Rembrandt is no stranger to New York, but another masterpiece is always welcome. One of his greatest self-portraits just moved into the Metropolitan Museum for a visit - only a few weeks, but we'll take it. This sublime late work comes from Kenwood House, London, a grand 'stately home' once owned by a scion of the Guiness family, somewhat modest on the outside but with a bounty of graceful rooms remodeled by Robert Adam in the early 18th century, a fabulous art collection and, apparently, a leaky roof or other pressing needs that require it to be closed for some time.

I was in London for Christmas about a year ago and by chance stayed near Hampstead Heath, the vast, mythic park where Kenwood House is located. I hadn't even heard of the place before I arrived, but you can be sure that as soon as I did I pulled on my boots, wrapped up in a warm scarf, and tromped across the windy expanse to get there. I treasure the memories of that day, a chilly but glorious catalog - ducks on a frozen pond, bare regal trees against a lowering grey sky, family groups and brave stragglers, most with big dogs, footing made treacherous by both mud and ice, confused signposting finally resolved by a stranger's phone gps, then a stile and a small marker: Kenwood House this way.

And at the end, like Oz at the end of the yellow road, this amazing repository of art, a collection that would more than hold it's own in any museum in the world. (Of course, after that trek, the teashop came first - warm filling soup, good bread, and well ... tea.) I'm glad that the house is being maintained and repaired, and how nice of the English Heritage society that now owns the house to share the Rembrandt and other works while they go about their business. (The Rembrandt will join the rest of the collection for an traveling exhibition after the New York stay.)

Rembrandt's 90 self-portraits, more than any other artist, are an incomparable treasure and record of his art and life, but this one is one of the greatest. Dating from 1661, after wrenching ups and downs in his personal and financial life and only 8 years before his death at 63, it's a near companion of his sublime 1658 self-portrait, permanently in residence at the Frick a few blocks away on Fifth Avenue.  Done in Rembrandt's bold brushy late style, both are richly, deeply profound - at once examinations of a single man, the artist by practice and idea, and all of human nature. The Kenwood Rembrandt, titled Self-Portrait with Two Circles, is one of several self-portraits that show him as an artist - it is him, rather than him dressed in costume or affecting a pose or expression. (In the Frick painting he is a regal character in a voluminous robe holding a scepter-like cane - the Frick description rightly includes the word 'majesterial.')

In the 1661 self-portrait he is as worn as an old piece of leather, dressed in cap and cape to keep warm while he works. He confronts us with a clear-eyed look of assurance, perhaps even defiance, and holds his tools, sketched so loosely that they are as much idea as fact, so we can't miss them. The circles on the wall behind him are the subject of some speculation; one opinion is that they are the first strokes of a globe, a motif linked to Dutch world trade that often appeared in paintings of the time. I prefer another idea: these are the circles of Apelles, court painter to Alexander the Great, who set the bar for artists ever afterward by drawing a perfect circle with one unbroken stroke. The challenge is recalled throughout art history as the ultimate challenge of skill, control, and confidence. At this point in Rembrandt's life his only competition was himself; the world had done its best to beat him and subdue him, but here he is, still at work, and painting rings around any other living artist - and most who came after.

The new Barnes Foundation on the Ben Franklin Parkway in the center of Philadelphia will be open in just a few weeks - May 19 is the kickoff date for members. After all the controversy and (much ridiculous) ranting and raving, the storied collection is being hung, and workers are scrambling to finish up construction and landscaping. I had the good fortune to be on a tour last week with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the architects for the building, so here's a first-hand preview.

The new building is miles away, figuratively as well as literally, from the 1922 Beaux Arts building designed by Paul Cret in Lower Merion. This isn't bad - it's good. The old building is beautiful, but served a different time and audience. The new building is clean, elegant, spacious, and full of light, with spaces tailored for use by a broader public than ever saw the Barnes Collection in its original home, including an auditorium, classroom, library and a lounge with a café. A gallery for temporary exhibits and a well-appointed, up-to-date conservation studio expand the purposes and possibilities. The dramatic center of the new building is a light-filled hall that divides and connects, with the entrance areas and new gallery on one side and the revered collection, intact and carefully preserved in galleries that precisely reproduce the old experience in letter and spirit, on the other.

This high, wide central atrium space leads onto a terrace under a cantilevered overhang, meeting the garden setting for the building and allowing for a pleasantly veiled view of the busy city beyond the trees. ‘A Gallery in a Garden’ was the architect's mantra, one they fulfilled in large and small ways on all sides of the building. One garden is even inside, opening to the sky to bring in light and  air to lower level spaces where people will congregate. Along the Parkway a long section with a rectangular fountain will be an open public garden.

The building is faced with smooth limestone slabs of varying size, fitted into a mosaic spaced with slits and windows. Crowning the roof is a frosted glass clerestory that softens the geometric shape against the sky and brings an abundance of filtered light into the interior spaces. The exterior stone, a soft golden color and almost soft to the touch, is also inside - in places chipped by hand in a regular/irregular pattern the architects call ‘cuneiform,’ and in others given a different texture that quietly bounces the natural light. The architects' attention to materials that have meaning as well as aesthetic appeal is also evident in the wooden floor of the central hall. Laid in a herringbone pattern of varying tones, the boards are recycled from the old Coney Island Boardwalk in New York!

Huge wood framed windows with mullions looking into the galleries from the hall are a reminiscent feature that visitors to the old Barnes will recognize; here though, for the most part, the windows won't be shaded. We weren't allowed into the galleries on our tour, but we could glimpse a few frames and ... yes, Barnes’s beloved gadgets on the... yes, burlap covered (or what looks like it) - walls. Apparently there are a few changes that will enhance the galleries such as higher ceilings, but nothing noticeable - we were assured that the maximum difference in the hanging of any of the works would be 1/8 inch.

The building systems, unseen but essential, are a testament to modern technology; the Barnes has been awarded a LEED Platinum certification for energy efficiency, the highest rating possible and a rare achievement. The collection will benefit in a number of ways, including a shade system to precisely regulate light to ensure the best levels for the paintings at any given time.

Standing back from the building I once again had a chance to consider how thoughtfully and well the design balances respect with innovation, inside and out. (I had had the same thought on seeing the plan presented in 2009 at a public meeting.) The façade with its irregular mosaic pattern could be a metaphor for Barnes’ own eclectic philosophy. A careful, logical plan with beautiful materials, both mellowed and energized by irregularly sized openings - personal preferences, artistic choices, various cultural traditions, a mix of unexpected elements.

All building photos by Marilyn MacGregor (no inside photos were allowed)

http://www.barnesfoundation.org/

The Whitney Biennial has been pretty sickly of late so I was encouraged by reviews calling it the best in years, promising that this one was different, in a good way. I saw it Friday and don't agree - neither the 'best in years' part (though that's a fairly low bar based on the last two or three) or that the art was particularly different.

What was different, not just for the Biennial but for the use and function of a museum, involved performance and process. The art objects - paintings on walls, installations, sculpture, videos - had an almost peripheral relationship within the exhibition; the focus was on the act of art, loosely defined. In that context, viewing the show was as interesting for the experience of seeing others viewing the show as it was for the show itself - it didn't really matter whether the 'performers' were officially sanctioned by the Whitney or had just strolled in to become part of a living tableau for a few hours.

For example, the fourth floor of the museum has been transformed into a performance space in which different types of events take place on different days at different times. When I saw it Friday it was covered by a vast black mat, the setting for a dance class. About 35 people dressed in sloppy old dance class type clothes were standing or sitting, listening to instructions from one of the class leaders. The lighting was strong, coming from one corner, and the scene had the look and feel of a Caravaggio painting - each ordinary, barefoot character took on unearned significance. Then, in a moment, it all shifted - I moved to a different viewpoint, an command was given, the group quickly formed into four straight orderly lines and a whole different set of associations became relevant.

The rest of the floor was a maze of ideas and display. In a tight corner you stumble upon a clever, creepy scene by Gisele Vienne - a blonde boy mannequin holding a bloody-mouthed puppet that jumps to life now and then, as if seeking to take possession of his earthly soul. A breathy voice narrating a tale of horror is presumably the puppet documenting its nasty business. The walls are patterned with penciled squares, each one dirty or marked in a different way, giving the effect of tiles in a cell  - which, because you are constrained to stand so close, you inhabit too.

Further down the hall you come to a white space set up like a dressing room for the rotating performers. Touches - the image of a staring sad-eyed woman behind a grill, white patterned panels that recall the screens in mosques or medieval churches, heavy stage lights sprouting like trees in a corner - make the room an installation rather than simply a serviceable space. This Fourth Floor maze has been made one-way so when you reach the end point you have to track back through the narrow spaces, forced to confront by touch and eye contact the tide swimming against you.

At the risk of being a Philistine, that doesn't strike me as enough for her to be hailed as an 'artist. or her work as 'art.' But perhaps it's those terms that are the problem, their meaning shifting and dodging as we watch. This year's Biennial, pushing limits and presenting possibilities, makes that definition even harder to pin down. Is that bad? Not necessarily, but neither is it necessarily something to applaud. Maybe the truest thing about the Biennial is that it marches in step with us at this moment in time, when very little is easy to figure out.

http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/2012Biennial?gclid=CPuZy-b6_64CFUURNAodkwvY4w

Sarah Sze, an artist whose work is rich, fascinating and a bit hard to pin down, has been chosen to represent the U. S. Artist for the upcoming Biennale in Venice, the prestigious international art extravaganza that holds court each summer in and around the familiar tourist spots of that city.  I'm particularly happy about the choice - I think Sze is one of the most interesting artists of our time; whatever she does it will be worth the trip to see it.

I first came across Sze's work at SF MOMA in 2001 on a class trip with high school students. Her installation Things Fall Apart, hanging from the atrium, snaking up the stairs, sneaking up on you in corners, and sort of dribbling its way into places where you least expected it, provided a great object lesson.  Just about everything I needed to say about (good) contemporary art was in the jumbled bits of her art: You're in a partnership of meaning: the art doesn't offer easy answers, it makes you work to figure it out, it doesn't allow you to walk away sure of what it was supposed to mean even if you thought you knew.

Things Fall Apart has sort of a car crash theme, but it's jolly rather than gruesome, and the motif is more a convenience than a directive for how to interpret it. There's metal and there are car doors, but there's a lot of other stuff too. 'Stuff' is Sze's stock in trade, and it's amazing how she uses it to put her finger on the pulse of this frantic, fractured historical moment. In articles about her work writers grope for ways to describe it - 'organized chaos' is a popular phrase. It's perhaps easier to begin, as she does, with the 'stuff' - an incomplete list of her materials includes Qtips, tea bags, salt, light bulbs, plastic toys, feathers, twigs, dried flowers, tape, pebbles..... There can be no end to the list because everything is fair game.

Her installations are at once energizing and soothing; they fit the universe we've either embraced or accepted, one of too much information zooming at us from every direction. In what she does we recognize the struggle to keep up and make sense of it. In some sense she's taken the old 19th century 'cabinet de curiosities' concept and exploded it, super-sized it, blown it - literally - to bits.

Sze builds her pieces on site, creating the impression of organic, random growth, but she clearly has a very rational mind and follows a plan, often worked out beforehand in her Brooklyn studio. She has an immense gift for maximizing the serendipity of space, time, color, form, texture .... and just about everything else. The images shown here are in each case sections installations - a single photograph can never contain the sprawling multiplicity of her work. (Her recent construction for the High Line in New York, intentionally created to be a habit for the beleaugured songbirds of the city, is the 'tamest' of all that I've seen and comes closest to being visible from one spot.)

Sarah Sze's life story is not as long as you'd think for someone doing work of this assurance and maturity; she graduated from Yale in 1991, got a master's from SVA in New York in 1997, and two years later had a landmark exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, an event that riveted attention on a new star. In 2003 she was the recipient of a MacArthur 'Genius Grant.


Sarah Sze is featured in the next PBS Art 21 series about living artists, available in April.
Here's a link to the trailer: http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/trailer-season-6-of-art-in-the-twenty-first-century-2012
(note: Sze is in great company with a slate of artists with strong, interesting ideas) 
images courtesy of the artist,  the Tanya Bodaktar Gallery, the New York Times, and others

What DO American politicians look like? Have they always had pasty tans, over-gelled hair, and flag pins in their lapels? Thankfully no - there's plenty of evidence for a different model. Not to say that politics was ever a kind and gentle sport, but, thanks to an artist who played a part in the founding of the country, we have a vivid way of considering the nature of early politicians. Washington? Of course. We all know the painfully set jaw, the white wig, the stiff military posture, the disaffected presidential gaze. But there are other versions: ask Charles Wilson Peale, one of the most interesting, entrepreneurial artists this country has ever produced.

Peale painted 60 versions of Washington, including this 1772 portrait, the earliest known depiction. Washington, wearing the uniform of his regiment from the French and Indian war, was at the time merely a Virginia farmer, though he was also starting to voice his opposition to oppressive British policies.

Peale's 'Princeton Portrait' of Washington shows him 9 years later in full American Revolution regalia after a decisive battle, with all  the trappings of a European state portrait. Elegant, fashionable, surrounded by paraphernalia and attributes, Washington is loudly proclaimed a man of great character and deed. The painting (for which Washington posed) is thought to have been commissioned by Martha Washington. (Not one for 'photo ops,' Washington sat only a few times for Peale - Peale (the entrepreneur part) made good use of his resources to produce all those versions and numerous copies, including 18 of the Princeton portrait.)

Charles Wilson Peale, himself a loyal patriot born and bred in the colonies who fought alongside Washington, left a treasury of portraits of colonial movers and shakers, many which can be seen in a Portrait Gallery just down the street from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Peale, an ideal of the American pioneering spirit of inventiveness and pragmatic 'just-get-it-done' achievement, was a politician, a soldier, a fund-raiser, a naturalist, the founder of the first American museum for both art and science, the founder of the first American art school, the sponsor of the first American art exhibit,  and, by some accounts, could also fix your teeth, shoes, and furniture. He also had 16 children, several of who went on to become artists and found their own museums. Peale's museum was originally on the second floor of what is now Independence Hall - the mastodon that used to be the main attraction is long gone, but his paintings now form the collection in the Portrait Gallery.

Even when the subjects have lost their 'household name' familiarity, the history they reveal is fascinating. Peale, who studied for three years in London, manages a gloss of European sophistication of technique and observation without losing a kind of American honesty - the paintings are a rich aesthetic experience as well as an historic one. This portrait of Thomas Jefferson is remarkable for the life in the expression and the subtleties of color and touch.

This double portrait of Robert Morris and Gouvernor Morris - not related, but linked by time and effort for the American cause as well as by name - is a nice example of Peale's relaxed but respectful approach. Gouverneur Morris slouches at the left, a little cocky but with a twinkle in his eye. The bright son of a wealthy New York loyalist family, Morris authored sections of the Constitution, and despite a wooden leg, was a notorious charmer of the ladies. Though he favored a more aristocratic standard for democracy, he opposed slavery and argued strongly for religious freedom.

Robert Morris, shown also in this portrait, was a very wealthy merchant and businessman, a man of integrity who financed much of the Revolution, including providing for the starving, freezing troops under Washington out of his own pocket. He also stepped up to create a clear financial plan for the young country and establish the first national bank. His investments of time and money never paid off for him, however, and he died in relative poverty. Selflessness and dedication to the greater good - those ideas are in the fabric of the lives in these portraits - scientists, soldiers, intellectuals, artists, explorers, women in various capacities, and yes - politicians.

They don't have to go bankrupt, but could we have a bit of that these days, please?
Here's a link to the Portrait Gallery, located in the Second National Bank building in Philadelphia.
http://www.nps.gov/inde/second-bank.htm
(note: many, but not all portraits shown are in the Portrait Gallery)