31 notes about the art gallery of chicago

1. in the vernacular show, baltz work that i had never seen before, silverpoint prints that look like plantinum, busier compositons
2. a couple of great le trecs, a large dancing scene with a woman in the middle that looks german in her grotesqurie, and a tall, thin portrait of jean west, where the colour and composition are startling whistlerian
3. gustave callibote, who did a few of my favourite big french 19th century painting, still life of tounge and pigs head, the fleshiness and texture of the work was the same skill set as renoir's fat nudes and complacent children, making it delightfully gory, esp since it was hung as the introduction to a room of renoir
4. john martin's mezzotints of biblical relief post apocolypses, including a dark and intiminadting noah after the flood, the least hopeful rainbow ever
   
5. twombly, border gaurds from 1952 from his time at black mountain, thick black lines and splatter on a red ground, could be kline or motherwell from the same time--good reminder that twombly was a doctoronaire modernist, and that modernism itself was doctonarie
6. two great queer works on paper a demuth of two sailors and a buisnessmen waiting outside a bar, called that kind of place, and a study for a cadmus
   
7. (cadmus/balthus c and c)
   
8. biggest chardin ive seen, not dense at all, domainted by a white linen table cloth 5 or 6 items
   
9. two chardin pastel portraits from the end of his life, for someone going blind via lead painting, these are so detail oritented
   
10. a johns cross hatch painintg, two 4x4 grids, not quite an all over pattern, because of the inclusion of some kelly green underpainting--
11. a catenary from two years ago--visible door hinges and cherry wood add to the trompe d oiel, three painted hanging elements, and one made from string--a v. smart set of implications of the realness of depictions--still convinced that it is a portrait of aging and decay--literally a limp dick paintnig
12. a whole room of 60s gustons, big an painterly with large abstract sections, in pinks, reds, whites and greens--made me wonder if the late gustons are a synthesis of the social realism and the ab ex w ork.
    
13. a cambodian linga of three distinct sections, the bottom a perfect cube, the middle curved with the edges chopped off, and the top an elliptical sphere--so the linga had a narrative of materialst refinement, reminded me of a beautiful martin puyer in the collection, which had a box of milled wood balanced on two long sticks, leaned agianst a wall
14. big shaped stella
15. 6 rymans from 82-87, manufactured, with large sections of visible steel, buckled against the wall, fastners really obvious, missed his delicate touch, these are as far away from paintings that they could go and still bne called that
    
16. big artschwager pink triangle table, out of formica, the pink secitons had gold threads
    
17. a david w, mostly about the pulp represntations of mascluine violence in a culture where queer men do not have the access to traditional tropes of maculinity, the big silk screen of a grocery store sign selling steak was a big suprising, because i thot those elements were collaged
    
18. an agnes grid of washed graphite on a grey field, not really that exciting,
    
19. mondrian is not holding up well, yellow faded, white greying, but the reds still pop
20. other great work from that school, including a bold black and white van doesberg, and a geometric vantellego sculpture
    
21. a bunch of matisse work from the 30s made me realise how much he qoutes himself,
    
22. some great german work, better german collection then detroit, sf, or ny (maybe not the nueue gallerie--an epic beckmann, a great nolde)
23. tinterreto's rape of lucreation, 6 perfect pearls fall from necklace one cathcing on her barely there drapery
    
24. 4 terra cotta evangelists from the 15th cnetury
    
25. a great cranch adam and eve, a decent van dyck, some beutiful durer drawings, a couple of not bad rembrandts,
    

eggleston note:
a) the warhol parodox (ie is he depicting or is he paradoying) is in full effect here,
b) i was a little dissaopinted by them, i keep wondering if he holds up past the half a dozen really famous, really brillant work
c) his still lives, his work w/o people are much better then his work with people
d) i wonder if the formal arguements that surround his work are a way of mainstreaming colour photography, and also a way of not talking about some of the more difficult elements of his practice (including but not limited to some weirdness about race)

more notes when the photos are up