Can this microscopic detail from Jackson Pollock’s landmark painting Mural (1943) help support (or counter) the story that Pollock painted Mural, a painting that’s roughly eight feet-by-twenty feet, in a single day? Yes, maybe.
The second segment of this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast continues our series on the Getty’s conservation of Mural. Tom Learner, a Getty Conservation Institute senior scientist and the head of the GCI’s modern and contemporary art research initiative, tells us about the latest work on Mural, how the Getty may address the painting’s rather pronounced sag and explains how this detail — blown up 400 times from actual size — might help solve the mystery.
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Image: Paint sample via Getty Conservation Institute. Cross-section sample of crimsonpaint viewed under normal light. The twowhite ground layers (composed of zinc white and lead white respectively) can be seen at the base of the sample. The red paint is applied over a stroke of green-brown paint which must not have been dry when the red was applied: the two paints have comingled, wet-in-wet, to some degree.
The art: Carleton Watkins, Solar Eclipse from Mount Santa Lucia, 1889.
The news: “Learning from Celestial Beauty,” by Jay M. Pasachoff on the New York Times’ op-ed page.
The source: Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Jan and Hubert (?) van Eyck, detail from “Singing Angels” panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, 1432.
Most of the press around the new “Closer to van Eyck” website has spotlighted that a giant JPEG of the Ghent Altarpiece is now available in 100 billion pixels. That’s true, but the site is much more than that: It includes huge JPEGs of the altarpiece made with many different kinds of photography.
That post on MAN comes from this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast, which features art historian and technical documentation specialist Ron Spronk talking about how the new “Closer to van Eyck” website will help art historians to make new discoveries about the Ghent Altarpiece, one of the greatest objects in art — and about Jan van Eyck’s work in general.
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The art: Robert Adams, Baker County, Oregon, from the series “Pine Valley,” 2000-2003.
The news: “Astronomers Find Biggest Black Holes Yet,” by Dennis Overbye in The New York Times.
The source: Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Also included in the exhibition “Robert Adams: The Place We Live, A Retrospective Selection of Photographs,” on view now at the Denver Art Museum and in the accompanying three-volume publication. I reviewed the project on Modern Art Notes.
Nota bene: Artists, especially photographers, have both been fascinated by the cosmos for centuries. A 2008 SFMOMA exhibition titled “Brought to Light,” included many night-time photographs taken by night-sky explorers.
The art: Vija Celmins, Night Sky #6, 1993.
The news: “Offering Funds, U.S. Agency Dreams of Sending Humans to Stars,” by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times.
The source: Collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Note: For more than 20 years, Celmins has painted star fields, spider webs and the surfaces of bodies of water, all representations that tempt us… but that are ultimately untouchable. Into Celmins’ narrative steps DARPA and NASA, which would make Celmins’ untouchable somewhat, well, touchable.
The art: Joel Sternfeld, The Space Shuttle Columbia Lands at Kelly Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, 1979.
The news: “What does the final shuttle flight mean for space exploration,” by Ian Sample in The Guardian.
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The art: Anne Appleby, Faded Sweet Pea, 2008.
The news: “Rocky Mountain Flowers Dwindle as Climate Warms,” on the Los Angeles Times blog Greenspace. Aggregated from the journal Ecology.
The source: CRG Gallery.
Today on Modern Art Notes: This summer, the St. Louis Art Museum is exhibiting and conserving the last-known 19th-century Mississippi River panorama, a kind of steampunk movie. Typically installed on giant scrolls, panoramas were ‘screened’ to give the illusion of passing scenery, gas-lit and accompanied by music, a dramatic reading of the history passing by — plus a few jokes and some tall tales. Even Queen Victoria is said to have enjoyed a Mississippi River panorama show. Today, Modern Art Notes features a Q&A on the conservation and exhibition of the SLAM panorama.
![The art: Andy Warhol, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box [Prototype], 1963-64.
The news: “The Indignity of Industrial Tomatoes,” by Barry Estabrook on Gilt Taste. Excerpted from Estabrook’s new book “Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.”
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmwbhkZX091qe0into1_500.jpg)
The art: Andy Warhol, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box [Prototype], 1963-64.
The news: “The Indignity of Industrial Tomatoes,” by Barry Estabrook on Gilt Taste. Excerpted from Estabrook’s new book “Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.”
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The art: Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Tomato Juice Box, 1964.
The news: “The Indignity of Industrial Tomatoes,” by Barry Estabrook on Gilt Taste. Excerpted from Estabrook’s new book “Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.”
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The art: Inka Essenhigh, Tornado, 2001. (The work is an etching on paper.)
The news: “Tornado Tracking Attempt in Time-Lapse Video: Can scientists develop better ways to identify developing tornadoes?” by Tom Bearden for the PBS Newshour. That link is to the introductory blog post. Here’s the segment from last night’s Newshour. Lots of jaw-dropping video there.
The source: Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and inka-essenhigh.com.
