high time ...

i went to the high museum yesterday ...
it was a date ...
my date took me to lunch first ... we ate mexican ... then we got some culture at the high .... for those of you not HERE, the high museum is a gorgeous fine arts museum in atlanta, georgia .... in an art history class in 1985 i had to do a paper on the architecture of the new building ... it has been added to again since then ....

we specifically went for the exhibit, picasso to warhol .... a MoMa (nyc) show that is travelling .... some of the pieces i had seen before on trips to MoMa, probably my favorite museum ever ....

one of warhol's marilyn series was highlighted in the main lobby of the museum where we bought our tickets (oops, i've let my membership lapse) ... and the focal picasso was on the wall that you see right when you step off the elevator ...

i just snatched that photo off google images ... don't know the photographer, but the artist is picasso

.... this was the perfect exhibit for me .... 20th century artists have always been my favorite .... the focus of this exhibit was artists who were breaking with traditions and trying new things .... the obvious ones are picasso with his cubism, warhol with his iconic commercial imagery, pollock with his splatter paintings , matisse with his colorful gigantic collages, mondrian with his grids, calder with his mobiles and stabiles ... i think people who know a little about art, know of these artists ... when we walked into the calder room, mr.e.beck.artist said, i always recognize this guy's work, but i never remember his name .... there was a lovely whispy mobile in the corner that was NOT moving ... but i blew a couple of times and got it twirling .... there was NOT a no blowing sign ....

there were some artists who surprised me ... romare bearden ... i LOVE LOVE LOVE him .. he is a collage artist ... i have one of his pieces in a poster in my studio .... and girl.beck.artist has his three guitar players as a poster in her room (that's the tiny pic above, from google images) .... but i was surprised he was on a short list with the likes of picasso and matisse ...

jasper johns was on there ... mr.e.beck.artist recognized him as being influential on my work ....

and only one artist that i had never heard of ... louise bourgeois ... the only woman in the group and i had never heard of her or seen her work? i would have guessed louise nevelson who does amazing assemblages .... so, louise bourgeois beat out louise nevelson i suppose?  could there only be one woman? or only one louise? anyway, i need to study up on ms. bourgeois ... my guess is that when i was studying art history avidly in the 80s, that she wasn't cool, hip, studied, appreciated yet .... she's now dead, giving her art some extra panache ... such a pity that artists are more celebrated dead ....

 there was a nice learning moment with a miro painting ... he had used a dutch masterpiece and "copied" it ... his version of painting .....

the audio that i listened to at the high did a great job of comparing the two and making you notice the similarities and miro's intent ... he gave his the same title, not hiding the fact that he was being inspired or copying .... here's an article about it that i found ....

so ... a date and art time ... doesn't get much better than that, right?