rene magritte – The Humble Fabulist

Meat the Eye

October 11, 2021October 11, 2021 The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

The sad, whatthehellamIdoingIdon’tbelonghere look in Pink Panther’s eyes when they locked with Magritte’s Portrait.

Jeff Koons || Pink Panther, 1988
René Magritte || The Portrait, 1935

MoMA, New York

February 7th, 2020

The fabulous geometry of art

March 16, 2021March 17, 2021 The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

And a pleasant surprise, as we wandered through the galleries of LACMA, those ones that remained open during the museum’s extensive renovation and expansion. The surprise was finding out that Magritte’s ”Ceci n’est pas une pipe” belongs to LACMA; for some reason, I was convinced it would belong to the permanent collection of the Magritte Museum in Brussels. What a fittingly surreal connection between my two favourite cities in the world!

Ellsworth Kelly || Blue Curve III, 1972 || Oil on canvas

Joel Shapiro || Untitled (Dancing Man), 1981 || Cherry wood, oil, paint

David Smith || Cubi XXIII, 1964 || Stainless steel

Juan Gris || Seated Harlequin, 1920 || Oil on canvas

Pablo Picasso || Centaur, 1955 || Painted wood

Pablo Picasso || Woman with a Blue Veil, 1923 || Oil on canvas

Richard Pousette-Dart || The Edge, 1943-45 || Oil on linen

Georgia O’Keeffe || Horse’s Skull with Pink Rose, 1931 || Oil on canvas

René Magritte || The Liberator, 1947 || Oil on canvas

René Magritte || The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe/Ceci n’est pas une pipe), 1929 || Oil on canvas

Jean Charlot || Portrait of Sergei Eisenstein (Retrato de Eisenstein), 1932 || Oil on canvas

Amedeo Modigliani || Reverie (Study for the Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland), 1914 || Oil and graphite on cardboard

Georg Schrimpf || Child Portrait (Peter in Sicily), 1925 || Oil on canvas

George Grosz || Portrait of Dr. Felix J. Weil, 1926 || Oil on canvas

Magnus Zeller || The Orator, c. 1920 || Oil on canvas

Yee Sookyung || Translated Vase, 2013 || Ceramic discards, epoxy, 24k gold leaf

Zhu Jinshi || Wave of Materials, 2007/2019 || Cotton, bamboo, stone, xuan paper

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

May 7th, 2019

Taking a line for a walk @ The Art Institute of Chicago

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019 The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

The monumental Sky above Clouds IV, culmination of a series of clouds Georgia O’Keeffe was inspired to create after having travelled in an airplane for the very first time – in her seventies; a sleek, very art deco, very 007 bar on skis; a multilayered image of woman, Francis Picabia’s Madame X, it was then a new acquisition; the surreal, perfectly circular suns of Max Ernst and René Magritte; the meandering red line outlining anxiety and sadness looking itself in the mirror; a method Paul Klee called “taking a line for a walk”.

1965, oil on canvas – by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986)

|2|- ”Bar on Skis” Liquor Cabinet, about 1930 – by Émile Jacques Ruhlmann

|3|- Painting of Madame X, 1927/30, oil on canvas – by Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

|4|- Forest and Sun, 1927, oil on canvas – by Max Ernst (1891-1976)

|5|- The Banquet, 1958, oil on canvas – by René Magritte (1898-1967)

|6|- In the Magic Mirror, 1934, oil on canvas, on board – by Paul Klee (1879-1940)

The Art Institute of Chicago

November 4th, 2017

I am the Eye in the Sky @ MoMA [permanent collection, part 7]

September 6, 2017September 5, 2017 The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

«…Looking at You
I can read Your Mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind…»

The False Mirror, 1929. Oil on canvas || René Magritte

<<”Le Faux Miroir” presents an enormous lashless eye with a luminous cloud-swept blue sky filling the iris and an opaque, dead-black disc for a pupil. The allusive title, provided by the Belgian Surrealist writer Paul Nougé, seems to insinuate limits to the authority of optical vision: a mirror provides a mechanical reflection, but the eye is selective and subjective. Magritte’s single eye functions on multiple enigmatic levels: the viewer both looks through it, as through a window, and is looked at by it, thus seeing and being seen simultaneously. The Surrealist photographer Man Ray, who owned the work from 1933 to 1936, recognized this compelling duality when he memorably described ‘”Le Faux Miroir” as a painting that “sees as much as it itself is seen.”>>

MoMA, views from the permanent collection.

January 30th, 2017