HE(ART) AT COLS ARTMUSEUM BEATS HEAT!
Art can nourish broken hearts. And art can, temporarily, beat the heat and counter the despair emanating from a war torn world. A few hours at the Columbus Museum of Art can provide a peaceful yet exciting interlude.
On June 29 the inimitable Charles Kleibacker,noted fashion designer and Adjunct Curator of Design at the Columbus Museum of Art, offered a marvelous guided tour thru his exhibit. UNCOMMON CLOTHES , which will show at the Museum thru September 3rd.
Kleibacker possesses a low key and utterly charming presence.--He was, of course, impeccably dressed. Born in 1921 he's the Gregory Peck of the fashion world.--I'd guess at least 50 people crowded around him at the lecture, and some lovely pencil thin models were among the throng.Photographs, many from fashion magazines like Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, accompanied the gowns, dresses, coats and accessories. The show includes, but isn't limited to, some celebrity fashions. The lovely songstress Hildegarde is there, and so is her lovely gown,-- thanks to Kleibacker-- and, of course, she had to have a handkerchief to hold on to while she sang. --"Dahling, parlez- vous Francaise?--Je vous aime beau coup."
On loan from "Linda Claire Meissner, New York" is a Kleibacker-designed black dress, stunningly classic, "a midi length dress of black wool crepe." --We can also see the dress Carroll Baker wore in the film"Harlow" (1968) when she played the short lived platinum star, Jean Harlow. Harlow and Baker were/are petite women barely up to Clark Gable's long gone powerful shoulder. Pierre Balmain designed this deliciously provocative evening gown for Carroll and Jean. It's a "long dress of bugle beads and sequins on nude silk, 1965."--Sounds like a poem, and it is. All of the Uncommon Clothes look like, and read like, poetry. Try this on, by Mme. Gres: " a long dress in celadon green silk crepe, 1955." Or, by Ralph Rucci, "Tunic of silk cigaline and gazar with hand-looped ribbons; silk velvet pants, 1955. "
Isabel Toledo, a kid,(!) "American born 1961" has provided "a short dress/bolero ensemble in cotton; silk linings, 2005" and it is Hot, as in Cool!
And not far from the fashion exhibit is a marvelous photographic painting by Norma Jean Ray, b. 1970 of "Isabel Toledo in Toledo's New York City Studio, 2004." This is a fantastic representational work which gives us insight into its subject, a highly successful contemporary designer and her professional environment.
In The Museum's New Aquisitions space, are many wonders. XAN PALAY, from whom The Museum recently purchased a sculpture, is one of the most in-fashion artists around! Her slight majorette stature adds to her whimsical persona and aesthetic. How DID she do it? Circle City, a cast iron sculpture combines a Gorey-like atmosphere with a black smith's prowess. The piece reminded me of an encampment of iron sandwiches on Old Round Top during the not too civil American Civil War. As I gazed I thought I heard the Anvil Chorus as played by Phillip Glass, and I whispered "Go XAN go!"
In the same room people were commenting on Evan Penny's astonishing "The Back of Kelly." This big guy's head is so lifelike that it's worth a trip to The Museum to see him! (And to listen to people talk about him!)
The Ohio Art League juried show and the Richard Avedon exhibit were as substantial and Wow as anybody would see in New York, if not more than, and I'd like to conclude with a homily: SUPPER by Joseph Hirsch, American 1910 to 1981, is an irrefutably fine social realist painting in which the beatific Last Supper is brought up to date. Each of these twelve homeless men has been treated with compassion and honesty as they dine at a blazing white table cloth amid much wine-red decor. This work is timeless and timely, and a winner.
Today is August 4, 2006. The international news is horrendous, and so is the heat. --Yet, art heals and inspires. At The Columbus Art Museum amid a high fashion show and a dinner for the homeless, life, for a moment, can be as Hildegarde --or Edith Piaf--would sing it, "La Vie En Rose."
On June 29 the inimitable Charles Kleibacker,noted fashion designer and Adjunct Curator of Design at the Columbus Museum of Art, offered a marvelous guided tour thru his exhibit. UNCOMMON CLOTHES , which will show at the Museum thru September 3rd.
Kleibacker possesses a low key and utterly charming presence.--He was, of course, impeccably dressed. Born in 1921 he's the Gregory Peck of the fashion world.--I'd guess at least 50 people crowded around him at the lecture, and some lovely pencil thin models were among the throng.Photographs, many from fashion magazines like Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, accompanied the gowns, dresses, coats and accessories. The show includes, but isn't limited to, some celebrity fashions. The lovely songstress Hildegarde is there, and so is her lovely gown,-- thanks to Kleibacker-- and, of course, she had to have a handkerchief to hold on to while she sang. --"Dahling, parlez- vous Francaise?--Je vous aime beau coup."
On loan from "Linda Claire Meissner, New York" is a Kleibacker-designed black dress, stunningly classic, "a midi length dress of black wool crepe." --We can also see the dress Carroll Baker wore in the film"Harlow" (1968) when she played the short lived platinum star, Jean Harlow. Harlow and Baker were/are petite women barely up to Clark Gable's long gone powerful shoulder. Pierre Balmain designed this deliciously provocative evening gown for Carroll and Jean. It's a "long dress of bugle beads and sequins on nude silk, 1965."--Sounds like a poem, and it is. All of the Uncommon Clothes look like, and read like, poetry. Try this on, by Mme. Gres: " a long dress in celadon green silk crepe, 1955." Or, by Ralph Rucci, "Tunic of silk cigaline and gazar with hand-looped ribbons; silk velvet pants, 1955. "
Isabel Toledo, a kid,(!) "American born 1961" has provided "a short dress/bolero ensemble in cotton; silk linings, 2005" and it is Hot, as in Cool!
And not far from the fashion exhibit is a marvelous photographic painting by Norma Jean Ray, b. 1970 of "Isabel Toledo in Toledo's New York City Studio, 2004." This is a fantastic representational work which gives us insight into its subject, a highly successful contemporary designer and her professional environment.
In The Museum's New Aquisitions space, are many wonders. XAN PALAY, from whom The Museum recently purchased a sculpture, is one of the most in-fashion artists around! Her slight majorette stature adds to her whimsical persona and aesthetic. How DID she do it? Circle City, a cast iron sculpture combines a Gorey-like atmosphere with a black smith's prowess. The piece reminded me of an encampment of iron sandwiches on Old Round Top during the not too civil American Civil War. As I gazed I thought I heard the Anvil Chorus as played by Phillip Glass, and I whispered "Go XAN go!"
In the same room people were commenting on Evan Penny's astonishing "The Back of Kelly." This big guy's head is so lifelike that it's worth a trip to The Museum to see him! (And to listen to people talk about him!)
The Ohio Art League juried show and the Richard Avedon exhibit were as substantial and Wow as anybody would see in New York, if not more than, and I'd like to conclude with a homily: SUPPER by Joseph Hirsch, American 1910 to 1981, is an irrefutably fine social realist painting in which the beatific Last Supper is brought up to date. Each of these twelve homeless men has been treated with compassion and honesty as they dine at a blazing white table cloth amid much wine-red decor. This work is timeless and timely, and a winner.
Today is August 4, 2006. The international news is horrendous, and so is the heat. --Yet, art heals and inspires. At The Columbus Art Museum amid a high fashion show and a dinner for the homeless, life, for a moment, can be as Hildegarde --or Edith Piaf--would sing it, "La Vie En Rose."
posted by Liz James at 12:56 PM
