We went to Oxford on Saturday to see the exhibition of America’s Cool Modernism at the Ashmolean. For the most part I enjoyed it, though one or two of the more abstract pieces didn’t really appeal; it was interesting to observe a variety of influences from other places, including Soviet constructivism. My favourite pieces were the architectural (such as Edward Hopper’s Manhattan Bridge Loop), the industrial (Charles Sheeler’s Water), Martin Lewis’ spectral Which Way?, and the almost Escher-esque perspectives of Samuel Margolies’ Man’s Canyon and William McNulty’s New York in the Fifties.
We were fortunate to time our visit to coincide with a tour of the cast collection basement, usually not open to the public. About 1000 items are stored here, even of themselves now museum pieces, as the casts no longer have the significant academic function they once did. But it was interesting to appreciate the value of the casts in allowing, for example, exercises in re-combining statues that are now in different locations but may once have been presented together.
First and Second Law (of Thermodynamics) 