Andrew Wasserman

@onceatrophic

Art Historian. Etc. The World Atlas of Public Art (Yale University Press, 2024) now available:

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Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y onceatrophic.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 19d

Rebecca Manson, American Lady (2025), porcelain, glaze, adhesives, canvas, pigment, and hardware

From the museum label:

This larger-than-life butterfly wing is a fantastical interpretation of the American Painted Lady butterfly. Rebecca Manson collages the butterfly's natural patterns with designs from her own imagination to create a textured, kaleidoscope-like image made from thousands of small ceramic pieces. Manson is deeply inspired by natural cycles, working through a combination of observation and fantasy to create what she calls, "emotional portraits of nature."

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 19d

I know, girl. I know.

Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, A Tight Fix-Bear Hunting, Early Winter [The Life of a Hunter: A Tight Fix], 1856, Oil on canvas

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 19d

Keith Haring, Untitled sculptural costume elements for Grace Jones (1984), 14 unique ornaments, paint on tin

Square display case on a black pedestal with a ring of 14 Haring black and white Haring figures

Close up of the case with the reflection of the lights overhead. This is one of the corners that only has some slight hand or chin print smudges as opposed to the other three corners which were caked with human residue and so someone at CB might want to run a rag over these cases more frequently than they currently are

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 20d

I know, girl. I know.

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 20d

Chuck Ramirez’s Santos series (1996), archival inkjet prints

Chuck Ramirez’s Santos series:

Santa Marcia, Santa Carolina, San Gregorio, Santa Janet, Santa Alicia, San Pedro, Santa Cynthia, San Miguel, and San Roberto

Santa Janet

From the gallery label:

‘Presented in a grid, these nine photographs reference the opening sequence of The Brady Bunch TV show. This squeaky-clean white sitcom family loomed large in mainstream media during Ramirez's formative years. Each photograph presents the bottom of a second-hand saint statue, a Santo, which frequently populate the homes of Mexican Catholics. The Spanish version of the Brady family members names correspond to each of the individual Santos, and the overall grid references Ramirez's own identity: a collision of his Anglo and Mexican heritages sharing space in brilliant technicolor.’

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 20d

I know, girl. I know.

Alfred H. Maurer, Girl in Red Dress, ca. 1920-1925, Oil on panel

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 20d

Wow I HAAAAAAATE this

Crystal Bridges’ disastrous multimedia presentation video

Like you can just say it without doing… this

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 21d

Two good paragraphs from Durbin’s The Wonderful World That Almost Was

“Dodging, burning, bleaching, spotting. Test prints. Grades of paper. All those aspects of the photographic process upon which its artistry depends are missing from On Photography. Susan is more concerned with the history of photos than photos them-selves; the darkroom is not of serious interest. Here is what she says a typical photographer does: He "chooses oddity, chases it, frames it, develops it, titles it." How the photographer produces the final image requires "nothing more elaborate than a few trays, a bottle of developer, and a bottle of hypo solution."
Susan should have asked Peter about the portrait he made of her for Portraits in Life and Death. That conversation might have changed her mind. In it, she is lying on his mattress, her hands behind her head, eyes gazing upward. So much of the meaning of this photograph was refined in the darkroom. Peter brightened the background wall of his loft into a kind of sky while rendering the undulations of the blanket more pronounced. The image is almost a seascape, with Susan drifting on his bed like some grand ship. He also adjusted her hair; much of the gray disappears from the negative in the final print, with only a few strands showing near her temple, a prophetic salute to the tamous white streak of later years. She is more Susan Sontag than Susan Sontag ever was in 1975.”

Peter Hujar’s Susan Sontag (1975)

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287305

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· 29d

‘Ok, let’s get one with everyone in front of the new Nevelson.’

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jul 6

Next to Todd Oldham’s Peepland mural

Multimedia mural with painted black silhouettes of showgirls

Described in the audience guide as:

‘Fashion designer Todd Oldham has worked with Michael Economy to turn the facade of Peepland into a side-show-like mural. Garish colors surround black silhouettes, huge and curvaceous emblems of showgirls. What has happened to the girls themselves? Plastic flowers abut enlarged twenty-five cent pieces, leftovers from the era of pay-by-the-quarter viewing booths. Part cartoon, part circus poster, the painting suggests certain playful energy in the recent life of 42nd Street. It also hints at the menace that accompanies the life of peepshows and pornography. After all, what sideshow lives up to its promise?’

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jul 4

Gijs Bakker, Liberty Brooch (1997; made 2002) You are absolutely not prepared for the model wearing it: gijsbakker.com/project/libe...

Silver outline of the Statue of Liberty

https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/62792/

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jun 30

Good proposal, bad glue

Collaged proposal of a black geometric monolith in a sunken rectangular space. The proposal is for a 1960s for a public sculpture exhibition that happened but not with this work here

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jun 29

Went to the library today

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jun 29

For the installation of whose what 🪦

Document granting permission for the digging of Oldenburg’s Placid Civic Monument or at the very least something similar to it by someone similar to him.

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jun 28

Finnegan Shannon’s I Want to Believe (2025), fabric, fabric paint, and pain relief product advertising copy

From the museum label:

Using text and physical interventions, Shannon considers access and its limitations to point out exclusionary, ableist systems and practices. The artist assembles a poem from the many promises of pain relief that medical devices and treatments offer. Displayed and painted on banners in Shannon's trademark white text on a blue background, the poem responds to the Shaker medicines and assistive devices on view nearby.

Continued:

The work's title, I Want to Believe, speaks to the hope that technology can provide support in a disabled life while acknowledging how it is often shaped by harmful power structures.

Installation of the work from the side showing Shaker furniture including an adult and child cradle below and a pair of canes mounted to the wall next to the work

Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic· Jun 27

I’ve been looking into Franklin’s Footpath the past few days, partly bc it set an aspirational model curators in other cities cited as replicable in the months/years that followed (to very limited results). By 1976, it seems PMA resigned itself to the painting be permanently gone…