artist crush: Mark Tobey
Every now and then, I see work by an artist I hadn't heard of before (or had heard of but not appreciated) and become obsessed with their work for a while. For me, the revelatory moment when the Tate Modern opened was that I suddenly 'got' Rothko, and I still think the Rothko room there is one of the most moving places to experience art. At other times it's been Erró, Chihuly, and of course now that I've put myself on the spot I can't remember more.
Anyway, between things I had to do downtown today, I dropped into the Seattle Art Museum. The nice thing about being a member is that I can do this; just drop in briefly and take in a small number of pieces rather than either rushing through the museum or overloading by spending a whole day there. Today a large piece by Mark Tobey caught my eye, and then I noticed several smaller ones in the room behind. I couldn't find any of the images I was looking at earlier online, but this one of Broadway is in a similar vein - the ones that really grabbed me were all of bustling places full of human energy, be they streets or market scenes. It struck me that what appealed to me in his paintings is much like what Andrew Edmonds of Worksongs has been doing lately with his multiple exposure Montréal photos (others: 1, 2, though these are less similar).
As an aside, several of the paintings were of the Pike Place Market, and accompanied with quotes from the artist. I don't know if he wrote a book or article about the market, or was just interviewed, but either way I got an interesting message from the combination of early 1940s paintings and 1964 words: not much has actually changed there. Old-time Seattleites like to gripe about how everything bad in the city is new, and I've always suspected that this has more to do with the general human tendency to think everything is going to shit, and a desire to burnish their olde-tyme-Seattle credentials, than with facts. Well, the 1940s paintings include depictions of chronically drunk vagrants sleeping at the market, and the 1964 text alluded to the market being overrun with tourists and the ease with which one forgets that it's a real working market born of a peoples' revolt over expensive food. Plus ça change....
Anyway, between things I had to do downtown today, I dropped into the Seattle Art Museum. The nice thing about being a member is that I can do this; just drop in briefly and take in a small number of pieces rather than either rushing through the museum or overloading by spending a whole day there. Today a large piece by Mark Tobey caught my eye, and then I noticed several smaller ones in the room behind. I couldn't find any of the images I was looking at earlier online, but this one of Broadway is in a similar vein - the ones that really grabbed me were all of bustling places full of human energy, be they streets or market scenes. It struck me that what appealed to me in his paintings is much like what Andrew Edmonds of Worksongs has been doing lately with his multiple exposure Montréal photos (others: 1, 2, though these are less similar).
As an aside, several of the paintings were of the Pike Place Market, and accompanied with quotes from the artist. I don't know if he wrote a book or article about the market, or was just interviewed, but either way I got an interesting message from the combination of early 1940s paintings and 1964 words: not much has actually changed there. Old-time Seattleites like to gripe about how everything bad in the city is new, and I've always suspected that this has more to do with the general human tendency to think everything is going to shit, and a desire to burnish their olde-tyme-Seattle credentials, than with facts. Well, the 1940s paintings include depictions of chronically drunk vagrants sleeping at the market, and the 1964 text alluded to the market being overrun with tourists and the ease with which one forgets that it's a real working market born of a peoples' revolt over expensive food. Plus ça change....