Curio Cabinet

An art exhibition opens in New York City and redefines American perceptions of beauty.

Yeah, yeah, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The platitude is a given in our day and age; but for Americans living at the beginning of the 20th century, not so much. Art critics of the era insisted upon strict adherence to classical values and aesthetics, until a group of rebellious artists called the Association of American Painters and Sculptors orchestrated the legendary Armory Show. The exhibition, which radically transformed American perceptions of art, took place on today's date in 1913.
 

At the turn of the century, New York City's harbors teemed with steel ships and its towers rose to unprecedented heights. But the modernization of its art scene remained stagnant. Most of the Big Apple's galleries catered to the Old Masters, holding up classical depictions of beauty alongside 19th-century realism. As European galleries clamored over the emerging Fauvist, Cubist, and Futurist styles, those in the U.S. remained out of touch with the times.
 

Then, in 1911, a group of progressive artists met at the Madison Gallery in New York’s Upper East Side. Dubbing themselves the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS), they conspired to revolt against conservative art institutions by launching an avant-garde exhibition, with Arthur Bowen Davies acting as its principal organizer. Davies, alongside fellow members, scoured Europe in search of any forward-thinking artists they could find for the exhibition. Meanwhile, other members corralled American artists who had thus far been shunned by conservative institutions, namely the National Academy of Design.
 

Throughout 1912, Davies and AAPS member Walt Kuhn amassed an arsenal of modernist paintings in Europe, which included Henri Matisse's Blue Nude (1907), Picasso's Standing Female Nude (1911), and other masterpieces. Back home, AAPS members wrangled paintings, sculptures, and sketches from a couple hundred American artists, like landscape abstractionists Albert Pinkham Ryder and Leon Dabo. Finally, the International Exhibition of Modern Art, aka the Armory Exhibit, was ready after a year of furious efforts.
 

On Feb. 17, 1913, the exhibit opened to a tempest of reactions. Critics balked at the "primitive" work of European modernists and compared the show to an insane asylum. In regards to the violently abstracted paintings, one connoisseur remarked, "It makes me fear for the world…. Something must be wrong with an age which can put those things in a gallery and call them art." American artists at large, however, were enraptured. Marcel Duchamp's Cubist-inspired Nude Descending a Staircase, in particular, resonated with those wary of classical styles. The piece, which was described as "an explosion in a shingle factory," depicts not a woman, but the motion of a woman clearing steps—a truly revolutionary concept at the time.
 

Some 87,000 people visited the Armory Exhibit in New York, with many of them walking away realizing, for the first time, the limitless potential of art. For centuries, artists had been expected to perfect form by way of raw technical skill; suddenly, the potential of art as a mode of expression was unleashed on the U.S., making way for the abstract expressionists of the '50s and the pop artists of the '60s. Critic Harriet Monroe of the Sunday Tribune wrote of the freshly exposed modernists: "These radical artists are right. They represent a search for new beauty... [and] a longing for new versions of truth observed."
 

Below: pieces from the 1913 Armory Show, including Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, 2012; Paul Gauguin's Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil), 1892; and Wassily Kandinsky's Improvisation 27 (Garden of Love II), 1912.
 

Image credit & copyright: Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art / Philadelphia Museum of Art/Copyright succession Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2013 / National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. / The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Presidents’ Day Weekend.
 

Former President Barack Obama once described this moment as the "longest 40 minutes of my life." Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza recognized it as a moment that would change the world. The Situation Room, taken by Souza on May 1, 2011, marked the end of a decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. It instantly became a historically-defining photograph and, in true internet-age form, meme fodder. It isn't hard to see how Souza, who also held the same position under President Reagan, gained the trust of the national security staff; he portrayed the off-the-cuff reactions of his extraordinary subjects with the same fine eye he took to more formal affairs. Among the two million images Souza snapped during the Obama administration are moments like the former president caught in Spider-Man's web, jogging with First Dog Bo, and playfully tipping the scales during a visit to the University of Texas in Austin. During his tenure, Souza's motto could have easily been "ask not what your country can do for you, but what your camera can do for your country!"
 

Below: more photos from Pete Souza's tenure as Chief Official White House Photographer to President Obama.
 

Image credit & copyright: Pete Souza
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of Presidents’ Day Weekend.
 

Title: John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Artist: Aaron Shikler (1922–2015)
Created: 1970
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 34 x 50 in (86.4 x 127 cm)
Current location: The White House, Washington, D.C.
 

Why is John F. Kennedy looking down? In honor of this upcoming Presidents' Day, we take a look at one of the most unusual White House presidential portraits. The 35th president's official painting looks nothing like those of other presidents, whose subjects are posed in a stately manner, often square with the viewer. It was Jackie Kennedy who commissioned painter Aaron Shikler for the job in 1970, seven years after John's assassination. She didn't know exactly what she wanted, but she knew what she didn't want: for "him to look the way everybody else makes him look, with the bags under his eyes and that penetrating gaze. I’m tired of that image." Without a live model, Shikler used reference photographs. He was particularly struck by two. The first was an image from a New York Times article where the late president is deep in conversation with his brother Robert, and the second was of his other brother, Ted, mourning during John's funeral with his head bowed. In seeing these moments, Shikler knew he had to capture one of President Kennedy's most noble traits: his thoughtfulness. "I wanted to show him as a president who was a thinker," said Shikler. "A thinking president is a rare thing."
 

For many people, Valentine's Day will be celebrated with flowers, cards, and candies; for those in Ghana, February 14th will be a day to celebrate their main export on Chocolate Day. In the above picture, the bisected cacao fruit shows off the raw cocoa beans which, when fermented and dried, are the source of chocolate for candies, drinks, and other cocoa-related products. Cacao plants were originally brought to Ghana in the 19th century by Dutch missionaries, though it was agriculturalist Tetteh Quarshie in 1879 who was responsible for the widespread cultivation of the plant. Several different regions in Ghana now grow and harvest the plant, with the government establishing a Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in 1947 as the agency overseeing the industry's development. Chocolate Day was established in 2005 to honor the crop's legacy in the country, with local chocolatiers taking part in competitions and educational events taking place across the nation, including tourist trips to Quarshie's original cacao farm in Eastern Ghana. The U.S. may not have as rich of history with cacao crops, but that isn't stopping us from celebrating Chocolate Day in our own way!  

Image credit & copyright: Business Recorder
 

Title: Love
Artist: Ana Tzarev (b. 1937)
Created: ca. 2013
Medium: fiberglass
Dimensions: 137.75 x 118 x 102.25 in (349.89 x 299.72 x 259.72 cm)
 

Love is in the air and on the sidewalks. Croatian-born sculptor and painter Ana Tzarev builds giant fiberglass poppies as part of her Love & Peace project. Tzarev began the project with small bronze sculptures of poppies, which she later amplified into larger fiberglass works. The 15-foot flowers have gone on display in cities like London, Rome, and Singapore. This particular iteration of Love was on display at New York's Dag Hammarskjold Plaza for six months, just a few blocks away from the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan. While some might opt for a… rosier flower to represent love and other positive feelings, Tzarev is recalling the poppy's history as a symbol of remembrance after World War II. From a personal stance, the red poppy was also a crop Tzarev felt "bloomed under the worst of circumstances," as her father's fallow fields overran with them when she was young. Whatever her reasoning, she makes a convincing case for picking up a dozen red poppies instead of roses for this Valentine's Day!

 

Below: a photo of Tzarev with one of her sculptures, and a video of the artist speaking on her Love & Peace series.
 

Image credit & copyright: New York City Parks, Arts Republic
 

It takes two to tango, but three's a dance party. Captured by photographer Duncan Murrell, Devil Ray Ballet recently took Best of Show in the seventh annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition. It depicts two male devil rays simultaneously performing courtship rituals, while a flattered female dances amongst them in a vortex of shimmering wings, affection, and fishy hormones. Murrell's perfect timing and sensitive angling, which shows the tryst in ambient lighting, helped the self-described compulsive adventurer top the most competitive year in the contest's history. Thousands of submissions arrived from 70 countries across 16 categories, including the freshly-added Underwater Art category, which allows undersea photographers unprecedented room for creative expression. Over $80,000 in prizes were awarded to this year's contestants by the organizer of the event, the Underwater Photography Guide publication, as well as a vacation to the Solomon Islands and diving trips in Indonesia. Generous awards like these are just another way to give visibility to aquatic life and environments in an age when conservation efforts are vital to our oceans' health. Here's to keeping our eyes on deepsea beauties, and maintaining our efforts to preserve them for future generations.
 

Below: more finalists from the Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition, including Smile of a Friend by Antonio Pastrana, Paddle Boarders Sunset by Grant Thomas, and Mangrove by Yen-Yi Lee.
 

Image credit & copyright: Duncan Murrell / Antonio Pastrana / Grant Thomas / Yen-Yi Lee
 

Title: You Are the Bridge
Artist: Lucy Liu (b. 1968)
Created: 2006-08
Medium: paint, wood, nails, string
Current location: National Museum of Singapore, Singapore
 

Actress, philanthropist, international emissary—what distinction of Lucy Liu's are we leaving out? Oh, that's right: visual artist. When the co-star of the crime drama Elementary isn't nailing film and TV roles, she's turning heads with her upcoming art exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore. In pieces like You Are the Bridge, aspects from her varied career and travels coalesce: the sculpture's center consists of a Shunga painting, an example of 19th-century erotic Japanese art that butts against Liu's own conservative upbringing, with seemingly-violent twine and nails lining its borders. Liu discovered the spiny aesthetic while working as a UNICEF ambassador in 2007 in the Congo, where she encountered religious charms with nails symbolic of safety and good health; accordingly, Bridge symbolizes the importance of affection from loved ones and the need to protect it. If Liu's keen handle on visuals impresses, that's because she's been working as a successful artist since before her Hollywood breakout in the '90s. Don't believe us? Take a look below and see how deep her wellspring of talent flows!
 

Below: a closeup of You Are the Bridge, as well as views of the front and back of Velocity.
 

Image credit & copyright: The Ryan Foundation / Moonvision Entertainment, Inc. / The National Museum of Singapore