Notes from the Road - Richard Sera

Recently I’ve been reading Sarah Thornton’s book ‘Seven Days in the Art World’ (a fascinating look at 7 venues of the contemporary art world, a book which I recommend). One worry of collectors of contemporary art is that their collection will eventually ‘look like the archeological remains of an ancient garbage heap.’ Surely, I thought, artists must have the same concerns. How can an artist avoid this dreadful possibility that their life’s work will amount to naught? Richard Serra, I believe, has found a partial solution to this problem. For thoughts on how Serra has done this and lots of pictures of his works, click on this link. The picture at right is of DAM Volunteers on a recent (2009) trip to Seattle. They are examining Serra's sculpture Wake in the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Can anyone identify the Volunteers in the picture??? Please Comment below, and don't forget your name!

(To make the picture larger, place the mouse arrow over the picture, right click and open in a new tab.)

Joe Lantz

Notes From the Road - End of the Trail

One of my hobbies is traveling around the country visiting museums, both the big flashy ones and the tiny little out-of-the-way ones. I have noticed lots of objects that make me think of similar items in our Museum. I thought, why not share these connections to other museums in our e-Gazette Blog? Thus, here is my new series titled Notes from the Road. My first piece is titled End of the Trail. If you remember, we have a small casting of James Earl Fraser's sculpture End of the Trail on the 7th floor of the North Building. It is part of a 'triptych' set up by Peter Hassrick to show the changing symbolism of the American Indian in Western art over a 30 year period of time. In addition, my Post is meant to be a companion piece to Jennifer Younger’s wonderful video discovery piece on Fritz Scholder. Scholder titled this painting, guess what, End of the Trail. He painted it in 1970. Obviously, Scholder based his painting on Fraser's sculpture. Scholder, however, turns Fraser's theme on its head by using bright knock-your-eye out colors, indicating that the American Indian, far going extinct, is on the road to a bright future. The painting is from the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma. For riffs by another artist on Fraser's sculpture and for images and text on the original Fraser End of the Trail, please click on this link. Note: Please right click on this image and open in a separate window. This is a 10 mega pixel image and is a knock-your-socks-off picture when blown up. Joe Lantz

Bird Headed Deity

The winner of the Mystery Object for January, 2010, is Jacquie Kitzelman!! Lydia Troxler answered correctly shortly after Jacquie. The object was correctly identified as the Assyrian Bird-Headed Deity located in the South West Asian Gallery on the 5th floor of the North Building. As I stated previously, this object has intrigued me for a long time. Who is Ashurnasirpal II? How did this object wind up in Denver, so far from its place of origin? How did so many of these objects of the same description get distributed to art museum all over the USA? Could this object be part of the legal controversy currently rocking the art museum world?
Ethically, who really should ‘own’ this object?

I will try to address these questions in 4 essays titled:

The Palace of Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria
Austen Henry Layard – British Adventurer and Father of Assyriology
Four Objects – Four Art Museums – Four different Provenances
Loot: Who Should Own the Art Treasures of the World?

Please click on the links to read the essays.


Joe Lantz