History

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Cover of What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids by Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, published by The Museum of Modern Art MoMA’s current exhibition, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store, celebrates the early years of artist Claes Oldenburg’s extraordinary career, when he experimented with painting and sculpture by reworking the stuff of every day into larger than life objects made with unexpected materials. Oversized sculptures like the plush Floor Cone (1962) and the papier-mâché “Empire” (“Papa”) Ray Gun (1959) imbue viewers with child-like wonder—and at times, bewilderment—so it’s fitting that Oldenburg’s iconic duo of juicy cheeseburgers would grace the cover of MoMA’s children’s book, What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids. Oldenburg’s Two Cheeseburgers, with Everything (Dual Hamburgers) (1962) may look good enough to eat, but as the book explains, they are in fact made of thick cloth covered in hard painted plaster. Authors Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, a former museum curator and an arts and culture writer, go on to explain that Oldenburg “loves to make soft things in hard materials and hard things in soft materials.” It’s kid-friendly information that allows adults to have their own second looks at well-known works in MoMA’s collection. The book explores a wide range of iconic works from the past 50 years through inventive categories like “Getting Dressed,” which groups together Joseph Beuys’s Felt Suit (1970) and Vito Acconci’s Adjustable Wall Bra (1990–91), and “Read All About It,” which features artworks that employ wordplay, like Ed Ruscha’s OOF (1962). Also included in the roster are Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, and Louis Bourgeois, among others. Spreads from What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids A short biography of each artist is included, along with prompts asking kids to think about materials and processes,  quotes from the artists, idea boxes that bring important contemporary art concepts to light, and a glossary of key art terms. Whether for kids to explore on their own, or for grown-ups looking for some answers themselves, What is Contemporary Art? serves as a great introduction to contemporary art. Download a free PDF sample to check out chapters like “Bizarre Beasts” and “Playing Games.”

Marilyn Monroe and Navy pilot snapped by Charlotte Brooks in 1952 for the Look magazine assignment "Helicopter View of L.A." Also, a nice lei. View full size.

Blossom and Fruit. A Choice Collection of Hebrew Texts for Jewish Public and Private Instruction=Tsits u-Feri. Compiled and published by Julius Katzenberg.  New York: Industrial School, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 1882. AAS certainly has Hebrew texts geared to Christian divinity students, but this text is geared to the needs of Jewish children and youth.  AAS has [...]

On this date in 1942, this happened: The young man striking the dramatic pose is Stjepan Filipovic, an anti-fascist partisan hanged in the city of Valjevo by the Serbian State Guard, a collaborationist force working with the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. Filipovic is shouting “Death to fascism, freedom to the people!” — a pre-existing Communist slogan that Filipovic’s martyrdom would help to popularize. Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu! … or you can just abbreviate it SFSN! In the city where Filipovic died, which is in present-day Serbia, there’s a monumental statue in his honor replicating that Y-shaped pose — an artistically classic look just like our favorite Goya painting, poised between death and victory. (cc) image from Maduixa. Filipovic was a Communist so we’re guessing that he would not have had a lot of truck with the ethnic particularism that’s latterly consumed the Balkans. Times being what they are, however, the national hero to Tito’s Yugoslavia has become a post-Communist nationalist football. That Valjevo monument — it’s in Serbia, remember — calls him Stevan Filipovic, which is the Serbian variant of his given name. But as Serbia is the heir to Yugoslavia, he at least remains there a legitimate subject for a public memorial. Filipovic himself was Croatian, but his legacy in that present-day state is a bit more problematic: in his native town outside Dubrovnik, a statue that once commemorated Filipovic was torn down in 1991 by Croat nationalists; its vacant plinth still stands sadly in Opuzen. (Opuzen’s film festival, however, awards its honorees a statuette replicating the destroyed monument.)

August 1942. "Interlochen, Mich. National music camp where 300 or more young people study symphonic music for eight weeks each summer. Girl putting check on board to indicate she is in swimming." Photo by Arthur Siegel. View full size.

Circa 1908. "North End bridge, Springfield, Massachusetts." Points of interest include the signal light on the pole and sign on the bridge. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Villagers installing a water pipe a few weeks ago in the town of Piedra Labrada in the southwestern Mexico near the Guatemalan border unearthed a granite stele depicting a player of the Mesoamerican ball game. The figure is 5’4″ high including the head which archaeologists believe was deliberately severed from the body during a ball game ritual. He’s a bow-legged fellow with his arm crossed over his chest. He is accessorized with a helmet, a yoke around his waist and round stones, possibly the precious greenstones known as chalchihuites, hanging from his ears. The statue was discovered in the north section of the town on the grounds of the biggest ball game pitch, an L-shaped court about 130 feet long. There are five ball courts in Piedra Labrada. Around twenty sculptures of snake heads, shells and anthropomorphic figures were found in three of them, but this is the first sculpture found in the north field and the only one that depicts a ball player. The Mesoamerican ball game was not simply a sport. The basic game fielded two teams who sought to put a rubber ball through a stone circle by bouncing it off their hips, but it was also an immensely important religious ritual with a number of ceremonial functions. Among these rites was a ritual marking the end of a calendar cycle during which sculptures were painted red and then ceremonially “killed” by having their heads struck off. The decapitated statues would then be buried around the court. The age of the stele is hard to pinpoint because Piedra Labrada has not been thoroughly excavated. Since the recent digs began a year and a half ago, archaeologists have been mapping the site. The pre-Hispanic town is 1.24 square miles in area. In addition to the five ball fields, almost 50 medium-sized buildings (10-16 feet high) have been identified as well as public plazas and sculptures. The sculptures that have been found thus far appear to be Mixtec (an indigenous ethnic group who have a documented history going back to 940 A.D.) in design, and their placement in the ancient town is in keeping with Epiclassic characteristics which could turn the clock all the way back to 600 A.D. Given the breadth of these discoveries, the many buildings, the ball courts, the big public squares, and now the unique ball player statue, there’s little doubt that Piedra Labrada was an important Mesoamerican city, a ritual center if not a political and population center. Archaeologists have submitted a proposal to the Archaeology Council of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) for an extensive excavation project that might reveal more information about the ancient city, its dates of use, the people who worshiped there. They’re hoping to unearth ceramics that can be dated and analyzed to determine their origin. If the project is authorized, it will be the first major archaeological exploration in the Costa Chica area of the Guerrero region. Since many of the pre-Hispanic sites in this area are intact, there is a wealth of new information about the Mixtec and other local Mesoamerican groups to be discovered. For now the stele is being kept in the municipal police station, which is probably the safest place. Until someone bribes a cop.

September 1942. "New York. Third Avenue elevated railway at 18th Street." The Shorpy Pub Crawl starts at Flynn's! Medium format negative by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

Another visit to faux New Rochelle: Mary Tyler Moore with Carl Reiner, left, and Jerry Paris on the set of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in 1963. Photo by Earl Theisen for the article "America's Favorite TV Wife" in Look magazine. View full size.