A Post-It seems rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things—its only purpose to remind you of things you have yet to do (and often don’t want to do). But when it says something interesting, and you have the ability to post it ANYWHERE, a Post-It suddenly becomes a powerful little tool, like a primitive Tweet.

For the next several weeks, the IMA will be placing Post-Its all over the city. The Post-Its ask a simple (sort of) question: Who is Ai Weiwei? And if you don’t know, you should.

Image courtesy Lindsey Lord

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As many of the previous conservation blog postings have illustrated, conservators are often faced with challenges in the analysis and treatment of artworks; however, sometimes the examination of a work can be in itself a challenge.  When a work enters the IMA conservation studio, it is carefully examined and documented.  Documentation includes reporting observations about the object’s condition and detailed photography of all surfaces.  During this process, x-ray images may be taken.  X-radiographs can augment the conservator’s understanding of the object’s condition, reveal the artist’s technique, and expose artist changes.

Unfortunately, sometimes the process is not as easy as taking a quick x-ray image of a work.  What happens when the image in question is obscured by another element of the work itself?  Take for example cradled panel paintings.  In the past, treatment of wooden panel paintings often included adhering a criss-crossed network of wooden beams to the reverse to support the panel.  Conservators now know that restraining wood in such a way can cause additional damage, but the process of removing a cradle can be invasive and is often not necessary if the painting is kept in a stable environment.  The network of beams, however, complicates x-radiography.

A case in point is this small (11 1/4 in. x 8 ⁵/₈ in.) Dutch portrait by Ferdinand Bol from 1659.  A cradle has been adhered to the reverse, likely to support two horizontal damages (one towards the top through the sitter’s hat and one at the bottom below the sitter’s hand).

Front and back of Portrait of a Man by Ferdinand Bol

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The artwork in Graphite that really got me was Staumauer by Michaela Früwirth. The piece was seemingly larger than any other piece. I was immediately drawn to it because honestly, I did not understand why someone would create such a large and seemingly “blank” piece of art. As an educator, graphite is largely confined to pencils, number 2 pencils to be exact. These pencils, while they are instruments we use to write and express ourselves in other written formats, have come to symbolize testing to me; typically of the standardized variety. Usually, you have to have a number 2 pencil sharpened and ready for the completion of your standardized test. Technology has taken us into a digital era, however most tests are still conducted with the use of pencil and paper in some aspect. Seeing that large graphite filled piece of art in a room of many other artworks that rely on graphite made me think, “We are so wrong about how graphite can be used in schools.”  Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of an ongoing series that explores new interpretations of works within the IMA collection through creative writing. In the post below, author Joe Wadlington provides his interpretation of  The Majesty Receives by William Holbrook Beard. After reading, visit the IMA’s online collection to learn about the artist’s intentions for the work. 

William Holbrook Beard, “The Majesty Receives,” 1885. James E. Roberts Fund. 76.13

Michael was having the dreams again. His therapist explained that Michael was projecting unresolved issues with his wife onto his mother-in-law’s withheld approval, making her “the gatekeeper of his marital bliss.” His wife said he needed to stop eating Slim Jims before bed.

Either way, once Michael hit the final stage of sleep, his dreams took him to a perverted Sherwood Forest. But not the Sherwood Forest from the play or book Robin Hood—the one from the Disney movie Robin Hood, where everyone was an animal. Michael would be something weak, like a rabbit, mouse, or stoat. While his mother-in-law, the villain of Michael’s dreams and waking life, would be re-imagined as King John in the form of a fox or bobcat (and this one time an especially aggressive panda). Except that if it was Disney’s Robin Hood, then shouldn’t the fox be Robin Hood? Or maybe Michael was supposed to turn into Robin Hood? What was a stout anyway, like a gerbil thing?

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Mario Botta, Single-family house in Ligornetto,Ticino, Switzerland, 1975-1976.

My first project in architectural school was drawing a house designed by Mario Botta. It was an exercise designed to teach us how to draw isometric images, and I think the Botta house was selected because it was such a simple form.  It was a long narrow house that looked like a shoebox on its side, with irregularly shaped openings cut out of it and stripes across the sides. I loved it! I had never seen a house like this and I was immediately interested in finding more of his work.

Botta’s roots in Lugano, Switzerland certainly reveal themselves in his work. Lugano is in a mountainous part of the country, with tranquil lakes and an amazing alpine skyline. The proximity to Italy no doubt allowed him to be exposed to the work of Carlo Scarpa, an architect whose attitudes to masonry, geometry and precise detailing seem to be reflected in Botta’s work. While the majority of his work is in his native region and includes single-family houses, vacation houses, offices religious buildings and even warehouses, his best known work in the United States is the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mario Botta, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1992-1995.

I think Botta is a good example of an “architect’s architect.” His work is precise and tailored, sensitive to context, but bold and self-assured. Symmetry and texture play an important part in his work, and his vocabulary generally consists of a masonry shell, cracked to reveal its jewel-like contents as though you took a band-saw to a geode. Strong striping and simple geometric forms define its character.

Mario Botta, Tesi table, 1985.

This table acquired by the IMA is an evolution of that architectural vocabulary and an extension of his materiality. Like the center of a geode, the Tesi materials are multifaceted and shiny. A simple metal triangle extrudes to create a minimal base. Bold metal stripes articulate the support of the rectangular glass top. The Tesi table is a great piece of interior architecture that fittingly represents Botta’s bold body of work.