What's new-ish
We have made two trips to the Carnegie Museum complex in Oakland since we've been back. Most of our excitement has been because of the recently re-opened Dinosaurs in their Time exhibit. I'll have more on that later.
When we left Pittsburgh at the beginning of March, the Carnegie Museum was in the middle of restoring two Sol LeWitt wall paintings over the main staircase on the art museum side. The original installations were faded beyond recognition. If you aren't familiar with LeWitt, his wall paintings were not painted by his own hand; he sent instructions to the installation sites. I really like this one line from Kate Shepherd quoted on Modern Arts Notes from a catalog from her recent show at Galerie Lelong. She says of LeWitt, "I love how he draws on the wall and writes directions for the works. At a certain point, his work is about the clarity of his writing." How well LeWitt wrote directions was really the test for this series of paintings.
The Post-Gazette had a description of the process, which included painting over the original with white primer. For many works of art this would be scandalous, but for a LeWitt wall painting it is necessary to be true to the work. The restoration had to start back with a blank wall. In early 2007 we were able to take these pictures of the process. They were almost done covering up the wall with primer, but you can see the some of the original yet faded paint.
A view through the scaffolding.
White wash!
When we came back to Pittsburgh from China in December, we found the LeWitt paintings completely re-finished. They were actually done in the spring, but we didn't see them until we returned. I had never seen these in their original (non-faded) colors, so I never realized how much these wall paintings are about saturated color. These colors were meant to be intense! And the texture! Just compare the pink and blue on the far left in this picture with the corresponding spaces in the first picture of this post.
The Summer issue Carnegie Museum Magazine has more on how this project proceeded with the aid of an artist from LeWitt's studio. In order to keep the colors vivid longer, the paint was switched from ink wash to an acrylic paint. The very specific instructions from LeWitt specified just about everything else but paint chemistry apparently.
When we left Pittsburgh at the beginning of March, the Carnegie Museum was in the middle of restoring two Sol LeWitt wall paintings over the main staircase on the art museum side. The original installations were faded beyond recognition. If you aren't familiar with LeWitt, his wall paintings were not painted by his own hand; he sent instructions to the installation sites. I really like this one line from Kate Shepherd quoted on Modern Arts Notes from a catalog from her recent show at Galerie Lelong. She says of LeWitt, "I love how he draws on the wall and writes directions for the works. At a certain point, his work is about the clarity of his writing." How well LeWitt wrote directions was really the test for this series of paintings.
The Post-Gazette had a description of the process, which included painting over the original with white primer. For many works of art this would be scandalous, but for a LeWitt wall painting it is necessary to be true to the work. The restoration had to start back with a blank wall. In early 2007 we were able to take these pictures of the process. They were almost done covering up the wall with primer, but you can see the some of the original yet faded paint.
A view through the scaffolding.
White wash!
When we came back to Pittsburgh from China in December, we found the LeWitt paintings completely re-finished. They were actually done in the spring, but we didn't see them until we returned. I had never seen these in their original (non-faded) colors, so I never realized how much these wall paintings are about saturated color. These colors were meant to be intense! And the texture! Just compare the pink and blue on the far left in this picture with the corresponding spaces in the first picture of this post.
The Summer issue Carnegie Museum Magazine has more on how this project proceeded with the aid of an artist from LeWitt's studio. In order to keep the colors vivid longer, the paint was switched from ink wash to an acrylic paint. The very specific instructions from LeWitt specified just about everything else but paint chemistry apparently.
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