The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) Panel with Alessandra Comini, Prof. of Art History Emerita at SMU in Dallas and curator of Egon Schiele: Portraits exhibition opening this week at Neue Galerie in NYC , Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize Neuroscientist and Jane Kallir Co-Director of Galerie St. Etienne was excellent. All three panelists gave us differing yet complementary insights into post 1900 Viennese portraiture.
Alessandra Comini focused on four turn-of the century Viennese Expressionists: Egon Schiele, Richard Gerstl, Max Oppenheimer and Oscar Kokoschka. Her presentation was - as usual - and I am a big fan - delivered with clarity, straightforward and humorous, without undermining the intensity of their work, but rather enhancing our awareness of the artists and their art with surprising unconventional observations. She also related these artists to an important historical period of time, contrasting their "expressionistic/anxious" portraiture with 19 century staid representation. By placing images side by side we experienced the powerful break from tradition mirroring the historical changes in the Austro - Hungarian Empire.
I was fascinated by Eric R. Kandel's presentation. He wrote a book titled Author, The Age of Insight—The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain - [The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art. At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today...] Dr. Kandel was also quite charming with a great sense of humor including sound effects of neurons charging in his powerpoint images of the brain looking at art - which made me laugh out loud.
Jane Kallir took us into the questions of restitution in re Nazi art stolen from Jewish families during the Holocaust - using her grandfather Otto Kallir - who had a gallery in Vienna called Neue Galere (no relation to the Lauder Museum in NYC) - and his flight after the 1938 Anschluss to America where he opened Galerie St. Etienne in NYC in 1940 bringing with him Schieles,Klimts, Cezannes, and other Modernists that the Nazi's allowed out of the country at that time because they were considered "degenerate art." Kallir's first show of Schiele was in 1940 but he was unable to sell any of the work - the drawings went for $20 and the watercolors for $60.. Later the Nazi's held on to the "despised" art and sold them to countries that did value the work in order to get money to use for the war effort.
Fascinating panel and personal, as my parents also fled Nazi Germany and came to America in 1939 and settled in NYC.
No comments:
Post a Comment