked in step while finding unexpected syncopations at every turn that left every other rock band of the time (except Gentle Giant) behind, even impressing Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page in the process. I regret to this day never having gotten to hear Bruford and Squire together with Yes. (I saw Yes shortly after Tales From Topographic Oceans came out with Alan White on drums, and Bruford with King Crimson in Atlantic City when they recorded the album of the same name). 

3- “I Get Up, I Get Down”

“Close to the edge, round by the corner.
Close to the edge, just by the river.
Seasons will pass you by.
I get up, I get down.”*

So, to say I was EXTREMELY impressed when I came across this video of Band Geek and Chris Clark (from Brand X) covering Close to the Edge, the album in its entirety(!), is to put it mildly. (Though this piece is focused on the “song,” which is track 1 on the album, ending around 17:50 on the video above. Then, “And You And I,” and “Siberian Khatru” follow “Close” completing the album.) Regarding that track, Band Geek or Band Geeks are they are alternatively known, not only have managed to transcribe the entire piece (and album)- no mean feat given how incredibly hard it is to hear the parts when the Music gets dense (or, they found someone who has), they perform it with superb expertise & total faithfulness to the original. Listening carefully to every part, every detail sounds there to me. When I was playing covers, we always “made the song our own,” putting our own spin on it. Still, in Music this complex, playing it faithfully is akin to what Classical Musicians do in their performances of Music by the great composers, referred to as “playing it as written,” which is what Band Geek are doing here. In fact, shortly after Close to the Edge came out, I told a Musician friend of mine that in 50 years orchestras would be playing Yes. They did, and it happened earlier!

Bassist/producer Richie Castellano’s comment on why they did this says in part- “We are hardcore Yes fans and this video is not about conquering a song or doing it better than anyone. It’s about the joy of indulging our inner teenagers and being lucky enough to get the opportunity to play our favorite music.” With all the hours I spent in my room trying playing along to Yes, then playing some of their Music on stage, I can certainly relate to that. My hat is off to them- Ann Marie Nacchio (vocals), Chris Clark (keyboards), Andy Grazaino (guitar & vocals), Richie Castellano (bass & vocals), Andy Ascolese (drums & vocals) and Jarret Pressman (Foley FX).

A comment I read somewhere said that “Yes without Jon Anderson is karaoke.” Given various incarnations of Yes over the years that included him, then didn’t, it’s hard to argue with that, though singer Ann Marie Nacchio more than holds her own in very deep water. It turns out that Jon Anderson heard the Band Geek cover and was also suitably impressed. So impressed, he rang them up(!), and he and Band Geek went out on tour(!!), as you can hear here in this audience recording from Baltimore, May 6, 2023 (the video starts at 2:00 after the excerpt from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite which Yes always used to introduce their concerts)-

4- “Seasons of man”

I gradually lost interest in my favorite rock band at the time after Bruford left. Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway came out in 1974, a year after 1973’s Topographic Oceans. Lamb has become my favorite rock album of all-time (I also believe it’ s one of the greatest rock records ever- a different thing). So, hearing Jon with Band Geek brings me back to the Yes I love since drummer Andy Ascolese does a terrific job of recreating Bill Bruford’s amazing drum parts.

Not only has Band Geek mastered Close to the Edge, but Yours Is No Disgrace, Perpetual Change, Heart of the Sunrise, I’ve Seen All Good People, and Roundabout, among others from the classic Yes catalog they performed live with Jon Anderson in this two+ hour concert, part of their 2023 tour. Getting Jon Anderson’s blessing & approval, backed up with his in-person collaboration (at 79 at the time), says it all. Band Geek were living the dream every young musician/Yes fan had as a kid in their room…And? Making us all damn proud.

“Now that it’s all over and done
Called to the seed, right to the sun
Now that you find, now that you’re whole
Seasons will pass you by
I get up, I get down
I get up, I get down”*

“Close to the Edge” is Music for all seasons. Band Geek is paying Yes forward. Great Music has no expiration date.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Close to the Edge,” written by Steve Howe & Jon Anderson, performed by Band Geek, above.

Previous installments in this occasional series may be found here- #1, Ricki Lee Jones’s “Last Chance Texaco,” is here. #2, Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues,” the theme of NighthawkNYC.com, is here.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. I subsequently taught myself to.

Sarah Sze & Frank Lloyd Wright: A Match For The Ages

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Show seen: Sarah Sze: Timelapse @ The Guggenheim Museum. This is Part 1, an overview. Part 2 looks at details from the show here.

Written on my soul. Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature adorning his trademark red square “cornerstone” on his round building. The dates attest to how long it took to get this building approved & completed, which every other of his many NYC projects weren’t. Seen September 5, 2023. Click any image for full size.

Those who have seen elements of Architectural design in some of the fantastic structures Sarah Sze includes in her impossible to categorize shows over the past few decades might be left with a sneaking suspicion the Artist has a desire to be an Architect. She would actually come by that honestly. Her father was an Architect, and Sarah, who began as a Painter, studied Painting & Architecture in school before graduating with degrees in both from Yale in 1991. After shows and Public Art installations all over the world, this past summer she met her match. To create work that holds its own in Frank Loyd Wright’s iconic Guggenheim Museum has been a standing challenge for Artists since it opened 65 years ago.

“It’s really a building that frames a void….How do you take on the most incredible void created in recent time in Architecture and talk to it in the slightest way?” Sarah Sze.

Installation view of 4 of the 8 Bays that made up the main section of Timelapse on the 6th (top) floor, September 5, 2023. Extra points if you see the very faint black string running from right to left against Wright’s Oculus (the skylight). It’s a unifying element of the show, though I’m not sure how many visitors spotted it as such. I’ll explain.

In Timelapse, Sarah Sze’s Art was installed outside and inside Wright’s masterpiece, the last major work of the Architect’s 7-decade career, and one that stands completely apart from everything else the he created, at least to my eyes. In it, she “dialogues” with Wright in the most innovative ways I’ve seen mounted in the Guggenheim, at least since Danh Vo’s spectacular show in 2018. Though the show “only” consists of projections on the building’s exterior, an installation in the ground-floor pool, 8 more installations in as many Bays on the Rotunda’s top floor, the freight elevator ramp, and the large rear gallery, I was told by a Guggenheim Staff Member it took five and a half weeks to install! That’s a long time for a significant part of the Museum to be closed. I can’t imagine the deinstallation was all that much quicker. Though it was up for only as many months (March 31 through September 10, 2023), it’s a show that’s hard to stop thinking about. Hence, it’s taken this long to complete this piece, which marks where I’m at in pondering it to this point.

“What I love myself about the experience of art is the sense of this moment of discovery when I’m seeing a work of art. And actually, that can happen a year after you see a work of art. You don’t always know how good a work of art is until you see it and you remember it in retrospect.” Sarah Sze.

Time is a river that flows on and on, through our lives. It may be that for most of us images mark time in our lives in any number of ways. We may remember our childhood & youth through a handful of images taken in the distant past, as we do so many significant events in our lives since. As time goes on, the pile of internal images gets edited down to those we feel are most significant. In a sense, this is something akin to “timelapse” Photography or Film/Video by which a succession of images are taken at intervals to record change over a given period, resulting in a simultaneously accelerated and collapsed sense of time. Timelapse considers “how we mark and measure time- constructing our own personal timelines of memory through images and fragments of experiences that are constantly evolving…a contemplation on how we mark time and how time marks us.” Sarah Sze (quoted in the press kit).

Media Lab, 1998, Mixed Media, installed along the wall adjacent to the freight elevator.

As such, it’s a show of Art that is focused on images. That marks an extraordinary transformation in the Art of Sarah Sze over her career. Early on, her work was object based and seemed to qualify as “Sculpture” to many people. Gradually, beginning with Media Lab, 1998, now in the Guggenheim’s collection, and almost hidden here in a corridor for the freight elevator, her work has come to include and feature images more and more, as I saw in her last NYC gallery show in 2019. The images start right away.

Cards without walls. The “wall card” for the video projections on the outside of the Guggenheim.

Timelapse begins with 2 video projections on the Museum’s exterior walls which I missed because the Museum closed at 6 and the sun wasn’t setting until 8 at the time. So, Timelapse started for me inside on the ground floor. The exterior projections turned out to be the first sign that images flow continually through all of Timelapse, showing how central they are to Sarah Sze’s work today. “Sculptor?” Good luck boxing her now!

  “The Renaissance, the Baroque, everyone was doing painting, architecture, sculpture that was Bernini, Michelangelo, that was par for the course,” Sarah Sze1.

“When is there water in a museum?,” the Artist asks on the audio guide. Inside, Timelapse begins in Wright’s pea-pod shaped ground level pool. Diver, 2023, First of two parts, Multimedia installation, and The Night Sky is Dark Despite the Vast Number of Stars in the Universe, 2023, First of two parts, Acrylic paint, string, paracord, and wood. A pendulum hovers over the hammock & the pool with a video projected onto it of Sarah Sze’s finger stroking water (in blue above). Note the string extending up from the pendulum extending into the void. (Gego: Measuring Infinity filled the rest of the Rotunda.)

Installed over Wright’s pool, the “hammock” looks like a restful place from which to ponder the river of images playing continually in your mind. The first video inside is a projection on the pool of Sarah Sze’s hand stroking water, taking “dialoguing” with Frank Lloyd Wright literally and with sublime subtlety! A pendulum “points” to this area, beckoning the viewer to look at it.  The pendulum is attached to a black string that extends up into the void, all the way to the top! Using this simple means of measuring with a plumb line, Sarah Sze at once measures the void, interacts with it, and leads the viewer to the main part of the show.

Sarah Sze, Guggenheim as a Ruin(!), 2009, Ink, string, collage on paper, 50 x 32 inches. (Exclamation mark mine.) An indication that Sarah Sze has been thinking about the Guggenheim for a long time. Notice the red string coming down from the top! It splits in two, and the right part seems to wind up over the ground floor pool, which has spilled on to the floor. Seen in the book Sarah Sze: Infinite Line. Not in the show.

“There is fragility in drawing a line through space; with this one simple powerful gesture, you can occupy an entire space.” Sarah Sze on the wall card.

The more I thought about it, though a mere speck compared to Wright’s huge open space, the string has come to “occupy” it in my mind.

While you’re lying on your back in the hammock, here’s your (approximated) view of Wright’s Oculus. See that small speck just south of 5 o’clock on the white glass (and the faint line running down from it to the right)? That’s the hub where the black string’s rise culminates before sending it off across the void to the main installation of Timelapse on the other side, (as shown in the 2nd picture). There are countless amazing details everywhere you look in the show. Therefore, I’ve decided to present an overview of the show in this piece and show details in a Part 2.

Taking Wright’s unique elevator to the top (as he intended visitors to do) and walking down, (usually, actually up in this case), visitors find the black string already there waiting in front of them. Following it still higher, I noticed it was anchored to a hub that sent it to multiple points all the way across the void to the other side of the 6th floor.

Bay 1. The Night Sky is Dark Despite the Vast Number of Stars in the Universe, 2023, Second of two parts, Acrylic paint, string, paracord, and wood and River of Images, Part two (white circle on the left). The near string holding the hammock is the continuation, and terminus, of the black string from the pea pod pool.

Walking to the beginning of Timelapse on 6, I had the deja vu experience of seeing another blue hammock, one end of which was anchored to the black string. Though dated 2023, the hammock and the one in the pea-pod pool are very similar to one she created in 2015 titled Hammock, down to the “confetti” on top of it (and similar to the one installed on the pool as we saw). Along side is a pile of A/V equipment, “enhanced” with torn analog Photographs, and a wide range of objects that make the viewer think, “Ah, this is not just A/V equipment, it’s part of the piece.” These equipment installations are to be seen at the beginning and end of each Bay, in varying degrees of complexity, and typically, with an inventory of a staggering number of items- generally her trademark common items, seen in most of her pieces, but also small, often very complex “Sculptures.” Since every Bay has a variety of these, they add a sense of unity and continuity to the entire floor as the viewer moves from Bay to Bay. 

Bay 2, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades, 2023, Oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, string, and ink on Dibond, aluminum, wood and paper on 6 panels, 114 x 245 inches. All the pieces on the 6th floor are dated 2023- including the Paintings! Since the show started going in around April, that means Ms. Sze must have been unimaginably busy earlier this year. More than likely, the show was in the works during the pandemic.

In an interview, Ms. Sze hoped that Timelapse would inspire a “I didn’t know you could do that in a museum,” reaction in viewers (especially young Artists)1. Meanwhile, River of Images (Part two), a continuation of the exterior projection, moved along each wall on 6, flowing from Bay to Bay and across all the Art as you stood and looked at it.

Closer to the extraordinary 20 1/2 foot Travelers Among Streams and Cascades, “mounted” on shims and a level, further reinforcing the “off-balance” experience of seeing Art in the Guggenheim. I wondered- Would Wright smile at this, or be offended?

Speaking of its focus on images, one thing I was extremely happy to see was that Sarah Sze has included four of her remarkable Paintings in Timelapse, each of which was dated 2023. Her style seems to have evolved since those seen in her landmark 400-page book, Sarah Sze: Paintings (a NighthawkNYC NoteWorthy Art Book of 2023). Though each Painting in Timelapse was quite strong, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades, in particular, struck me of attaining yet another level.

“The paintings for me are more about how I actually see in my head.” Sarah Sze1.

I was stunned when I heard her say that. In another interview, the Artist spoke of having them be a portal to the world beyond the walls. Given each piece in the show is newly created and site specific, it’s fascinating to ponder that when looking at the Paintings and how they’re installed. Each Painting is displayed in an exceptionally unique way. In fact, over the countless Paintings that have been exhibited in the entire, 65-year, exhibition history of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim I seriously doubt that ANY of these installation scenarios have been seen before.  

Bay 3. “Elements of Architectural design,” as I wondered in the first sentence? The massive and incredibly intricate Slice, approached from what turned out to be the back. In Timelapse, Ms. Sze continually plays on the “off-balance” feeling viewers have walking up and down Wright’s angled ramp. Here, notice the “shims” she’s placed under Slice to level it, which she’s chosen to leave visible for emphasis. Another way of dialoguing with Wright. Elsewhere, actual levels are seen are various points in the show. As in the prior picture, and as I show in Part 2.

Speaking of the installation, in spite of the numerous delicate assemblages and many small items installed on the floor, Sarah Sze reported during the run of the show that nothing had been broken, even after a weekend of 15,000 visitors. She attributed this to viewers moving slowly through the show.

Ms. Sze’s Art dialogues with Wright in numerous fascinating ways, while advancing her themes of time and memory in images. For one thing, as anyone who has been to the Guggenheim knows, the Rotunda’s Ramp is on a continual slope. Upward going up, and downward going down, creating a sense of being off-balance. Tripping and catching yourself-a central idea of the Baroque1,” she said. Sarah Sze makes a point of showing the viewer how this affects her work, adding shims under parts of the huge Slice, or filling a large tank part way, making the fairly steep angle of the floor’s slope obvious . She equates this with creating a sense of being “off-balance” for the viewer who also often can’t tell if an image is digital or analog. “Equilibrium” is also reinforced by her use of 3 pendulums hanging from the black string at various points along its journey.

 

Slice, from its “front,” in dialogue with Wright’s Oculus. Barely visible behind the first step of the near ladder is her model of Slice in this Bay (which I show close-up in Part 2). I found the piece transcendent, and it wasn’t the only one that was. Timekeeper, 2016, installed in the large rear gallery, and displayed for the first time in NYC, seems to mark time on a grand scale. Here, the Artist dialogues with the building while giving us a “slice of time.”

As she has done in a number of recent works (like Crescent (Timekeeper), in her 2019 Tanya Bonakdar show), many of the images in Slice were actually miniature video screens so many of the images changed independently(!) as you watched. As for the images themselves, nowhere in the exhibition catalog, the check list, or the accompanying materials does it specify whose Photography we’re looking at. I’m assuming they’re by Sarah Sze.  

Bay 4, Diver, Second of two parts and Images That Images Beget on the back wall. In this work, there is a torn Photograph of the Sun, attached to the oscillating fan (shown close-up in Part 2). This image is followed by other images of the Sun on a a string  that make a trail to Images That Images Beget, which has a Sun in its center, as you can see below. Note the slope of the water in the tank. “Water in a museum,” part deus. In her Drawing for this piece, the Artist had the water in the tank right up to the top on the right.

All four Paintings were installed uniquely in my experience of 43 years of going to Painting shows. Bay 6 was one of two Bays that used strings with Photos mounted on them as a compositional device that either led to the Painting on the back wall, or referenced it. Installing them this way created an entirely new way of experiencing a Painting as you can see here-

Following the Suns. Images That Images Beget, 2023, 129 x 103 inches, Oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on Dibond, aluminum, wood and paper, on 4 panels, with a string, containing Photos, leading to it from the tank.

I found this a fascinating way of drawing the viewer into the space and making him or her consider individual elements, like the Sun, and countless small objects installed on the floor, along the way to seeing the Painting. It also occurred to me that it’s a way of both measuring the space, occupying the space, as she said, and dialoguing with Wright. The whole idea of installing objects on the floor, which has been done many times, is taken to a new level here with countless small, even tiny, objects lying on the floor, some you can see in this picture (and more in Part 2). I wonder if that’s been done here before.

Bay 5, Times Zero, 2023, Oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on Dibond, aluminum, wood and paper, on three panels. Total dimensions, 97 × 120 1/2 × 3 inches.

Regarding the Paintings in Timelapse, and specifically about Times Zero, the exhibition catalog says, “The paintings in this exhibition were created in Sze’s studio in New York, where the artist meticulously replicated the museum’s Bays in 1:1 scale, allowing her to work quasi-in situ. In the case of Times Zero, Sze was struck by the angle at which paint dripped on the sloping shelf that runs from the wall to the floor (familiarly referred to as the “apron”).”

Here the Painting itself is destabilized by having its mirror likeness begin to come apart. The catalog continues, “She later photographed the work and digitally manipulated it in perspective to the incline of the apron. The resulting full-scale print was then ripped and the shards arranged below the painting itself, like a reflection in water or an imprint; the debris was left to overflow at the edge like liquid5.” She will revisit this “overflowing” effect in a subsequent Bay.

Bay 6, A Certain Slant, 2023, Multimedia installation, including two-channel color video projection, with sound, various durations; video projectors; inkjet prints; and metal pendulum. A number of the torn analog Photos lying around the circle are of hands and forearms, as I show close-up in Part 2. Hands being a running theme.

A Certain Slant reminded me of Sarah Sze’s piece Triple Point, which I saw at MoMA a few years back, in that it has a center pendulum suspended over a pile of unspecified material. In Triple Point, however, the pendulum makes a much wider arc seeming to threaten the surrounding objects. In A Certain Slant, it confines its arc to the area of the salt mound.

Sarah Sze, Triple Point, Multimedia, 2013, seen at the opening of the latest “new” MoMA, October 21, 2018. A work that represented the U.S. at the Venice Biennale that year. The title is a reference to the “triple point of water,” a state where it exists simultaneously as steam, ice and a liquid.

Seeing Triple Point at MoMA left me amazed that Sarah Sze’s work can be installed (in Venice in the case of Triple Point), disassembled and reassembled (at MoMA and elsewhere). Given that Timelapse is site-specific for the Guggenheim, however, it would seem extremely unlikely it will ever be reassembled in full again.

Bay 7. Last Impression (on the back wall), 2023, Oil paint, acrylic paint, inkjet prints, acrylic polymers, and ink on Dibond, aluminum, wood and paper
84 × 56 1/4 × 2 inches.

In Bay 7, one of the highlights of the show for me, the strings were installed across the Bay, preventing the viewer from moving past a certain point, as seen below. Along the series of strings, numerous empty frames were hung, which is interesting since the Painting is not framed. This continued on a unique installation on the large blue ladder nearby to the right, which I show in detail in Part 2.

Closer. The strings strung across the bay limit how close the viewer can get to the Painting, which looks like it could contain an enlarged fingerprint. I’ve also never seen a Painting installed on/lying on the ramp, as the small one to the left is.

The Painting, installed on the back wall, was also accompanied by numerous drips and marks that appear to be on the wall, again mimicking a studio situation as in Bay 6. Unlike the “overflow” seen in Bay 5, Times Zero, this time it appears paint runs down the apron and on to the floor. It made me wonder if Ms. Sze was allowed to Paint on the walls and apron, or if this is part of the installation as well, though that is paint on the floor.

The final Bay, 8, Things Caused to Happen (Oculus), 2023, Multimedia installation, including color video projection, with sound, various durations; video projectors; wood; stainless steel; inkjet prints; toothpicks; clamps; ruler; and tripods. The natural light obscures the light from the projection which shines on the central structure then leaks on to the wall on the left, with strings running to it, indicating the breaking up of digital images. I show this in Part 2.

The showstopper was Things Caused to Happen (Oculus), installed in Bay 8, the final Bay on the 6th floor. Seen from a distance, above, it looked like an alien craft hovering in the space surrounded by cameras.

Close up. Each little square and rectangle appears to be a screen with images projected on each independently! How, I don’t know. I show a short video clip of this in Part 2.

Closer up, it seemed to mimic a human head, possibly imitating a number of images continually playing inside of one. I don’t know about you, but I only have one screen playing in my head at any given time. Once again, as in Slice, somehow, these tiny images changed as you watched- independently. Some appeared to be slide shows, some appeared to be video.

In the large rear gallery, which became a gallery as part of the non-Frank Lloyd Wright expansion, Sarah Sze’s monumental and monumentally complex Timekeeper, 2016, was on view.

Also included in the show were two older pieces; Media Lab, the Artist’s first piece to include video was kind of hidden on the ramp of the freight elevator, shown earlier, and the large Timekeeper, 2016, making its NYC debut. It was installed in the large rear gallery off the 6th floor, a space not designed by Wright to be a gallery, and like all the other spaces added in the controversial expansion (which I fought at the time, resulting in my first published Art writing in The New York Times, and which I remain no fan of), I find seriously lacking as gallery spaces. Her huge Timekeeper, now a part of the Guggenheim’s collection, was installed in the center of the darkened room and its video projections moved across all four walls. Between Media Lab, 1998, to Timekeeper, 2017, to Timelapse, 2023, the viewer can trace how long Sarah Sze has been interested in time, how images mark time, and memories, how long she has featured images in her work, and how her work has evolved.

Timekeeper, detail.

When Timekeeper was installed in Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum in 2016, their Press Release said that it, “blurs the line between organic and mechanical structure, its lifecycle marked by clicking and whirring and flickering images. It keeps a form of eccentric time that is entirely its own, remembering moments over and over again as time slips by. In this sense, Timekeeper has no relationship to the mechanical devices we use to mark the literal passing of time, but instead to the way we recall and replay our lives, in selected fragments that, strung together, account for the passage of years.”

In my February, 2020 piece on her most recent NYC gallery show, I called Sarah Sze a “genius,” the only time I’ve used that term on a living Artist in the 8 1/2 years of NighthawkNYC.com. I should point out that this was BEFORE I saw the Sarah Sze: Paintings book, OR her spectacular recent Laguardia Airport installation. Exactly 4 years since I wrote that, I’ve seen nothing to change my mind.

“I didn’t know you could do that in a museum,” she said, thinking of how viewers, particularly young Artists, might react to Timelapse, before adding, “now you take that ball and run.”

Part 2 of my look at Timelapse looks at some of the countless details in the show, here

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “I’ve Seen It All” by Bjork, another of the world’s most gifted Artists. If I were to use that “g” word on a living Musician, she might well be the one I use it on. She performs it here in Dancer in the Dark

For Lana, whose favorite is building the Guggenheim Museum, and for Ben, a passionate lover & student of Wright’s Art.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. from her interview with Great Women Artists Podcast
  2. from her interview with Great Women Artists Podcast
  3. from her interview with Great Women Artists Podcast
  4. from her interview with Great Women Artists Podcast
  5. Guggenheim Museum, Timelapse Exhibition Catalog, P.129

Sarah Sze: Timelapse- Freeze Frame

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

This is Part 2 of my look at Sarah Sze: Timelapse at the Guggenheim Museum. Part 1 is here.

Slice detail with Wright’s Oculus.

As I said in Part 1, there were so many amazing details in Timelapse I decided to devote a separate piece to them. I’m showing 40 as thumbnails. Click on any image for full size. There’s also a short video clip.

…and wonder about Timelapse I continue to…Show posters behind appropriate scaffolding, Seen on 10th Avenue, June 5, 2023.

The hub for the black string.

Following are Photos of details in the 8 Bays on the 6th floor. Please refer to the overall shots of each installation in Part 1 for orientation and where they are installed in each piece.

The following are details from Bay 1, The Night Sky is Dark Despite the Vast Number of Stars in the Universe

Detail of the Hammock in Bay 1. The Hammock over the ground floor pool and the Hammock Sarah Sze created in 2015 had a similar overlay. I believe the material on the floor is part of the installation, and hasn’t fallen through.

Detail of the far left corner of Bay 1, with a shadow from the Hammock and an image from River of Images.

The following are details from Bay 2, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades

Three details from the Painting, Travelers Among Streams and Cascades. This one from the left section…

Detail of the center section…

Detail of the right section.

The following are details from Bay 3, Slice.

Slice. Detail of the front.

Slice. Close up of the front. Shown here are a number of the recurring image “themes”: hands, birds, the Sun, fire, the sky and other aspects of nature.

Detail behind Slice with River of Images.

One of many levels and rulers.

Looking over a rung of a ladder to see the model of Slice in its Bay installed under it displayed next to the final piece.

Throughout Timelapse lamps were used apparently to draw the viewer’s attention to specific images or objects.

The following are details from Bay 4, Diver, Second of two parts and Images That Images Beget

The following are details from Bay 5, Times Zero

Times Zero, 2023.

The following are details from Bay 6, A Certain Slant,

Detail of the center surrounded by images of hands and objects.

Detail of the far right corner looking to the right from the image above. I imagine the salt from those blue containers is what is in the center of the circle.

Detail of part of the installation on the floor further to the right in the previous picture.

The following are details from Bay 7, Last Impression

An alternate, slightly closer view of Bay 5 from what I showed in Part 1. As you can see in the full size image, the empty frames to the right are attached to the strings that run across the gallery.

Some details of the ladder at the right side, front, of the Bay.

The following detail is from Bay 8, Things Caused to Happen (Oculus)

Short clip of Things Caused to Happen (Oculus).

The Artist points out that in the end, the digital images beamed on to Things Caused to Happen (Oculus) break up on the far wall.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “I’ve Seen It All” by Bjork. This time in the version with Thom Yorke.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Contemporary Chinese Photography: New Directions

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Many might not associate China with Artistic freedom and free expression, but a number of Contemporary Chinese Photographers are making their mark, creating work that breaks all sorts of boundaries, and quite a bit of it in stunning fashion. (in) directions: queerness in chinese contemporary photography, up through the end of January at Eli Klein Gallery, long a leader in cutting-edge Contemporary Chinese Art & Photography, is nothing if not an eye-opener. Wonderfully curated by Phil Zheng Cai and Douglas Ray, the show includes the work of Artists not well-known, along with some that are better-known, including Ren Hang (1987-2017) and former East Village resident Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-90).

Walking through the show with Mr. Cai, who is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge on Contemporary Chinese Art, much of that knowledge based in personal experience with the Artists, I was again taken by the freshness on view in virtually every piece. It’s so rare to walk into a Photography show and see very little, or virtually no, influence of Western Photography, save for an image or two that echoed Nan Goldin, (but that’s possibly what I’m bringing to seeing it). At almost every turn, I saw things that were new, fresh, and exciting. Actually? That’s what I’ve come to expect from Contemporary Chinese Art. In 2018, after seeing the landmark Guggenheim Museum overview, I began exploring it for the first time. Shortly after, at Eli Klein’s prior gallery, Klein Sun’s, amazing Cai Dongdong: Photography Autocracy I discovered  the work of Mr. Dongdong, now one of the best known Chinese Photographers. It was a wake-up call to what was going on in Chinese Contemporary Photography, and I wrote an extensive look at the show here.

Of course, (in) directions: queerness in chinese contemporary photography revolves around queerness, which I readily admit to not being an authority on. Whether that interests you or not, there is much to discover and enjoy, particularly the range of styles and creativity on display.

Cai Dongdong’s work never fails to surprise or break new ground. From (in) directions, it seems he’s far from alone in bringing that in Contemporary Chinese Photography. See for yourself-

Leonard Suryajaya, Dead Duck, 2020, Arisan, 2017, Gold Condo Room, 2020, Sparrow, 2023 and Salem, 2014 from left. Archival inkjet prints.

Leonard Suryajaya, Gold Condo Room, 2020.

Tommy Kha, Stops (III) Oneonta, NY, 2020, UV print on vinyl.

Fang Daqi, Untitled (Bream), 2020, Archival pigment print

Tseng Kwong Chi, Washington, D.C., 1982, From the “East Meets West self-portrait series 1979-89,  and Tseng Kwong Chi with mannequins, 1980, From the “Costumes at the Met” series, right. Both Silver gelatin prints.

From left- Shen Wei, Bonsai, 2023, Chromogenic print, Blue Cave, 2023, Mixed media, Pixy Liao, Breast Ass, 2019, Digital C-print, Fang Daqi, Untitled (Bream), Untitled (Butterfly 2) both 2023, Shen Wei, Daises, 2022, Chromogenic print, Pixy Liao, Long Sausage, 2016, Digital C-print.

Zhang Zhidong, Object Lesson (II), 2023, Archival pigment print.

Mengwen Cao, Eddy, 2021, Archival pigment print.

From left, Xu Guanyu, SL-06172015-02112022, 2022, and Illumination, 2014, Zhang Zhidong, Reflection (II), 2023, Lumination, 2022 and Object Lesson (II), 2023, All Archival pigment prints.

Co-curator Phil Zheng Cai with two of his favorites in the show by Tseng Kwong Chi.

My takeaway is that, regardless of where they’re from, their age, orientation or medium, it’s always exciting to see Artists doing something different. Doubly so when it’s well done. Japanese Contemporary Photography has been very well-known in the U.S. for decades now, and some of its leading lights, like Daido Moriyama and Araki, are Art stars around the world. Chinese Photography is nowhere nearly as well-known here. With Artists and work like those on view in (in) directions:, I suspect that is about to change.

BookMarks- Books on Contemporary Chinese Photography are hard to come by here. Cai Dongdong’s 4 PhotoBooks (that I’m aware of) were all printed in small numbers (up to 300 copies each) and have all sold out. However, one new book that is available as I write is (in) directions:, the catalog for this show. It’s an excellent introduction to these Artists, often with texts in their own words, and including quite a few images of work not in the show (along with the work that is). Curators Cai and Ray, along with designer Mengyao Zhang, have done a very nice job of succinctly laying out quite a bit of material in a very accessible manner, producing a valuable upto-the-moment survery on 21 Photographers who deserve wider attention. Copies are available through Eli Klein Gallery.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Accept Yourself” by The Smiths from their classic Hatful of Hollow, seen here in a rare live, though grainy, video from the Hacienda, Manchester, on 6 July 1983-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Flaco Owns The Charmer Under Me

Written by Kenn Sava. (None of these Photos are mine. If they are yours, please contact me for credit.)

The throng hoping for a Flaco sighting in the Park in the early days after his escape last year. Photo- goodmorningamerica.com

If you live here, and possibly if you don’t, you might be glued to the latest news and social media updates for sightings of Flaco, the male Eurasian Eagle-Owl, who escaped from the Central Park Zoo after his habitat was vandalized in February, 2023. I am, too. In spite of EVERYTHING else going on in the world, it’s a story that seems to have captivated a lot of folks, probably for many reasons.

After early attempts to recapture him were abandoned due to the public outcry, Park Zoo officials opted to let him live as a free bird in the Park. He’s been on his own for 11 months now.

“Yes, I’m cashin’ in this ten-cent life
For another one”*

Shortly after his escape. Photo- goodmorningamerica.com

Of course, he drew immediate and large crowds (as shown up top), including countless Photographers. To date, I haven’t seen any clips of him in flight, where his 6-foot wingspan must be breathtaking to see. Nonetheless, the countless Photos I have seen reveal him to be extraordinarily beautiful, particularly his riveting orange eyes.

“Everywhere around me
I see jealousy and mayhem
Because no men have all their peace of mind
To carry them”*

Photo- newsbrig.com

Ok. I’m biased. My last name means “Owl.” Still, his is a story with wings! People seemed to love the idea of the “caged-bird set free.” I worried. But, as long as he stayed in the Park, he was relatively safe (though another Owl was hit and killed by a truck there) because they don’t feed the rats, a staple of his diet (another reason we love him) poison that could harm him. Then, Flaco suddenly began making trips out of the Park! While this led to more spectacular photo ops, it raised the worry, and the danger, quotient exponentially.

Why did he leave? The Park is as close to “nature” as we have, though it’s all man-made.

New York City’s other Owl. A sighting on the Upper West Side. Photographer unknown.

After living in the confines of the Zoo for 10 years, to suddenly be thrust out into the “wilds” of Manhattan has got to be like being dropped off on another planet would be for us. Like all New Yorkers, and he is certainly one, he’s on his own out here. Somehow, 11 months later, he’s survived on his wits, like many other New Yorkers- this one included.

I never through I’d see a 2 foot tall Owl walking the same streets I do at night, but I’m ready! Let’s hit the town! Photographer unknown.

As more information came to light, the poignancy of it all hit another level. Apparently, Flaco began going further afield searching for a mate.

What could be more human? More universal? Who couldn’t be moved by that?

Being a rare bird- 100,000 to 500,000, total, are believed to exist, and being THIS far from Eurasia, where most of them are, his chances of finding one are not good, to say the least.

Looking for love in the East Village. I’ve been there, man! *Photographer unknown.

When I saw this incredible Photo someone took in the East Village during his sojourn there, I found it heart-breaking. It speaks to me of the extremes he’s gone to. It also speaks to all he’s up against in his search.

“When the joker tried to tell me
I could cut it in this rube town
When he tried to hang that sign on me
I said ‘Take it down'”*

Pounding the pavement, watching out for “the man,” eyes on the prize. Photo- amsterdamnews.com

So, where to with this story?

My read is that the larger public would freak out if the Park tried to recapture Flaco. I wouldn’t. I’d be relieved and I think quite a few others would be, too. The possible bad outcome to this story is too tragic to think about. So, as a passionate Owl lover, myself, I can’t help wonder if an alternative might be for the experts to scour the world’s zoos, forests and jungles for a potential mate for this special Owl. It’s the least we can do for him!

Fatherhood might be the only outcome the larger public would accept.

Then, the lines to see him at The Zoo, would be longer than to see Van Gogh’s Cypresses.

From newyorker.com

And, instead of worrying about him, or listening for the sound of a large Owl landing on my window sill, I can sleep in peace.

“Well I don’t really care
If it’s wrong of if it’s right
But until my ship comes in
I’ll live night by night”*

*Photo by the Central Park Zoo

Happy New Year, brother New Yorker! Hoping you’re safe and wishing you LOVE and every happiness in the New Year!

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Night By Night” by Steely Dan from their album, Pretzel Logic. The title of this piece is adapted from their song “Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)” from Can’t Buy A Thrill. As in somewhere inside me lies a charmer…

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Mohammed Sami: The Power of Invisibility

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Show seen- Mohammed Sami: Muzzle of Time @ Luhring Augustine

Mohammed Sami’s first U.S. show won’t be his last.

Refugee Camp, 2022, on the far wall and seen further below. All works are Mixed media on linen unless specified. Click any picture for full size.

I don’t know if I’m the first to say that, but I say it with confidence. I walked into Mohammed Sami: Muzzle of Time at Luhring Augustine on September 16th and immediately fell under the spell of his mysterious Paintings. I left realizing I’d “discovered” another rising Painter to be reckoned with. Of course, Mohammed Sami had already been discovered by numerous others before I saw his work. It turns out his Art was selected for the 58th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, followed in March, 2022 by his first solo show in London. This spring, that city’s Camden Art Centre mounted his first solo institutional show, Mohammed Sami: The Point 0, known to me through its excellent catalog. When it opened on September 8th at Luhring Augustine, one of NYC’s most forward-looking galleries, Muzzle of Time announced his arrival on these shores in full effect in his first solo show here.

Meditation Room, 2022, 110 1/4 by 90 1/2 inches. Note the portrait of Sadam, near the upper right.

His road to this point has been long and grueling for someone not even 40. Born in Baghdad in 1984, where he had the misfortune of being raised during Saddam’s regime, and the resulting wars. As a dyslexic schoolboy, he traded Painting murals and portraits of Sadam (which every house was required to have) for passing grades in school. In fact, during Mr. Sami’s life in Iraq, the country was involved in no less than EIGHT wars!1. Art would prove to be his way out. He studied Drawing and Painting at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, graduating in 2005, before being granted asylum in Sweden in 2007. He lived there until 2015, leaving to continue his studies in the U.K., which he completed in 2018. He currently lives & works in London.

The Weeping Lines, 2022, 114 5/8 by 135 inches. “‘This is the type of signifier I use to hide the traumatic image behind something entirely different, like a cactus or the carpet on the floor, This helps to distract you from the main subject matter, which is trauma and conflict.’ In Arab culture, he says, euphemism and allegory are used as ‘a delusive strategy to not let the authorities understand what we’re saying.2.'”

Filled with Paintings that played it close to the vest, each revealed enough to be powerfully haunting, lingering in my mind to this moment. Since the show contained just 8 works (6 quite large), I needed to see more to get a feel for his accomplishment to this point. So, I went scurrying to find images of every other Mohammed Sami Painting I could locate. I was equally impressed by what I found, so I undertook this piece. Rendered in a similar style, each reinforced the initial impression though some upped the horror quotient.

A barricade against bombs … 23 Years of Night, 2022, Dimensions not known. Not in the show. *Photo by Robert Glowacki

In A barricade against bombs … 23 Years of Night, the reality of the seemingly innocuous scene is only really revealed in its title. In the process, it also provides a bit of insight into what we are seeing in the rest of his work.

Remnants. Reminders. Hidden scars. His Paintings provide small glimpses into his life that he says are born of “triggers” he came across, randomly, in Sweden, or now in London. The results are Paintings that are more like stills from a Film, leaving it to the viewer to fill in what came before in the story. Instead of hitting them over their heads, his work is characterized by a haunting subtlety that belies exquisite taste, and, it seems to me, supreme confidence in his abilities to communicate..

“The things I articulate in my artwork are memories hidden in the brain cells that are waiting for a trigger. So whenever the trigger is available, then the image comes2.”

Emotional Window II, 2023, 17 3/4 x 17 1/2 inches. Mr. Sami’s work is equally effective in mural size, or in easel size, as seen here.

The Artist Mr. Sami’s work comes closest to, for me, would be Thomas Demand, who constructs uncannily real-life recreations of scenes of historic or notorious import out of paper, leaving it to viewers to figure out what happened in these places. But, Mr Demand (as far as I know), did not grow up and live through, the hell and horror of war.

Moises Saman, A meeting room in an underground bunker used as a command center by Qaddafi’s security forces. Tripoli, Libya, 2011, Color ink-jet print. Not in the show.

As such, he’s, perhaps, closer to a conflict Photographer, like Moises Saman, of Magnum Photos, who covered the conflicts in Iraq, and elsewhere, as in this image he shot in Libya.

Electric Chair I, 2019-20, Acrylic on linen, 74 3/4 x 41 1/8 inches. Not in the show. *- Luhring Augustine Photo.

In fact, a few of his images echo a few of Mr. Sami’s. Im not introducing Mr. Saman here to compare their work. It’s interesting to see how their perspectives are different4.

Refugee Camp, 2022, 114 1/4 x 231 1/4 inches. “Several paintings titled Refugee Camp depict a house set deep within fenced woods, which we might be tempted to read as sinister. Sami, however, describes his stay there as ‘the most beautiful days in my life. It was a school of freedom where you’re free to pick your identity.’ He returns there every month. ‘It was a shock,’ he says. ‘You live in dust and deserts with the sound of bullets. And suddenly you open your eyes to gardens like heaven5.'”

Mohammed Sami had to move thousands of miles to have his life. Though Sadam is gone, the war is over, the scars remain, as they do after every conflict. It’s rare that a survivor expresses him or herself and their experiences in paint. Most History Paintings in Art history were done by Artists who were not eyewitnesses6. Even rarer to do so so subtly, relying on the power of the invisible to tell a visual story. Yet, it seems to me, that it is just this approach that allows him to tap into the collective unconscious. Everyone has things in our pasts that we are suddenly reminded of out of the blue by something we come across in the here and now, though they may not be war-related. In Mr. Sami’s work, we are transported by these triggers into what his experiences felt like, or feels like now, if not always the actual representation of events.

I can’t recall seeing this done, and done so effectively, in Painting before.

One Thousand and One Nights, 2022, 112 5/8 by 219 1/4 inches.

I haven’t been able to get Mr. Sami’s work off my mind these past two months. It haunts me the way I imagine his memories have haunted him. I haven’t read anything about whether these works are “therapeutic” for the Artist in some ways, or not. Having released these demons onto linen, I can only hope they exorcised them and help heal the scars. Still, there’s one thing that becoming apparent: his work is resonating with viewers. Mohammed Sami’s star is rising quickly.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Only the Dead See the End of the War” by Acrassicauda from Baghdad, who are, perhaps, best known as the subjects of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad, 2007. One night a few years later, Acrassicauda’s guitarist, Tony Aziz, happened to sit down next to me at East of Eighth, on West 23rd Street- like Cecily Brown had a few years before. After I was introduced to him by my friend, Stephen, we had a fascinating, wide-ranging conversation. He was warm, well-spoken and quick to smile. He would leave the band in 2011. I hope he’s well.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Here
  2. The Guardian 3.21.2022
  3. The Guardian 3.21.2022
  4. A bit like looking at Matthew Brady’s  or Alexander Gardner’s Civil War Photographs and then Winslow Homer’s Civil War Paintings.
  5. The Guardian, 3.21.2022
  6. Goya may be an exception, though I haven’t seen proof that he was actually present at the events he is sometimes credited with witnessing.

Kenn Sava – Finalist for the 2023 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Award

Good evening,
My thanks to the Andy Warhol Foundation for my selecting me as a Finalist for their Arts Writers Award out of 500 they said they considered across all the Arts. It’s one of the most prestigious awards in Art writing. While I wasn’t one of the 27 winners, after eight years and 4 months of hard work1, this is the first time my writing has been so recognized by the larger Art world.

While I’m writing this to thank them for their recognition, I’m also writing this to acknowledge that I’ve been remiss in not saying THANK YOU to all the people who have helped me with their support over the past 8 years since this site started on July 15th, 2015, and before. I hope you’ll bear with me while I attempt to rectify that here and now. Whether your name appears below, or not, I’m grateful for each and every one of you. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the support I’ve receive, I would have stopped long ago. It’s your support that has given me the strength to keep going. Thank You!

First and foremost, my Thanks to Lana,

Lana contemplating one of her favorite Paintings in MoMA’s collection- Marc Chagall’s I and the Village, 1911, during our most recent visit to MoMA, December 31, 2019.

who had the vision back in 2015 that I should create NighthawkNYC.com and write about Art. If you’ve gotten anything from this site, you owe her your thanks. (In case you were wondering, that little Owl that appears in the upper right corner of all my banners, my avatar, is my drawing of an Owl keychain she gave me right after we met. I call him “Oof.” Oof appears as my higher power in honor of Lana, making sure I do the best I can.)

Artist, Activist and Influencer Magdalena Truchan, one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met, was the first person I told I was starting NighthawkNYC.com. I wrote about her here, and she has supported me in so many ways ever since. I’m thankful to call her my friend.

Thank You!-
Tim Rollins
Benjamin J. Arrindell
Jeanne Neary Look
Jeff Kirsch (a True Renaissance man) & Dana Burrel
Gregory Halpern & Ahndraya Parlato
Kris Graves
Kitty for her help with research
Mirek Goraj
Harry Gruyaert
Sam McCoy
Phil Cai
Eric Bur
Amy Harding
Lisa
Rod & Debbie Penner
Tony Moore
John Verna
The Guggenheim Museum
The Museum of Modern Art
The Metropolitan Museum
The Whitney Museum
The Morgan Library
The Walker Art Center
LACMA
Monika Condrea
Luhring Augustine
Sikkema Jenkins
Ki Smith
Raymond Pettibon
Sheena Wagstaff
Dr. Gail Levin
Anish Kapoor
Richard Estes
Chris Ware
Bruce Davidson
Robert & Aline-Kominsky Crumb
William Eggleston
Neo Rauch & Rosa Loy
Patti Smith
Leonardo Drew
Cai Dongdong
Mikhail Mishin
Moises Saman
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Richard Mosse
Petra Collins
Kellie McLaughlin
Mercedes Jelinek
Robert Longo
Shahrzad Darafsheh
Shane Rocheleau
Jason Koxvold
Fluffy Q
Todd Hido
Stephen Shore
Caslon Bevington
Alberto Hernandez
Miss Lloyd, Shakia, Veronica & the staff the Chelsea Post Office
Gabe & the staff of The Box Store, Flatiron, NYC
Jerry & the staff of Starbucks, West 19th Street

To the Artists I’ve written about- Your support has been, and is, essential to me. The feedback I’ve gotten from Artists has been uniformly positive. I’m proud to say that some of you are among my biggest supporters. I’m hoping that continues and I will try and live up to your support (while maintaining my integrity).

Thank You! to every single person who has contributed via PayPal, or bought books, Art and Music from my collection to help keep me, and NighthawkNYC.com, going during all that’s gone on since 2015.

BELIEVE ME when I say-

This site wouldn’t be here without ALL of your support!

I must also thank the doctors who have treated me during my illnesses and hospitalizations from 2021-23. A doctor saved my life when I had cancer in 2007. I continue to be blessed to have been in the care of some of the finest doctors anywhere. Among them, I simply must single out Dr. Gerasimos Kappatos, for taking an interest in my condition, for his many kindnesses, advice and friendship.

Thank You! to each and every one of you who’ve read one or more of my 320 pieces along the way. I’ve loved getting your feedback, support, questions, typo corrections, and notice of oversights. I always look forward to getting them. Even more, I’m very proud of the fact that readership has continued to grow, each and every year for eight years!

The downside is that I really could have used the financial support that winning such an award brings. Without it, I need to ask, once again, that if you find what I’ve done here of value, if you’ve found any of my pieces worthwhile, please consider making a donation. Since I don’t run ads, affiliate links, or have a pay gate, I’m left with counting on donations and sales of books & Art from my personal collection (Yes. I am selling my personal belongings to fund this site- that’s how important it is to me) to be able to continue.

Thank You, again! And, Thank You in advance for supporting independent Art writing!

(Borrowing how Vincent van Gogh closed his Letters) “With a hug in thought,”
Kenn Sava.
11.25.2023

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” by Sly & The Family Stone.

If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

  1. So far in 2023, I’ve published 25 full-length pieces.

November 22nd- Sixty Years On

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

“Yes, I’ll sit with you and talk, let your eyes relive again
I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same”*-
“Sixty Years On,” by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

November 22nd, 1963. It’s a day that probably doesn’t mean much to many who weren’t born yet. But, if you were living on that day, I think it’s a day none of us have forgotten.

I remember it all, from a safe distance of 1,370, or so, miles away as the owl majestically flies from Dallas, TX to NYC. As it turned out, it wasn’t a safe distance at all. As horrific as all the events of the weekend of Friday November 22nd, through 24th, 1963 were. It included watching a man being killed for the first time in my life. John F. Kennedy being assassinated is an event that, 60 years ago today as I write, just hasn’t gone away. I’m not talking about the who-done-the horrible deed, the endless conspiracy theories, or the circus surrounding the events. I’m talking about something much, much bigger that rarely gets mentioned, lost in all the other talk that, frankly, just doesn’t matter any more. If Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t kill JFK, whoever did is most likely dead by now as is anyone he might have been involved with. 

He, or they, are no longer the point. What matters now is what’s happened to everyone else. 

Cornell Capa (Robert’s brother), JFK During a campaign event, NYC, USA, October 19, 1960. Click any photo for full size.

Set the way, way back machine to the beginning… I remember when JFK ran for President in 1960. He was so very well-spoken and it sure sounded like it came from the heart. Then there was his incredible feat of saving his crew after the PT boat he was commanding in the Pacific during World War II was hit and sunk. I came to admire him.

From Four Days by the UPI & American Heritage Magazine

Fast forward to Friday, November 22nd, 1963. There I was in the school nurse’s office, due to after-effects of a bad accident I suffered a few months before when I was hit in the head by a baseball bat. Accidentally, I hope. I was out cold before my face hit the concrete. No one came to help me for about 40 minutes as I lay unconscious. I finally got up and staggered home. I was out of school for a month, and still having problems with the cuts healing, etc. At 12:30pm, as I sat there waiting her attention, I heard the radio report coming over the speaker above me: JFK had been shot in his motorcade in Dallas.

There are other, more graphic shots of this, but this grainy still from a Film speaks to me much more. Jackie was the first one to feel our pain. Though none of us could imagine her’s. She would be an incredible model of class & strength from this moment on. *-UPI Newsfilm image from Four Days.

What???????

There really are just no words for the feeling I had. It was completely unfathomable. 

I can still hear that radio report…

Even for a little kid- everything stopped. People just looked at each other with their mouths open, unable to speak.

A short while later they announced he was dead.

The New York Times, November 23, 1963

To say it was beyond belief is cliche, but true. It was beyond anything anyone could imagine. I had never experienced anything like this. It was something I had never even considered- that a man in such a position could be killed, outside of war.

My copy of Four Days, the 1964 “historical record,” as it says, published by the UPI and American Heritage Magazine. Copies trade on eBay today for about $3.

I don’t remember getting home, but I do remember that everyone was glued to their TV when I did from then on, and continually, for the better part of four days: Friday through Monday, when JFK was buried. It became the title of the book American Heritage Magazine & the UPI published later as a, mostly, visual record. There he sits in the cover Photo taken mere minutes before the tragedy, in the prime of life, in a Photo that, unbeknownst to everyone at the time, marked the end of the world as we knew it. Meanwhile, back in the moment, everyone & everything in the country stopped to watch and to mourn. As the day wore on, nothing changed that initial feeling of utter disbelief.

SIXTY YEARS later (I shook my head in amazement as I typed that) it still feels unreal. 

From Four Days

I watched all the rest of it unfold live. Most memorably, Sunday, November 24th. 

From Four Days

After lying in state at the White House on Saturday, on Sunday, a long procession and ceremonies took his body to the Capitol in a strangely stark light, as the pictures above show. At least it appeared that way on black & white televisions and how it is burned into my memory. It was like an other-worldly and very powerful spotlight was being focused on the procession. Then, a little after 11am, as I was sitting in my living room, watching TV with my mom, who was in and out of the room, Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK’s accused assassin, was brought down to the basement garage under the police station by Dallas Police for transfer to a larger prison. All of a sudden, on live TV, a man lurched out from the right and shot him in the mid-section!!! A short time later, Oswald, too, was dead.

Oswald is shot by Ruby as I watched on live TV. *-UPI Newsfilm image from Four Days.

It was the first murder ever broadcast on live television.

As a little kid watching this happen in front of him, it was just one more thing on the pile of unbelievable things that had gone on the past 3 days. Somehow, it didn’t register as a separate event, as horrific as it was. I wonder about that now. My mom didn’t say a word. 

At that point, in late November, 1963, I was, already, no stranger to fear. A few years earlier, we were pushed to the brink of the unthinkable- nuclear war- during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Adults figured Washington D.C. and NYC would be the first targets of missiles fired from Cuba or submarine. People were glued to radios and TVs then to learn of the latest developments until tensions finally lessened after what felt like forever. It was, perhaps, the peak moment of terror in the entire Cold War which was raging in full effect during my childhood and beyond.

Students being taught to hide under their desks in the event of an atomic explosion nearby(!) *-Still from Duck & Cover.

In “response,” I was among the millions of kids being taught to “Duck and Cover” under our desks at school to “prepare” for a nuclear bomb going off in the vicinity- at any time! We were also taught where the Fallout Shelters were. There was no mention during either of these instructions about meeting up with our families. I didn’t think about that at the time I was under my desk, staring at the floor. Can you imagine what the “fallout” would be if this worthless nonsense was taught to little kids today?

A vintage Fallout Shelter sign. I had to shoot it with the flash because the sign is so old and rusted only the reflective paint has held up. I didn’t bother to ask if there was still a fallout shelter there. Hopefully, I won’t need to find out. West 18th Street, November 27, 2023.

All of a sudden, my quiet childhood had been turned upside down by the insanity of world politics. 

Out of everything that happened during those years, did JFK being murdered have the biggest effect on the country and the world?

His death effected my life in the way few presidents have either during their lives or after their deaths, in countless ways I couldn’t imagine as a little kid in November, 1963. (None of this is said politically. One of the casualties of November 22nd was my permanent loss of interest in politics.) For instance- Some years later, I was in the Vietnam Draft Lottery. Luckily, my birthdate came up too high and I wasn’t called. If I had been called, there is no doubt in my mind, with what I know now, that my name would be with the other casualties up on that wall  in Washington instead of writing about the following 60 years here.

It’s possible JFK might have gotten us out of it before my number came up, but, we’ll never know. Luckily, November 22nd, 1963 didn’t indirectly cost me my life as collateral fallout, but that fallout has covered the world in countless ways- if you look for it. It turns out there is no such thing as being a “safe distance” from the events of that day. I’ve often thought the country has never been the same since November 22nd, 1963. I’ve heard a number of others say that, too. But, that’s hard to quantify. It’s something no one who was born after can really understand. The world would have been different had John F. Kennedy lived, but we’ll never know how. We’ll also never know if “different” would have been “better.” 

JFK never got to grow old in his beloved rocking chair. I wonder what he would have made of the country & the world as he did. Bruce Catton writes, ironically, “The future sets us free. It is our escape hatch.” From Four Days.

On the 60th Anniversary of his death, that’s what I think about. Not the distracting noise about bullet theories. I think about the world those bullets fired sixty years ago today have given us, and how JFK’s death has effected me and everyone, whether we know how, or not. And, how it continues to.

If all of its ramifications could possibly be tallied, World War II is possibly the most significant event of the previous generation. If ALL of their ramifications could possibly be tallied, it feels to me that (through the year 2000) the JFK Assassination and the Moon Landing, which he committed the nation to achieving before the end of the 1960s, were the two most significant events of my generation.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Sixty Years On,” by Elton John & Bernie Taupin from Elton John, his classic 1970 debut album, performed above Live at the Royal Opera House in 2002.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

NoteWorthy Art Books, 2023: Hughie Lee-Smith

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Hughie Lee-Smith, published by Karma, 2023, is an Also Recommended NoteWorthy Art Book for 2023. The rest of my list may be seen here.

Hughie Lee-Smith’s work was new to me when I walked into Karma in the East Village in August, 2022, where 34 of his Paintings ranging from early to late in the Artist’s six-decade long career were on display. Taken by what I saw, I wrote about the show in a piece titled “Hughie Lee-Smith: Leaving History Behind,” highlighting my feeling that “…time is going to be kind to Hughie Lee-Smith’s work,” as I said concluding it. Still, as good as the show was, it was hard to get a feel for his overall accomplishment. In the end, the show was an appetizer, instilling a desire to see more.

Click any picture for full size.

A year later isn’t the kind of “time” I was referring to, given it can take a hundred years1 or quite longer2 for the dust to settle on exactly what posterity considers to be “Art,” with a capital “A.” Yet, a little over a year later, the main course has arrived in the form of Karma’s massive six-plus pound, 400-page, Hughie Lee Smith monograph. It leaves me with the inescapable feeling that the late Mr. Smith (1915-1999) deserves to be in the ranks of the significant Painters of a 20th century that doesn’t realize it.

HIs 1964 Self-Portrait has a starkness that echoes that seen in much of his other work.

Well, the century’s only been over for 23 years. It’s still too early to write a definitive history of 20th century Art, in my view. In fact, I guarantee that someone still unknown or under-known to us will yet come to light and make his or her case for inclusion like the case being made for Mr. Lee-Smith is.

Hughie Lee-Smith is the third book known to me on the Artist, and the most comprehensive look yet at his larger body of work, and therefore important: qualities I’m featuring in my other NoteWorthy Art Books this year. The book itself is a bit less than ideal, but more on that later. The real point here is Hughie Lee-Smith shows the consistent high quality the Artist achieved and maintained over 6+ decades, in the process, making the most compelling case for his importance and place in Art history.

Hughie Lee-Smith’s work is many things, and probably many different things to the people who’ve seen it, as I glean from reading the essays. Among those things, I have yet to see the work of another Artist that can hit some of the same notes that Edward Hopper (1882-1967) is, perhaps, most famous for; what people call the “loneliness, “isolation” and “melancholy” of modern life (which I saw differently earlier this year). I think that’s remarkable in its own right, but it’s not the sum total of Mr. Lee-Smith’s Art.

Hughie Lee-Smith was in no way “doing” Edward Hopper. He was his own man. He Painted completely for himself, through his experiences and the way he saw the world, in a style distinctly his own. That’s plenty compelling enough and his work deserves to be seen on its own merits.

Though it’s not stated what percentage the included work represents of his total oeuvre, it must be a very substantial part. Seeing so many of his Paintings spanning sixty years, from 1938 to 1998, is revelatory. First, the quality of his work over those six decades, as shown here, never lets up, though his style evolves and solidifies into what becomes his trademark blend of urban realism, theater and character study. His figures often seem locked inside themselves, their own interior world, inside a world that looks like ours. Hopper’s figures seem to be locked inside of our world, or a world much like it to the point that so many viewers, apparently, can related to it to the point that he is now one of the most popular Artists in the world. Like Hopper, Mr. Lee-Smith’s figures are on the line between representational and nebulous in the just the right degree. As in Hopper, facial details can get softened adding to their mystery. Most of them are solitary- even when there are others present, then they’re all solitary, doing their own thing or experiencing place and time for themselves, as in Outing, c.1970 shown above. Has anyone else done this?, or done this so often? Balthus’s The Street comes to mind (save for that “problematic” interaction on the left side). In fact, this “alone togetherness” seems to me to be a continual running theme through Mr. Lee-Smith’s very long career right to the very last works shown.

Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma of Arrival and the Afternoon, 1912, Oil on canvas. To this point, de Chirico is most discussed for his so-called “Metaphysical” Paintings to about 1922. Rarely mentioned is that he lived another 56 years and continued to Paint at a high level until his death.

While Hopper may or may not be an influence, it seems harder to deny that Georgio de Chirico (1888-1978) wasn’t one. His possible influence feels continual. Figures isolated, or in small groups, in urban or suburban settings, and, perhaps, even more, the enigmatic atmosphere most of them share. It’s also interesting that a number of de Chico’s Paintings have streamer, pendants or flags flying, like the one above.

3 balloons on the ground, a long streamer up top…Aftermath…of what?

For someone new to his work, these seem a bit incongruous. Yet, they appear so often, it’s the kind of thing that makes one wonder why they’re there and what they “mean.” In this instance, their appearance may go back to his childhood. 

“During the years Lee-Smith lived with his grandmother in Atlanta, a visiting carnival would set up every year in a field across from his grandmother’s house. Although he was never allowed to attend, the carnival would have a lasting impact on his work. About the carnival, the artist said:

‘I was fascinated by the hauntingly dissonant sound of the calliope and the profusion of colorful ribbons, balloons, and pennants. However it was the denial of the pleasure of ever attending that carnival, owing to my grandmother’s perception of it as iniquitous, that established in my unconscious a life-long fascination with carnival life: some of the accouterments of which were to become characteristic elements of my painting many years later.'”3

The longer I look at them I wonder if his Landscapes without figures are all that different from his Landscapes with figures. They’re something of a tour de force in the sense that the Artist may still be expressing some of the same things as his Paintings with figures do. In these, the buildings look like individuals, who seem to be locked into themselves in a different sense than simply closing or locking a door. There’s often, though not always, an element of “other” in them: like a colored streamer, a balloon. Indicative, perhaps, of life going on in these places, or leftover memories of the Artist’s earlier days. Innocence hanging on in a time of new realities. 

Then, his late period shows the world something different, though not entirely: a different world. The settings are more imaginary, almost theatrical, yet the feeling remains meditative, the characters still inward looking. It all makes for a compelling whole of a very high quality throughout. Of so many Paintings, very, very few struck me as being “lesser,” and those only by comparison to the rest that are very strong.

A future “icon?”

It seems to me that Mr. Lee-Smith’s oeuvre contains a number of images that have the potential to become “iconic”: images that that have universal appeal they are seen often to the point of too often. The highlights are, frankly, too many to mention. 

All of this came as a shock to me as someone who had only seen 34 of his Paintings in the show last year. With every turn of the page, I felt the increased weight (heft) of his accomplishment adding up, and adding up, and adding up.

Though I’ve already published my NoteWorthy Art Books, 2023 list, I am amending it to add Hughie Lee Smith as a book I am “Also Recommending.” It’s likely to remain the most comprehensive book on his Art there is, and given what I feel will be his increasing importance and popularity, will be sought-after indefinitely. (The first edition is of 1 thousand copies, which will disappear if his star does continue to rise as I expect.) The production values are solid. Good paper, decent binding and boards, but this is not a perfect book. A number of the reproductions are blurry. Nothing is said in the book about this, so I don’t know why. Is this an artifact of the fact that his was work created over six decades and quality reproductions of some pieces were not available? Were some low resolution images that don’t enlarge well? Still, this shouldn’t dissuade anyone from checking Hughie Lee-Smith out. It’s likely to remain the best and only place to see most of his work. A good number of the Paintings included are in museums. It seems to me an increasing number will be.

All of this tells me that the time is here for a full-blown Hughie Lee-Smith Retrospective. Along with this book, such a show will go a long way to establishing his place once and for all.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Time Has Come Today,” by The Chambers Brothers, released in 1967, 3 years after Mr. Lee-Smith’s Self-Portrait, shown earlier, was Painted, and during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, though neither is directly referenced, performed here on the Ed Sullivan show in a truncated version-

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  1. in Francis Bacon’s view
  2. in my opinion
  3. P.29-30