Here you will find a gorgeous array of lyrical work splashing out from all angles by illustrator Mari Kanstad Johnsen. Her studio is full of a curious naive and sophisticated visual poetry straight from the heart of Norway. I love the bears peaking out of mountains in her Illustration for Norwegian outdoors-magazine Norrøna Magazine. As to the Manhattan girls; it’s just genius in a jovial brush or three.

The Illustrations for the childrensbook “Barbie-Nils og Pistolproblemet” (Barbie-Nils and the Problem with the Gun), written by Kari Tinnen, published by Gyldendal will make you want to go out tomorrow and learn Norwegian. And if you first pick up the childrensbook VIVALDI, written by Helge Torvund, published by MAGIKON the images are equally and whimsically poignant.

Mike Perry’s work is showing up in all manner of products and places. I particularly love these screen prints from a recent show at Double Punch Gallery in San Fransisco. The Holiday Zine ‘to celebrate another year of making’ is worth a look too!

Many other works in the show failed to hold my attention. Perhaps this was due to a sense of dissociation, detachment and what I might describe as hollow affectation. Broadly speaking they felt lacking in any real personal content or emotionally honest response; deliberately so for various reasons. Stephanie Sinclair‘s photojournalism documenting female self-immolation was a shock, and an exception of course; a harrowing insight that is burned into my brain, and I’m sure everyone’s who has seen the work, and rightly so. The Whitney site has some great links discussing it further. I’ll touch on it enough to say that her work broaches various great divides, not least the divide between journalism and art.

Overall, and excluding the works I mention here, there is something in The Time’s estimation of the show; that it was “tweak-intensive …, abstraction’s old content — utopian ideals, personal expression — is squeezed out. What’s left? Décor? Expensive busywork? The catalog refers to such painting as “personal” modernism, though the opposite seems to be true. It’s plain old product, and proud.” And for those of us with a foot in the commercial world it left us wondering why? Why, when you have a chance to pour your guts out without a commercial reality staring you in the face, would you not take the opportunity to connect to internals, be raw and, above all, be at the least a little bit wild and brave. Alternatively we have yet another commodity here that is suffering from current economics.

Substance again, to bring up the rear, could be found in Pae White’s simple but delightful textile work of cotton tapestry (above) pretending to be smoke; “cotton’s dream of becoming something other than itself”.

image ©RJ 

Watteau and Boucher sketches grace the first room, depicting elegantly dressed ladies swathed in drapery. The linear repetition and rhythmic stroke of line work in chalk sketches is roomy and yet explicit in defining forms. The closer the eye comes to the papered surface the more abstract, and yet when pulling back the forms are complex and articulated. I particularly love a little chalk sketch of a shell, with thick parallel rendering strokes to define the curve of the form. The drapes of a silk skirt in Francois Boucher’s sketch of a woman from behind are expressive and lithe, whilst conveying the refined surface of the taffeta.

There are little sketches of the Italian countryside and vignettes of outdoor scenes. The drawings are raw, freehand and candid markings from the sketchbooks of these select master artists.

Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection is open to the public until January 10, 2010