MOMA: SEURAT DRAWINGS AND MAGIC LANTERN SHOWS!

In keeping with a BAT tradition of bad timing, I'm recommending MOMA's George Seurat: The Drawings on its last weekend. I am comforted, however, by the thought that my recommendation is redundant in view of the many raves the exhibition has received. And, if you miss the show, I'll also note that my affection for the show is more respectful than reverential.

I've long had ambivalent feelings for Seurat's work. It just doesn't move me or involve me or delight me very much. This show (covered by Scoboco here) enhanced my appreciation of his work, from the deft early drawings to the later experiments in texture and technique, which seem influenced by woodcuts and photography as much as theories of color and optics prevalent in Seurat's day. Among the drawings, some took my breath away—Seurat's skill with extremes of black and white is very impressive. The inclusion of samples of Seurat's colorful paintings helped me to appreciate them as alternate explorations in the graphic portrayal of light. Yet there's a cerebral, fussy aspect to his work that still keeps my enthusiasm for Seurat in check.

Meanwhile, tucked away in the MOMA lower level through March 10, 2008, there's a charming display of magic lantern work that was still popular in when Seurat walked the eart. The centerpiece of Panoramas of the Moving Image: Mechanical Slides and Dissolving Views from Nineteenth-Century Magic Lantern Shows, curated by Ernie Gehr, is the simultaneous projection of five sets of images showing the visual range of magic lantern work. If you park yourself in front of the images and observe them for about 20 minutes, you should leave with a good sense of this form of entertainment, which runs from being transparently crude (see immediately below) to glowingly beautiful (as in a countryside time-lapse display that shows up on the far right at the museum).

J. Hoberman of The Village Voice included the magic lantern exhibit in his Top 10 for 2007, along with I'm Not There and There Will Be Blood, and wrote that the museum should make it permanent. It's just a shame that the it's not being presented with sound, such as narration and music—maybe they could be adapted with sound for presentation as short subjects at the MOMA theaters.



Source (00:39)


Here's a promotion for the American Magic Lantern Theater of East Haddam, Connecticut.



Source (4:07)