Now Offering Museum and Gallery Tours

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen’s Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999), an oversized sculptural representation of a now largely obsolete and socially unrecognizable object once in ordinary use, in front of the entrance to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida

Art education is one of the most important services an art advisory can offer.  After all, art is creation and stories and meaning-making woven into experiences that impact us in various ways; all of us could use a guide to shepherd us through these.

Thanks to my own background as an artist, a Renaissance man, and (with 100+ countries under my belt) one of the more ambitious and adventurous global travelers among 21st-century contemporaries, I have a gift for connecting people with these stories and with a deeper understanding of how art impacts us all.

That’s why over the past several weeks, I have been piloting museum and art gallery tours in Miami and Palm Beach, two cities whose art scenes I have been exploring for years.  

Both are excellent places for learning: for example, the Rubell Museum is the best contemporary art museum in all of Florida, and West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art is a true gem of a small, encyclopedic art museum.  I could also say superlative things about no less than a dozen other art museums in South Florida alone, not to mention about just as many galleries in the burgeoning Miami market.

An hour or two’s walk with me through either of these or any one of another terrific museums would be a major cultural highlight for any visitor to South Florida — and one that I’ve received consistently outstanding feedback on.

In the opinion of the founder of Charting Transcendence, Miami’s Rubell Museum is not only the best-curated contemporary art museum in town, but also in all of Florida, and possibly the entire Southeastern U.S.

One thing to know about me is that, although I do hold a master’s degree in Contemporary Art, is that I am essentially self-taught when it comes to the essentials of art and world history. Being out-and-about in a museum or a gallery is my “happy place,” and I consume information, feeling, and affect most voraciously when totally immersed in a (to whatever degree) curated (or not) space where culture thrives and is kept.

This is literally how I have explored the world for the past 25 years, and I’ve done this largely independently and out of the innate desire to learn and connect with a broader, artistic context. Furthermore, I have allowed my lifelong artistic practice as a photographer to train my eye towards framing and reframing what I see and experience in order to share and connect with others.

I am constantly planning art-spectating itineraries for myself all over the country, most frequently in New York City (where I will be next week, Jan. 25-28) but also in places I’ve never explored before like Mexico City (where I will be Feb. 7-11 for the Zona Maco art fair).

I can cater to different interests and needs, and if desired, (in the case of Miami in particular) am able to combine these tours with curated lunch, dinner, and even craft brewery recommendations.

Any one of these or other experiences with me would be an excellent way to learn how to connect with art more deeply on emotional, intellectual, and personal levels. Please reach out to me directly for more details.

Florida-based artist to watch: Regina Jestrow

Regina Jestrow, Americana Quilt #34 (2020), assorted cotton, batting, and thread, on display as part of her solo show Vulnerability and Resistance through January 25 at the Studios of Key West.

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Miami-based contemporary quilt artist Regina Jestrow (b. Queens, NY, 1978) and since then have enjoyed seeing her work as part of two museum shows here in South Florida.

Having worked for many years to perfect her textile-based approach, Regina recently marked a major career milestone by signing on with a Chelsea gallery L’Space (524 W 19th St.)

Therefore I’m excited to give an enthusiastic review of Regina’s work, confident that it will gain further critical and popular recognition in the months and years to come (translation: it would be a smart buy for anyone who would like to add a beautiful, contemporary, fine-art decorative quilt to their collection).

Quilting is a particularly American art form, and one that has been developed almost entirely by women artists and artisans. I have to say that, personally, I love quilts as both practical household accouterments as well as art forms, not in the least because they remind me of my grandmother, who quilted, but also because they conceptually represent, through their patchwork approach and repurposing of materials, some very important ideas about what it means to be American.

Regina Jestrow, Pieced Landscape 23 (2022), hand-dyed burnt cotton, new and second-hand fabrics, muslin, batting, thread.

Regina Jestrow, Americana Quilt 59 (2021), assorted cotton, hand-dyed fabric, batting, thread.

I have seen some outstanding museum and gallery shows about quilts in recent years, especially Pieced & Patterened: American Quilts ca. 1800-1930, shown in 2021 at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, as well as the 2018 Metropolitan Museum of Art show History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift.

The latter included several outstanding examples of Alabama-made Gee’s Bend Quilts, which are an incredible achievement of American art and worth taking a moment or two to research through the links above, by watching this documentary on PBS, or on your own; however, I’ll try to provide a brief summary below.

More than 50 years ago the quilting practices of a community of African-American women living in the remote south-central Alabama community of Gee’s Bend came to the attention of art critics and have since been heralded as a precursor to modern art’s predilection towards abstract representation, essentially foreshadowing Abstract Expressionism by decades, due to their odd shapes and “crazy quilt” lack of formal geometrical balance.

Even though these quilts are incredibly beautiful and fascinating to look at, I cannot ignore the darker side of their history, for it is speculated that these unique shapes came about in part due to the particular geography of the Alabama River and the particularly suitable soil of the surrounding Black Belt, which made it too tempting for American slavers to not risk the huge financial incentive of running illegal cargoes of Africans straight up past Mobile until the very dawn of the Civil War (c.f. the Clotilda.)

As brutal and horrific as this was, it also probably resulted in the retention for generations to come of unique African artistic influences that would otherwise have been diluted or lost, if not for the extreme isolation of where the enslaved great-great-grandparents of today’s masterful quilters ended up.

Detail view of Regina Jestrow’s Pieced Landscape 17 (2022), ink on burnt muslin, second-hand silk, muslin, thread. (I find the “stressed” parts of these quilts that look like cigarette burns on various scraps of nightlife-wear particularly fascinating.)

Although honoring the quilters of Gee’s Bend is one important aspect of Regina’s work, she has also innovated an approach that says a lot about the natural and social landscape of her adopted home of South Florida. 

Sensitive to the underrated issue of textile waste, not only does Regina use second-hand materials in her quilts, she also stresses and hand-dyes them. The diversity of materials she uses, including neoprene, sequins and faux leather (which I have not seen in Gee’s Bend quilts but which I certainly have in work by other contemporary Miami artists such as Pepe Mar), evoke the cultural diversity of the South Florida region and pay homage to popular aspects of Miami’s artistic identity.

She also looks to famous women artists such as (my personal all-time favorite Abstract Expressionist) Helen Frankenthaler, Anni Albers, and Gego.  Moreover, by calling some of her pieces “landscapes,” Regina evokes the diverse and stunning natural landscape of Florida as well. In fact I have come to appreciate this particular attribute of nodding towards nature as the mark of a truly great Florida artist.

Regina’s solo show at The Studios of Key West is on view until January 25, and all of the pieces (save for several that have already sold) are available for purchase for anywhere from $400 all the way up to $15,000, varying by size and complexity; most are priced very reasonably under $2000.  

Must-see Museum Exhibition in Washington, D.C. —Simone Leigh

Sculptural work by Simone Leigh (b. Chicago, 1967), who represented the United States at the Venice Biennial in 2022.

The professional opinion of Charting Transcendence holds that artists are shamans (an idea propagated by the late German artist Joseph Beuys), who are able to transform our understanding of thought and meaning, often by creating things of unspeakable beauty that we didn’t even know existed.

It is especially powerful when artists turn the focus of their artwork onto themselves, their bodies, and the powerful historical forces that shape them in a way that amplifies that beauty but also incorporates complex, contrasting emotions. Experienced art-goers and collectors recognize this and assign great value to the artists and works that can do it well.

Therefore it is no surprise that African-American artist Simone Leigh (b. Chicago, 1967) won the tremendous honor of representing the United States at the Venice Biennale, which since the late 19th century has essentially served as an analogue to the “Olympic Games” for the contemporary art world.

Now on display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden through March 3, Simone’s body of work for Venice takes as its inspiration and vehicle the Black female form, doing all of the abovementioned and more by way of an eclectic and emotionally resonant journey through the African diaspora.

Working in clay, bronze, and other diverse sculptural media, Simone weaves diverse forms, such as cowrie shells, rosettes, braids and eyeless faces into her visual language. It’s fascinating to ponder the inspirations for these, and I believe the Hirshhorn exhibition provides some clues to decode it (and in case you miss either the show or the idea here, I will provide some clues as well).

Sculptural works by Simone Leigh in ceramic, bronze, and other materials focus in an usually rich, complex, and intimate way on the Black female body and its representations over a long and troubled history of the African diaspora.

Despite their beauty, these sculptures are also somewhat grotesque, evocative of very shameful moments in African and American history when Black women’s bodies were marginalized, used, and abused.

In addition to traditional female fertility forms such as the Europe’s famous neolithic Venus of Willendorf, I would cite Aunt Jemima and Mammy’s Cupboard Restaurant (which by the way still operates today in Natchez, Mississippi — follow the link and see if you think whether a coat of paint has taken a bit of the racist edge off) as just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s echoed in these sculptures.

Whether these and other repeating forms in her work are similar to traditional African rondavel grass huts coincidentally or is a great question to ponder. The cowrie shells in particular remind me not only of the economic forces that drove the exploitation of Africa and the Global South but also of the urban legend of the vagina dentata.

This is all very powerful stuff, folks. Like I said - no wonder the “art world” sees something in this work. The more rich and varied a tapestry of stories and emotions we wouldn’t otherwise experience, the “greater” the artist we can recognize in her.

Although I haven’t been to Venice since the 2017 iteration of the Biennale, and I might not make it to my hometown of Washington D.C. before this show closes, I did see it when it was at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston last summer, so all of the photos I’m sharing in this newsletter are my own.

In any case, I personally and highly recommend not missing the Hirshhorn show for the wealth of contrasting ideas and emotions that Simone Leigh has expertly crafted.

By the way, this year’s Venice Biennale laureate Jeffrey Gibson, our first Native American to represent the United States, is one of my top 5 favorite contemporary artists of the last decade, whom I’ve been following since prices for his work were actually affordable (for whatever this is worth, it is further validation of my instincts on what not only constitutes “great” art but also “valuable” art), and I look forward to writing more about him in a future newsletter.