UNITED STATES: Chicago – All That Jazz

Another redeye flight delivered me to Chicago O’Hare. Five dollars and a train took me to within three blocks of my final destination. That was the easy part. While I waited for my room to be made ready, I went to the CVS Pharmacy and got myself the shingles vaccine and a flu shot. I went to bed at ten and I didn’t wake up until eight the next evening due to the side effects of my vaccines.

After losing Thursday, I managed to make it to the Art Institute of Chicago on Friday afternoon. TripAdvisor has rated it as the best museum in the world on many occasions. Personally, I’m partial to the Museé D’Orsay in Paris. If not for the French artworks, the Art Institute of Chicago would unlikely have received the degree of accolades from TripAdvisor. That said, it’s truly a world-class museum.

ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Simone LEIGH – Dunham – 2017

Kerry James MARSHALL – Africa Restored (Cheryl as Cleopatra) – 2003

Arik LEVY – Confessions – 2010

Confessions challenges the associations users have with everyday objects. Drawing inspiration from Catholic confessionals, Arik Levy designed a contemporary version for domestic settings. Users climb inside the nook of these chairs and communicate with one another as they would in a typical church confessional, through the perforated surface of each structure. In addition to scale, what differentiates this confessional from a traditional one is the pitched roof that defines each box. The confessional can be pushed together to create the form of a house. In this way, the grills on the confessional chairs might also be interpreted as bars, like those on the windows of a jail. Levy’s design prompts questions about whether the home is a place of safety or incarceration.

Joe Colombo – Elda Chair, no. 1005 – 1963

Konstantin GRCIC – “Man Machine” Chair – 2014

Named after the 1978 album by music group Kraftwerk, the “Man Machine” Chair combines sheets of plate glass with industrial components. A piston at the back of the chair allows the sitter to adjust the position to their personal comfort.

Jackson POLLOCK – Number 17A – 1948

In the summer of 1946, Jackson Pollock began painting in a way that would forever transform the medium. As he described it in a statement that year, “I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives, and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass, and other foreign matter added.” The intricate Number 17A features fine, threadlike loops of paint juxtaposed with rougher stripes and slashes of color underneath. Pollock went on to explain, “When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. . . . I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.”

Barbara HEPWORTH – Two Figures (Menhirs) – 1954/55

Jackson POLLOCK – Greyed Rainbow – 1953

In the late 1940s Jackson Pollock developed a revolutionary form of Abstract Expressionism. With no apparent beginning or end, top or bottom, his works imply an extension of his art beyond the edges of the canvas. Among the last great purely abstract paintings Pollock made before his untimely death, and a quintessential example of “action painting,” Greyed Rainbow is predominantly black, white, gray, and silver; in the bottom third of the canvas, however, the artist thinly concealed orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The title may refer to these grayed sections of partially hidden color.

Jeff KOONS – Bourgeois Bust – Jeff and Ilona – 1991

Jeff Koons originally made this work for his now-notorious Made in Heaven exhibition, in which he explored concepts of love by referencing his own marriage to Italian porn star Ilona Staller. He explains, With Bourgeois Bust, I wanted . . . to be able to bring Ilona’s body and my body down together in a point so that it’s a heart-a symbol of love-and take the flesh and cut through it to form it that way without any sense of violence.”

Here the couple appears within a traditional Baroque-style portrait bust like those of 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova. Bourgeois Bust sets in tension the elegance of neoclassical sculpture and the irrelevance of deploying its idealized terms in the postmodern era.

Jeff KOONS – Woman in Tub – 1988

Robert RAUSCHENBERG – Untitled – 1955

Jasper JOHNS – Alphabet – 1959

Willem DE KOONING – Excavation – 1950

Roy LICHTENSTEIN – Ohhh…Alright… – 1964

Alma THOMAS – Starry Night and the Astronauts – 1972

Robert RYMAN – Untitled – 1962

Charles RAY – Boy – 1992

Andy WARHOL – Twelve Jackies – 1964

Kurt SELIGMANN – Magnetic Mountain – 1948

Joan MIRÓ – Personages with Star – 1933

Alberto GIACOMETTI – Walking Man II – 1960

Henry MOORE – Maquette for UNESCO Reclining Figure – 1957

Henri ROUSSEAU – The Waterfall – 1910

MAN RAY – Departure of Summer – 1914

Amedeo MODIGLIANI – Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz – 1916

Pablo PICASSO – Man with a Pipe – 1915

Vasily KANDINSKY –  Painting with Green Center – 1913

Henri MATISSE – Interior at Nice – 1919 or 1920

Henri MATISSE – Laurette with a Cup of Coffee – 1916/17

Henri MATISSE – Apples – 1916

Piet MONDRIAN – Farm near Duivendrecht – 1916

Pablo PICASSO – The Red Armchair – 1931

Pablo PICASSO – Abstraction: Background with Blue Cloudy Sky – 1930

Pablo PICASSO – Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Monument – 1965

René MAGRITTE – The White Race – 1937

René MAGRITTE – The Tune and Also the Words – 1964

René MAGRITTE – On the Threshold of Liberty – 1937

Salvador DALÍ – Inventions of Monsters – 1937

Salvador DALÍ – Visions of Eternity – 1936/37

Jean DEBUFFET – The Forest – 1969

Constantin BRÂNCUSI – Leda – 1920

Marc CHAGALL – America Windows – 1975-77

DETAIL

Marc CHAGALL – The Praying Jew – 1923

Grant WOOD – American Gothic – 1930

Edward HOPPER – Nighthawks – 1942

Archibald J. MOTLEY, JR. – Nightlife – 1943

Archibald J. MOTLEY, JR. – Blues – 1929

Georgia O’Keefe – Red and Pink Rocks and Teeth

Georgia O’Keefe – Blue and Green Music – 1921

Joseph STELLA – A Vision – 1925/26

Fernand LUNDGREN – In the Café – 1882/84

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando – 1879

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Lucie Berard – 1883

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Woman at the Piano – 1875/76

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Two Sisters (On the Terrace) – 1881

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Young Woman Sewing – 1879

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Fruits of the Midi – 1881

Gustave CAILLEBOTTE – Paris Street; Rainy Day – 1877

Claude MONET – Arrival of the Normandy Train – 1877

Claude MONET – Étretat: The Beach and the Falaise d’Amont – 1885

Claude MONET – Boats on the Beach at Étretat – 1885

Claude MONET – The Departure of the Boats, Étretat – 1885

Claude MONET – The Beach at Sainte-Adresse – 1867

Claude MONET – Cliff Walk at Pourville – 1882

Claude MONET – Nymphéas – 1905

Claude MONET – Bordighera – 1884

Claude MONET – Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect) – 1890/91

Claude MONET -Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) – 1890/91

Claude MONET – Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) – 1890/91

Claude MONET – Poppy Field (Giverny) – 1890/91

AND FINALLY THE HOLY GRAIL…..

Georges SEURAT – Sunday on La Grande Jatte – 1884

Henri de TOULOUSE-LAUTREC – Ballet Dancers – 1885/86

Edgar DEGAS – The Star – 1879/81

Edgar DEGAS – Ballet at the Paris Opéra – 1877

Edgar DEGAS – Danseuse Rose (Pink Dancer) – 1878

Edgar DEGAS – Green Dancers – 1878

Edgar DEGAS – The Morning Bath – 1887/90

Edgar DEGAS – The Millenary Shop – 1879/86

Vincent VAN GOGH – A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage – 1885

Vincent VAN GOGH – The Poet’s Garden – 1888

Vincent VAN GOGH – Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy – 1887

Vincent VAN GOGH – The Drinkers – 1890

Vincent VAN GOGH – The Bedroom – 1889

Paul GAUGIN – Why Are You Angry? – 1896

Paul GAUGIN – The Big Tree – 1891

Paul GAUGIN – Day of the God – 1894

Paul GAUGIN – Mistral – 1888

Paul CÉZANNNE – Auvers, Panoramic View – 1873/75

Paul CÉZANNNE – Curtain, Pitcher, and a Fruit Bowl – 1893-94

Paul CÉZANNNE – The Vase of Tulips – 1890

Paul CÉZANNNE – The Basket of Apples – 1893

Paul CÉZANNNE – The Bathers – 1899/1904

Paul SIGNAC – Les Andelys, Côte d’Aval – 1886

Paul SIGNAC – Seine, Grenelle – 1899

Camille PISSARRO – Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook – 1894/95

Louis ANQUETIN – An Elegant Woman at the Èlysée Montmartre – 1888

Edvard Munch – The Girl by the Window – 1893

Édouard MANET – Fish (Still Life) – 1864

Jules-Joseph LEFEBVRE – Odalisque – 1874

MUSEUM GARDEN

METRA – I’m not sure whether this is a replica of the Parisian Art Nouveau metro entrances. I suspect it is. Either way it’s always a joy to see one of these timeless classics especially after having seen so many French classics in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Chicago is a good deal less congested and intimidating than New York City and a lot cleaner.

MILLENIUM PARK

TRUMP TOWER – There was a nice demonstration here to welcome the president the next day. His visit was preceded by a number of insults on twitter towards the locals by our low-life leader.

NAVY PIER

GIANT ABSTRACT JACKS

THESE WOULD MAKE STYLISH TANK TRAPS

CANADIAN GEESE

ANOTHER PRETTY EUROPEAN ACCESSORY

GREEN MILL JAZZ CLUB – Established 1910