Visit the New Britain Museum of Art

 

 

 

Be greeted by penguins!

New Britain Museum of American Art I

56 Lexington Avenue

New Britain, Connecticut

Current Special Exhibitions

[Note: Some images are off-center to avoid harsh reflections]

 

One of the most underrated and under-visited at museums in New England is the New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA). It used to be small and cramped but, if like me, you haven’t been there in decades you’re in for a pleasant surprise, including its 21^st century expansion.

 

Connecticut is a weird state in that it has some of wealthiest towns and cities in America but also some the poorest. New Britain (population 74,000) isn’t usually on the tourist trail. The one-time “Hardware Capital of the World” has sections of postindustrial waste akin to a mini version of Detroit and the social problems that come with a gutted out center, but it’s trying.

 

The NBMAA is, however, is located in a leafy neighborhood roughly 10 miles from Hartford. In Part I of an overlook of the NBMAA I will comment upon a few of the current special exhibitions. In Part II I’ll offer selections from the permanent collection.

 

Justin Favela

 

 

 

 

The first new exhibition you will encounter is a work from Justin Favela, a contemporary artist whose assemblage Do You See What I See? (through January 26, 2025) is way more impressive than perhaps it sounds. Favela was inspired by the paper that covers pinatas. Imagine a tropical scene made entirely of small colored slips. That’s a lot of work, right? Now imagine a sizable tall anteroom covered from floor to ceiling with tissue, paper, carboard, and glue. The NBMAA is famed from its Thomas Hart Benton mural, but Favela gives a Latino twist to mural art. It’s huge and you will spend time looking for angles that bring its components into focus. It’s bold, colorful, and wondrous. 

 

Walter Baumhofer The Red Skull 1933

 

The period between World Wars One and Two featured both the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. Wonder Stories : Pulp Art Illustration from the NBMAA (through November 3, 2024) captures the hype of the Jazz Age and the adaptations made during economic collapse. Pulp fiction–so-called because it was soft-bound, printed on cheap paper, and cheap to buy–has been around since the 19^th century. Its stories were mostly intended to thrill and titillate rather than hold the pretense of being called “literature.” Much of the content hewed to preferences of the moment. During the 1920s, for example, there were tales of wartime bravery, aviation, westerns, science fiction, and detectives. Many of those themes persisted into the 1930s, though the tales tended to be even more lurid, cheap diversions for the downtrodden.

 

 

Frederick Blakelee Patrol of the Cloud Crusher 1936

 

What does it have to do with art? Quite a bit. Pulp fiction works were roughly the size of Readers’ Digest and featured dramatic art on the cover. Those covers were reproduced from much larger paintings–often as big as 2 x 3 feet. More surprisingly, the originals were usually oil paintings. Like the stories inside, cover art was supposed to offer thrills rather than fall into fine art categories. Most of them were like the magazines–discarded after use–so it’s amazing that much survived. Wonder Stories isn’t a large exhibit, but it’s very cool to see the paintings and magazines displayed together. 

 

 

The Gray Major

Frank Paul Science Wonder Works 1929

 

 

 

                                                        Richard Case Six Gun Saga 1941
 

 

 

I am a fan of indigenous art, but The Land Carries Our Ancestors (through September 15, 2024) was a mild disappointment, largely because of its subtheme: Contemporary Art by Native Americans. I have cherrypicked a few images I really liked, but a lot of it was simply uninspiring in the ways that a lot of contemporary art fails to connect with those who view it. Artists, of course, have every right to make whatever they wish, but they have a responsibility to explain it if it goes on a wall. And by explain, I mean in intelligible no-BS terms, not gibberish that AI could say better.

 

Joe Fedderson Inhabited Landscapes I

              Steven Yazie Orchestrating a Blooming Desert

Rose Simpson "Tontantzin"

 

 

 

George Alexander You Found Me, You Should Never Have Lost Me*

*The explanation for this one is incomprehensible!
 

 

Two other exhibits are small but good. Glass Impressions (through November 3, 2024) features spectacular studio glass and vitreographs  (designs in or floating upon glass). Another exhibit, Handled with Care (through October 6, 2024) displays some objects from Hancock Shaker Village and works from Barbara Prey inspired by them. I’m not sure she tells us much of anything new, but Shaker craft continues to hold fascination for artists and artisans alike. 

 

 

 

Rob Weir

Blind Democrats: Episode # 519

 

 

Democrats are pathetic when it comes to blowing elections. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and blinder-bound Team Joe acolytes have circled the wagons. That’s Biden’s reward for making Donald Trump look good.

 

Biden defenders tell us that one bad debate doesn’t matter. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it’s an abuse of history to say it doesn’t. Democrats should know better.  An old friend brought up the 1960 debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the so- called “first television debate.” Nixon had been ill, refused to use any makeup, and appeared on camera looking like an extra for a zombie movie. Those listening on the radio thought Nixon won the debate, but TV was the forum of the future.

 

We can bemoan the dumbing down of American politics, but 1960 paved the way for impressionistic campaigns. In 1964, the slain Kennedy’s former Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, faced off against Barry Goldwater. Even before that debate Johnson’s Democratic team engaged in downright dirty politics. If you don’t know it, check out LBJ’s “Daisy” ad. In the first debate, Johnson painted Goldwater as a dangerous extremist and he never recovered.

 

Four years later, Nixon got his revenge. In debate he painted LBJ’s Veep, Hubert Humphrey, as a key player in bollixing the Vietnam War. The “New Nixon” promised he had a “secret plan” to end the war. That was as dishonest as most of what he did, but Humphrey did not shed the allegation that he was LBJ’s right-hand flunky. Nor could Eugene McCarthy manage to convince voters that he was more than a one-trick pony in 1972, though Nixon was already perceived as crooked.

 

In 1980, Jimmy Carter managed to turn what pollsters said would be a close election into a Ronald Reagan rout. Carter came off as a stern school master. Reagan spouted nostrums and hokum, but he was sunny and avuncular. When the dust settled, Carter won just five states. Four years later, Reagan did to Walter Mondale what Nixon did to Humphrey. Mondale won only his native Wisconsin and that by a razor thin margin. If you like irony, Reagan was 73 when reelected, which made him the oldest person to win the presidency–until Biden! Reagan was a whopping nine years younger than Joe will be in November.

 

Let’s jump ahead to 1988, when George H. W. Bush tarred Mike Dukakis as an elitist liberal. Both were questionable, but it’s stunning that George “Born with a Silver Spoon in His Mouth” who grew up in Connecticut and Kennebunkport, Maine, and attended Yale could convince anyone he wasn’t an elitist. The Duke was just 55, but  Bush I eviscerated him.

 

In 1992, though, Bill Clinton uttered four words in a debate over the economy that catapulted him to the presidency: “I feel your pain.” In ’96 Bob Dole ran against Clinton and lost because he never made it stick that the impeachment trial against Bonkin’ Bill was about anything other than sex–despite the fact that Clinton committed perjury.  

 

Bush the younger won in 2000, partly because Al Gore failed to prove he wasn’t as boring as summer re-runs. Bush II won again four years later when the Democrats nominated John Kerry, a dyed-in-the-wool elitist who managed to make Gore seem exciting by contrast.

 

I thrilled to Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 but let’s not pretend his campaign was all about substance. He hammed Dole in ’08 on the unpopular Iraq war and Sarah Palin’s gaffes. Romney played Al Gore in 2012 and bland seldom unseats an incumbent POTUS. I think you know what happened in 2016 and 2020. If you don’t think Hillary came off an elitist and Trump as a pompous jerk versus Blue-Collar Biden, pass me some of what you’ve been drinking.

 

The moral is clear: Millions of voters go by their gut not by their undereducated heads. To use marketing language, Biden has damaged his brand and calling Zelensky “President Putin” a few days ago is another nail in his coffin. If the DNC can’t cut him loose–something the rank and file has demanded–the only obstacle to the Return of Lord Voldemort is self-destruction.

 

Rob Weir