Content provided in partnership with

Lothar Baumgarten at Marian Goodman - New York - Brief Article

Art in America, Nov, 2001 by Edward Leffingwell

To Lothar Baumgarten, the centuries-old chimneys of Venice present a singular architectural vocabulary of substantial charm and interest. A subject lost on neither Ruskin nor the guidebook writers of today, these engaged columns built into the sides of venerable buildings are often capped with stuccoed spark catchers, a variety of functional structures designed to suggest miniature buildings, towers, crowns and helmets.

For this recent installation, a meandering presentation titled How to See Venice, Baumgarten addressed the topology of chimneys in a sequence of black-and-white slide projections screened on the gallery walls at various heights and from various distances, interspersed with formally related charcoal drawings. Photographed in 1983-84 for a project conceived for Mies van der Rohe's Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany, the images were first presented there in 1992.

Most Popular Articles in Arts: Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism; Free-standing cardboard sculpture; What makes a successful business person? Business people who are tops in ...; Take advantage of local advertising: TV, newspaper or magazines? If your ...; Tino Sehgal at the ICA; More »

Baumgarten regards the chimneys of Venice as purpose-built structures expressive of the pleasure of forms; they occupy a distinctive place above the city's sprawl in a private, gardened roofscape, available for the enjoyment of the attentive few. Most often his camera looks to where chimneys meet the sky above the decorative program of a building's exterior. He locates a sculpted medallion deep in shade, and records where the sky is crosshatched with the power lines and antennas of modern urban existence. At Marian Goodman, Baumgarten adapted his installation to animate each turn of the corridors that link the gallery's principal exhibition spaces, deliberately recalling the medieval progress of the calles and rios of Venice.

In a text in which he compares the appeal of these chimneys to musical passages, Baumgarten finds added meaning in the smoke that carries skyward the odors of kitchen and hearth from the wood fires of Adriatic winters. In several projected images, soot remains visibly encrusted on stucco surfaces, referring us to the charcoal medium of the accompanying drawings. The drawings themselves adapt the form of trefoil and octagonal fittings, elevations or chimney sections. Placed at various heights, the drawings invited the eye to understand the viewing experience as ephemeral, a series of unpremeditated encounters with forms experienced in passing. In the end, Baumgarten's constant play of light and shadow provoked a quickened awareness of the effects of time as it passes.

Lothar Baumgarten at Marian Goodman - New York - Brief Article

Art in America, Nov, 2001 by Edward Leffingwell

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in Arts

Most Popular Publications in Arts