Sheena Wagstaff

Jordan Casteel: Surviving The Buzz

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate to support it & independent Art writing. Thank you. 

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Jordan Casteel, Yvonne and James II, 2021, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches. Seen at The Met, June 18, 2022.

You’re a Painter. You’re 32. Your Yvonne and James II was bought by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s now hanging directly opposite Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Studio), 2014, one of the show-stoppers in the blockbuster Kerry James Marshall: Mastry in 2017, in The Met’s largest Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery, #915. If that’s not a “Wow!,” what is?

The Baayfalls, 2017, Oil on canvas, 6’6 x 7′ 6, seen at MoMA, August 27, 2022.

Not enough? Your Painting, The Baayfalls, 2017, Oil on canvas, 6’6 x 7′ 6, Painted at about age 27, has a wall to itself on the 2nd floor lobby at MoMA, where it is part of their permanent collection.

The Baayfalls, Paint on wall, the High Line Mural for 2019-20. Yes, the trees have gotten bigger since I showed them in my Barbara Kruger piece. I LOVE trees, but move them, please.

Then, there’s this- in 2019, The Baayfalls became the High Line Mural. Ed Ruscha, Kerry James Marshall, Henry Taylor and Barbara Kruger have had Murals up on this wall before Ms. Casteel, who was all of 30 at the time. Originally scheduled to be up for a year, due to covid, it’s still there as I write.

A very rare copy of the sold out catalog for Jordan Casteel: Within Reach is now impossible to find in any condition for less than $300.00.

A year after her Mural went up, her New Museum “Retrospective” (I’m not sure you can call a show of work by a 30 year old living Artist a Retrospective, but ok), Jordan Casteel: Within Reach took NYC by storm, although not many actually got to see it because it was closed for much of its run while the pandemic devastated the City and the world. Be it through the show’s terrific catalog or its online presence, viewers got the point. The word was out.

Can you say, PHEW!? Not since the day of Jean-Michel Basquiat has a young Painter risen so far so fast. And, Jean-Michel never had a Painting of his acquired by The Met or MoMA (let alone both) during his lifetime before he died at 27. Ms. Casteel’s work was acquired by both when she was about 31.

Jennifer Packer, Jordan, 2014, Oil on canvas, 36 by 48 inches. Seen in Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing at the Whitney Museum, December, 2021.

Hold on- I’m not done with her C.V. yet! Buzz builds upon buzz. International shows followed. Last year, Jordan Casteel appeared in a Portrait of her done by her friend, Jennifer Packer, in one of the shows of the year, the Whitney Museum’s Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing. Ms. Packer Painted Jordan in her studio while they were both students at Yale in 2014. Then late last year, Jordan Casteel was named a MacArthur Fellow. She received what is called a “genius grant.”

I’m not sure anyone can imagine what experiencing ALL of this has been like for her. It’s unprecedented. Luckily, Ms. Casteel seems to have a great head on her shoulders. She decided to assess ALL of this then reassess her life and her direction. Horror of horrors, she decided to leave NYC and move to rural New York. NYC is such a big part of the Denver-born Artist’s Portraits, it’s helped her to already create one of the strongest bodies of them since Alice Neel. Like Ms. Neel, many of her subjects were found on the streets of Harlem. I wondered what direction they would now take.

Marisa, Isabel and Sage, 2022, Oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches.

At Casey Kaplan on September 8th, I found out. In Jordan Casteel: In bloom, Ms. Casteel unveiled 9 new Paintings, each dated 2022 and each created since she relocated from NYC to “rural New York,” as the press release says. 

Morgan, 2022, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches.

The group consists of some Portraits, the genre she’s, perhaps, most associated with (Within Reach was exclusively portraits), and adds some Still Lifes and Landscapes to her range. Through them all, Ms. Casteel’s work is characterized by strength. Her line, her brushstrokes, and the character of her subjects, all exude strength. I continue to be captivated by the way she renders skin.

Sunset, 2022, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

Charles White, who had a way of making his figures larger than life- monumental, comes to mind. While Ms. Casteel’s figures often have a “monumental” quality to them, she has developed entirely her own way with rendering.skin.  All the while, rendering the Black men she Paints non-sexually.

In bloom, 2022, Oil on canvas, 78 x 90 1/4 inches.

There’s also a “there/not-there” element in her work, how she leaves certain parts outlined and not detailed, going back to The Baayfalls, seen above. It takes some adjustment of the eyes on the part of the viewer to see the scene the way the Artist does, and it’s not something I can say I’ve seen many other Artists do regularly. Jennifer Packer uses it, too. Sometimes it occurs in Ms. Casteel’s backgrounds. In the landscape in bloom, above, it’s also seen in the middle ground.

Greg Tate said Jordan Casteel captures the soul of her subject. When I look at her work I see Painting that is “old beyond its years,” and I don’t mean “early maturity.” The Artist is able to recognize subjects who make compelling Portraits, then uses her skills to reflect the appearance they present to the world and the essence, the strength, of their inner selves. The end result is pretty remarkable. Even her domestic scenes have a quiet power and self-assuredness. It’s a testament, I feel, to her subjects, and herself. At Casey Jordan, the 9 Paintings on view don’t seem to miss the City at all.

Damani and Shola, 2022, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches. I haven’t measured, but the large size Ms. Casteel favors in her Portraits make her subjects pretty near life-size.

It’s waaayyyy too early in Jordan Casteel’s life and career to make predictions as to where she, or her Art, are going. So far, her work has struck a nerve with the Art-going public and an ever-increasing number of curators, which will lead, I believe, to her work finding a home in most of the major museums around the world that show Contemporary Art in short order. The bigger picture is only just starting to come into focus. Over and over, the name of Alice Need comes to mind when I think about Ms. Casteel’s Portraits. The first part of her post-graduate career saw her following Ms. Neel’s footsteps in a way in Harlem creating Portraits that feel ripped from life. Now, the Artist has moved on, perhaps wanting to separate herself from those comparisons? She’s her own woman and her own Artist, as her Casey Kaplan show reminds us. It will be utterly fascinating to see how she handles the attention, the pressure, the expectations and the demand for her work going forward.

Field Balm, 2022, Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches.

I don’t see any of that ending any time soon.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Hold On” by Alabama Shakes, the debut single from Boys & Girls, 2012.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published!
If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below.
Thank you, Kenn.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Louise Bourgeois’s Guarantee of Sanity

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is now over. If you missed it, this is one of the few places you can still see a bit of it. If you appreciate that, please donate to support it. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Show Seen: Louise Bourgeois: Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In spite of having seen at least two prior shows of her work, until the moment I walked in through the entrance, above, I had no idea that Louise Bourgeois was also a Painter. This wonderfully concise show proved a revelation. Her Paintings, which predate her well-known Sculpture, turn out to be every bit as unique, personal, and captivating as her free-standing pieces.

The Runaway Girl, 1938, Oil, charcoal and pencil on canvas. After marrying in Paris, Louise moved to NYC. She came to feel guilt about her sudden departure. Here, she shows herself, with long hair as usual, suitcase in hand, with symbolic references to what she left behind in the background as she floats over jagged rocks, implying a difficult path.

“The Runaway Girl who never grew up…
I do not need a safety net,
Breakfast, big lunch or afternoon snack
I do not need any visitors, telephone
Calls or small mash notes…
I don’t need anything, I don’t confuse anything.
I can wait, I am not afraid. I am grown up.
Nothing is missing.”
Louise Bourgeois1

They’re also as open-ended, and each is autobiographical, beginning with The Runaway Girl, 1938, at the entrance. Beyond her guilt at running away was the pain she suffered discovering her father’s affair with Louise’s nanny- a dual betrayal. “Fear and pain were her main subjects,” her friend, the Art historian Robert Storr said2.

Yves Tanguy, Title Unknown, 1926, Oil on canvas with string and collage. This is about as close as I’ve come in looking for a predecessor to Louise Bourgeois’ Paintings. Seen at The Met. Not in the show.

Some Art historians mention Surrealism as a possible influence on Ms. Bourgeois’s Paintings. Personally, I don’t see it. The Surrealists largely Painted fantasies, dreams and nightmares. Ms. Bourgeois works from her life and her own experiences, even when they take imaginary forms. I don’t consider this Surrealism. The same was said about Chagall, who also worked largely from his own life experiences. Frankly, like Chagall’s, her Paintings don’t remind me of anyone else’s. The great Charlotte Salomon Painted her life, too, at the same moment Louise Bourgeois was (until Ms. Solomon was murdered by the Nazis in 1943). Ms Salomon’s work seems closer to Chagall’s, stylistically, than to Louise Bourgeois’s Paintings to me. Given all that went on in Art just in the first half of the 20th century, creating a unique style is pretty remarkable, and, along with the stellar quality of the work, begin the list of things she should be given more credit for. A good number of these pieces linger in my mind weeks after the show closed- like a person you encounter who has much on his or her mind and much to say, but didn’t say it out loud at the time.

Untitled, 1945, left, Painting: Red on White, 1945, center and Untitled, 1944, right

Louise was born on Christmas, 1911, left France for NYC in 1938, and lived many of her final years until her passing in 2010 around the corner from where I live now, unbeknownst to me.

For much of the last part of her life, Louise lived and worked in the two buildings to the immediate left of the red brick. They now are home to her Foundation. Late in her life Louise moved her bedroom to the first floor, behind one of the two windows, because the stairs were too difficult.

I might have passed her on the street. After she passed away, her home became the HQ of her Easton Foundation, which owns most of the work on display. (Take a look inside here.) Walking by it now, except for some intricate grating on the front door and windows (which was there when she was), it looks just like every other townhouse on the street. Given how unique all her Art is, this is somewhat incongruous.

Themes recur in Louise Bourgeois’s work. One is buildings as seen in each of these pieces. Her series of 4 canvases titled Femme Maison, 1946-7, Oil and ink on linen, center, will be addressed next. Later, buildings appear without human parts (as in both works to the far left), and they are stand-ins for humans. One building stands for a lonely person. Two separate buildings stands for an estranged couple. Three buildings is a triangle. These would seem to be influenced and inspired by life in the tall building jungle that was, and is, Manhattan, home of “Manhattanhenge” as Neil deGrasse Tyson calls it.

Louise Bourgeois’s Art was largely motivated by “her emotional struggles,” as former MoMA curator and Louise Bourgeois researcher Deborah Wye says, “This was something that plagued her for her whole life. And she said by making a work of art she could make these emotions tangible. Try to understand them. Try to cope with them. Try to hack away at them. And she actually called her art ‘her guarantee of sanity3.’” 

Femme Maison, 1946-7, Oil and ink on linen, occupy the central position in the show, as I show in the prior picture. Femme Maison translates as “woman house,” or “housewife.” In each, a woman is confined within a building, which references a part of the Artist’s past, as her role in society confined her. All 4 figures are naked from the waist down, exposing them to the viewer’s gaze. Her trademark long hair is seen in two. A stunning and singular expression, times 4, of a woman trapped in her role in Art history, at least that known to me.

In what appears to me to be one of the final shows, and perhaps the final gallery show, mounted under Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure as Chair of The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Department, Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is quietly spectacular. The feeling of discovering something “new,”exciting, and previously unknown, when you walk in is quickly reinforced by the variety, and similarities, in her work. Themes emerge. The mystery remains.

“1932,” 1947, Oil on canvas. 1932 was the year Louise’s mother passed away after a long illness. They had been very close, with Louise often serving as her mother’s nurse. Her passing precipitated the first of the Artist’s two suicide attempts, and recurring bouts of depression. According to the wall card, the figure to the left was a “more realistically rendered self-portrait in earlier stages.” Its closed room, its railing, the “anguished(?)” lone figure, and central spotlight, remind me of the settings of many of Francis Bacon’s Paintings that would coincidentally begin at this very moment.

I missed what looks to have been a terrific show at the Jewish Museum, Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter, due to the pandemic, but did see Louise Bourgeois: Holograms show at Cheim & Read and MoMA’s Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait excellent show of her Prints and book work, both in 2017. The variety of the work on view in these four shows (thanks to the Freud’s Daughter catalog) is extraordinary, and all of it is compelling.

Her Paintings were done in the FIRST decade of the SEVEN she eventually spent here. In the end, Louise Bourgeois lived, and worked, in New York City for an unheard of 72 years! In my book, she is what I call an “Ultimate New Yorker,” i.e. someone who has defined both what it is to be a New Yorker and who helped shape NYC in the Arts in my opinion, along with Patti Smith, Miles Davis, and others. Though she professes that these Paintings are “American, from New York,” in the quote above, I don’t sense much of the City in them beyond those that depict apartment buildings that look like those found here. They are more about a person living in the City. Buildings, though, are a metaphor for persons, as I said.

Reparation, 1945, Oil on canvas. Though the Artist shows herself as a girl bringing flowers to her family’s cemetery plot, there is no name on the sparsely Painted stone. So it could reference her mother’s or grandmother’s passing, or in a larger sense, mourn those she left behind.

In each of these de facto “Self-Portraits,” the Artist lays herself and her feelings daringly bare. While her Art didn’t “solve” her problems, it helped. Seeing them now, these Paintings may prove to be a touchstone for viewers, now and in the future, as I expect them to continue to rise in stature. Stylistically, they blend abstraction and realism selectively, often in the same piece. Finally, they also provide fascinating background material for pondering her Sculpture and Prints that followed for the rest of her career.

Untitled, 1946-7, Oil on canvas. World War II, guilt, and here, fear, are subtexts in many of her Paintings. I should say I see fear in this piece, which is one of a few pieces that depict this building in the show, the others having an unstated dread and menace to them as well, perhaps part of her agoraphobia.

Thinking about this show, I couldn’t help but recall the case of Jack Whitten, who had a long career as an important Painter, only to leave a comparably important,  large body of unknown Sculpture behind when he passed in 2018. Louise Bourgeois’ Paintings were shown and known, but it was early in her career, before she attained the status her Sculpture brought her. Both bodies of unknown and lesser known work were shown by Sheena Wagstaff in two of the more fascinating and memorable shows under her remarkable tenure. I imagine that this show may have been originally planned to be installed at The Met Breuer before its sudden closing.

Untitled, Oil on canvas, left, Untitled, Oil and chalk on canvas, right, both 1946. During one visit, another visitor asked me if the work on the left was a guillotine.

In the Press Release announcing the show, Sheena Wagstaff said about it, “To date, it is not widely known that Bourgeois was active as a painter in New York for ten years, a period when the city became a vital international hub amidst critical debates around painting. This exhibition reveals the foundational DNA of the artist’s development of themes that would subsequently burgeon into three dimensions, and preoccupy her for the remainder of her long career.”

All of this was “just” preliminary to her long career as a Sculptor, and work in other mediums. Her late Paintings, like these two, begin to look like her Sculpture. Sculpture, she said, enabled her to see what she was feeling in three dimensions. Deborah Wye said, “She said there was no rivalry between the mediums for her in which she worked. She said she just said the same thing but in different ways4”

And so, “Painting” as painting was over for Ms. Bourgeois.

Moving from Painting to Sculpture. Femme Volage, 1951 left, and Dagger Child, 1947-9, both Painted wood and stainless steel. Woman in the Process of Placing a Beam in her Bag, 1949, Oil on canvas, far left.

Being a self-professed and long-standing Paintings guy I really wish Louise had kept on Painting in addition to Sculpting, but her Muse carried her to 3 dimensions. Some Prints on view in An Unfolding Portrait involve brush work, continuing the thread in a sense. She made Prints for the rest of her life. Her Prints were first the subject of a 1995 MoMA show and their 2017 Unfolding Portrait show, which lives on in its wonderful catalog. Deborah Wye, then a MoMA curator who devoted a large part of her career to studying Louise Bourgeois’s output, curated both Print shows as well the Louise Bourgeois Retrospective at MoMA in 1982, the very first show of its kind given to a woman Artist at MoMA5. She has also created a website of Ms. Bourgeios’s complete prints, which may be seen here.

Fallen Woman (Femme Maison), 1946-7, Oil on canvas. As in almost all of her Paintings, her past and present experiences and the resulting guilt, angst and duality are transformed into wonderfully succinct compositions. “The woman depicted here, visually cut in two by a dark building, embodies the rejection, fragmentation, and abandonment that the artist experienced and feared…,” per the wall card.

“Why have there been no great female Artists?,” is the title of a book, and a question I’ve heard many times over the years. There are, and have been. MANY of them.

Untitled, 1946-7, Oil on canvas. Bacon, de Chirico, Miro, Chagall come to mind when I see this, but none of them combined these elements into one piece before Louise Bourgeois did here in what may be her most iconic Painting, which, again, features her long hair.

The history of Art has been largely written by men, museum collections largely curated by men, to this point. It’s only been this century that that has begun to change. It’s really only since the opening of the global Art market in the late 1980s and the accompanying relentless search for Art of value- anywhere by anyone, that more women Artist have begun to get the attention so many have stood up and demanded for so long. There’s still a long road ahead.

Beyond her iconic Sculpture, her Prints that I saw at MoMA in 2017, her Holograms that I saw the same year, and her Installations, Louise Bourgeois created an important body of Paintings, one that deserves a special place of import among those created by women Artists in the 20th century, as well as by Artists, period. I believe that as time goes on, more and more people, who know her name, but not much about what she did beyond her Spiders, Louise Bourgeois will be an Artist who moves more and more into the mainstream. Her work is so diverse, extending across mediums, techniques and time, that it actually reminds me a bit of one of her contemporaries- Pablo Picasso. That’s said not as a comparison, but to mention the similarities and variety in their work. I would not be one bit surprised to see a Bourgeois/Picasso show one of these days. Maybe MoMA’s next Bourgeois-related show6 show ?

Louise Bourgeois, with her long hair, with Untitled, 1946-7,  on her easel, circa 1946. It’s fascinating to compare what we can see of it in this Photo with the Painting we have, above.

Louise Bourgeois channeled her problems through unending creativity into an extraordinary and extraordinarily varied body of work. In spite of two suicide attempts7 earlier in her life, she overcame everything she lived through and felt about it to survive to be 98! There is much in that, as well as in her work, to inspire others. Jerry Gorovoy, her assistant and friend for 30 years, wrote in late 2010 after Louise’s death-

“Though her work was raw self-expression, it was also her way of understanding herself. It has a timeless dynamic that goes way beyond the visual: a profound capacity to awaken in others a heightened consciousness of what it is to be alive.”

Her ceaseless multi-dimensional creativity is up there with Picasso’s, Joan Miro’s, Marcel Duchamp’s and Robert Rauschenberg’s- the giants of endless invention in the 20th century. Add her name to that list if you haven’t. For her own creativity, as well as the quality and timelessness of her Art, it belongs there. 

*- Soundtrack for this Piece is “Cherry-Coloured Funk” by Cocteau Twins from Heaven or Las Vegas, 1990.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published!
I can no longer fund it myself. More on why here.
If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to keep it online & ad-free below.
Thank you, Kenn.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Quoted in Louise Bourgeois, Askew and d’Offay, 2013, p.42. ↩
  2.  Robert Storr, Ted Talks, 5/11/18 ↩
  3. Deborah Wye, MoMA Talk, 9/17/2017. ↩
  4. Deborah Wye, MoMA Talk, 9/17/2017. ↩
  5. In 2018, I published my own list of these in my Yoko Ono piece, since there is no “official” list- still! I wonder why. ↩
  6. Update 9/2/22- Since writing those words I’ve discovered a gallery show, Louise Bourgeois – Pablo Picasso: Anatomies of Desire, was held at Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, in 2019. From seeing the catalog, it sure looks like it’s not only an idea who’s time has come, but there is more to mine in it. ↩
  7. per The Met’s wall card for “1932.” I can find no other reference to more than one attempt. ↩

Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

I was saddened to hear that Sheena Wagstaff stepped down as Leonard A. Lauder Chair of Modern & Contemporary Art at The Met (TM) last week. At least it was, apparently, by her choice, after a battle with long covid1.

Among many highlights I list below, perhaps this was THE highlight of Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure at The Met- The Met Breuer’s lobby seen on the day it opened, Met Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016, 10 days before it opened to the public, with banners for the now legendary shows it opened with.

There is no other person I have singled out for praise in the NYC Art world over the 7 years of NHNYC.com more than I have Sheena Wagstaff. Appointed January 10, 2012, in 2016, I called her the “Person of the Year” in NYC Art. Over her decade at the helm of M & C, she mounted quite a few memorable shows, a number of important shows, and some that are now legendary, at The Met Breuer, and at the 1000 Fifth Avenue Mothership. 

As it turns out, I was there on The Met Breuer’s Opening Day in March, 2016 and it’s closing day in March, 2020, and wrote about both.

The Met Breuer was established to be The Met’s “Modern &. Contemporary outpost” while the M & C wing at 1000 Fifth Avenue was undergoing renovations. Due to the economic situation the renovation was cancelled. The Met Breuer went on for 4 years, about half the originally announced duration, until The Met made a deal with The Frick to take over their Breuer Building lease. After TMB, Sheena Wagstaff continued mounting shows at 1000 Fifth Avenue, including more major & memorable shows. As I write this, two of her shows are up, and maybe there will be more that have already been in the works to come.

In her honor, I revisit some of the memorable shows I’ve seen with links to those I’ve written about, mounted during Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure at The Met-

Opening The Met Breuer–

The Artist seen on an iPad at the show.

Nasreen Mohamedi and here. To this day, the only show I’ve written about twice.

“Welcome to the future,” I captioned this Photo in the piece. Unfinished on Opening Day of The Met Breuer. Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible – Along with Nasreen Mohamedi, the two shows that opened The Met Breuer, March, 2016.

diane arbus in the beginning, 2016 – A brilliant installation of Ms. Arbus’s little known early work, included a Portrait of my late friend, Storme DeLaverie, that she told me Ms. Arbus took, but I’d never seen.

Lygia Pape, Tetia 1, C, 1976-2004, Golden thread, nails, wood, lighting, a work that wonderfully characterized the ephemeral nature of Ms. Pape’s work in a show remembered for its endless variety and surprise. Seen at Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, her first major show in a US museum in June, 2017.

Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, 2017

Having one of the biggest jobs in the entire Art world, I can’t begin to imagine how busy Sheena Wagstaff was. But, here she is looking at a very large work by Ursula von Rydingsvard at Galerie Lelong & Co., April, 2018. She still took the time to make the rounds of the galleries and see shows, as I came across her doing, as I was, here.

NYC Art Shows, 2016: Sheena Wagstaff Rules The Waves – My look at Art in NYC in 2016.

The opening galley of Mastry.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry , 2017- Perhaps the most important show mounted during the run of the The Met Breuer.

Marsden Hartley, Smelt Brook Falls, 1937

Marsden Hartley”s Maine, 2017– A somewhat mythical Artist got an overdue close look.

Installation view of the first gallery.

Jack Whitten: Odyssey, 2018 – Jack Whitten lived, worked and died without anyone knowing he had ALSO created a large body of Sculpture. And, it was every bit as compelling as his wonderful Painting.

Delirious: Art At The Limit Of Reason, 2017

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock & the Bed 2017 – In my view, though not large, a brilliant show.

Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, 2018

The crowd in the packed first galley struggling to see the blockbuster David Hockney show 2 days before it closed, February 23, 2018.

David Hockney, 2018. Back over at 1000 Fifth Avenue, it still boggles my mind that it was only one of FIVE major shows up at The Met at the same time. Four of them within feet of each other with the once-in-a-lifetime Michelangelo: Divine Designer & Draftsman right behind that rear wall seen above.

The under-known Thornton Dial, 1928-2016, had a few pieces in it, including History Refused to Die, 2004, center.

History Refused to Die: Hightlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, 2018, at 1000 Fifth Avenue. What a great, small, show this was!

Very, very few got to see this. Seen here on its very last day, March 12, 2020. Installation view of the lobby on the 4th floor.

Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, 2020- A brilliantly selected, concise, overview of his long and productive career, which I saw on its last day, the final day The Met Breuer was open.

Home is a Foreign Place, one of the 3 shows that closed TMB, drawn from recent additions to the Permanent Collection showed how far The Met’s collection of M&C has come. Seen on its final day- March 12, 2020.

Home Is A Foreign Place, 2020. The last show I saw at The Met Breuer, which I saw after seeing the Richter show.

The Met Breuer closed, permanently as it turned out, right after I left the Richter show. My look back at it is here and here.

Standing in the covid line, keeping my distance, waiting to be allowed in. Still, it was just so great to be back home again, and it was well worth the inconveniences.

Alice Neel: People Come First, 2021- The first Met blockbuster after it reopened, I saw it as The Met’s love letter to the people of NYC.Epic Abstraction, 2018- Date – A show that’s been up for quite a while and has evolved over its run. Still as compelling in 2022 as it was when it opened.

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings, 2022 – Absolutely terrific. Nothing short of a revelation.

And there were the Roof Garden Commissions by-

Alex Da Corte 2021

Hector Zamora 2020

Alicja Kwade 2019

Huma Bhabha 2018

Adrian Villar Rojas 2017

Cornelia Parker 2016

Pierre Huyghe 2015

Imran Qureshi 2013

Dan Graham 2014

And the Facade Commissions-

Carol Bove 2021

Wangechi Mutu 2020

Before she came to The Met, Sheena Wagstaff was chief curator of the Tate, London. During her time there she mounted a wonderful Edward Hopper show that’s only known to us on this side of the pond through the fine catalog she edited for the show. I hoped she would give us a Hopper show, which didn’t happen. But, when she reinstalled The Met’s M&C galleries she gave Hopper’s The Lighthouse at Two Lights, 1929, pride of place. This was a marvelous choice, in my view, serving as a reminder of a work that has been a bit forgotten after becoming iconic and appearing on a US Postage Stamp in 1970,  Seen in 2018. The galleries have been rehung since.

Along with ALL of this, Sheena Wagstaff oversaw the reinstallation of the M & C galleries at 1000 Fifth Avenue, next to the installation of two galleries devoted to Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today murals and associated works (to the right of the Hopper in the Photo above) which The Met received as a gift shortly after Sheena came on board.

The late Sam Giliiam, 1933-2022, gifted this work, Carousel State, 1968, to The Met in 2018. He was honored by The Museum in 2017. Seen in Epic Abstraction in its current inkcaratnion, July, 2, 2022.

Currently, there are  two shows up as I write this Ms. Wagstaff was involved with- Epic Abstraction and Louise Bourgeois: Paintings. Both are excellent, the Bourgeois, a revelation. There may be more coming along that she was involved with, in addition to the Hew Locke: Gilt Facade Commission scheduled to open in September. 

Sheena Wagstaff before she spoke at the Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium at The Met in 2016. Right after she did, she happened to sit next to me.

I met Ms. Wagstaff, once, when she happened to sit down next to me at the Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium at The Met in 2016. Such was her passion for Nasreen, I learned in the show, that she traveled to India and visited places where Nasreen lived and sought out the site of her unmarked grave. After the symposium ended, I introduced myself to her and thanked her for the Nasreen Mohamedi show. I told her what a powerful impact discovering Nasreen in her show had on me (to this day, the only show I’ve devoted two pieces to). She responded asking me about one word I had chosen in expressing that, and immediately suggested a clarification. I came away feeling I had just spoken to one of the smartest people I’d ever met.

Sheena Wagstaff breaks through. Chelsea, April, 2018.

In 2018, I accidentally ran across her when we were both out seeing shows in Chelsea. The Whitestone Gallery had installed a piece over the entrance to their Gutai Art Association show that appeared as it it had been broken through, requiring visitors to walk through it to enter. I stood in the lobby watching visitors navigating this and snapping photos as they tried to “break through to the other side.” When I got home, I realized that one of those visitors was Sheena Wagstaff! I didn’t recognize her from the back. Now, this Photo speaks to me of her breaking through barriers while she was at The Met. Her shows were about inclusion, and breaking barriers, if nothing else.

Thank you, Sheena, so very much- for all of it.

Julie Mehretu, Conversion (S.M. del Popolo/After C.), 2019-20, just one of the countless pieces to enter The Met’s permanent collection of M & C Art during Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure, one of the last pieces in the most recent incarnation of her Epic Abstraction show, seen on July 2, 2022, the week before she left.

Her Met legacy will live on both in the shows she’s facilitated and the Art she has helped bring into the collection. In my opinion, her’s will be a tough act to follow at The Met. The Museum has been compared to an aircraft carrier. Given its four-city-block size, it’s bigger than one. Turning this ship is a MASSIVE undertaking, which is why I used the sea-faring analogy in my 2016 Sheena Wagstaff “Rules The Waves” piece. She has managed to turn the Met’s M & C exhibitions, and more importantly, its permanent collection, in the direction of inclusion. Whoever comes next is a very critical choice given that AND that the M & C wing is about to undertake is long-awaited remodeling. 

Though The Met is probably casting a very wide net for that person, here in NYC, it seems to me that now might be the time to see if Massimilliano Gioni might be interested in the position. He’s done a terrific job as Artistic Director at the New Museum. I’m saying nothing against them in suggesting him. 

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Thank U” by Alanis Morissette from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, 1998, about which Alanis said, “Basically, I had never stopped in my whole life, hadn’t taken a long breath, and I took a year and a half off and basically learned how to do that…” I hope Ms. Wagstaff is now able to take a long breath. Somehow, I doubt she will.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. As I face high expenses to keep it going, if you’ve found it worthwhile, please donate to keep it up & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

The Met’s Alice Neel Love Letter To NYC

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
NYC has seen innumerable rough times. Too many for me to list here. Some of them I’ve lived through. During many of the hardest times the past 151 years The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, has stood at 1000 Fifth Avenue where it remained open allowing countless citizens and tourists the opportunity to walk up its famous staircase and take respite in its hallowed halls among its countless masterpieces, a beacon of culture and a repository of some of the greatest achievements of creative mankind over the past 5,000 years.

Until March 12th, 2020, that is.

Home, again, for the first time in over a year. The Met’s Grand Staircase, March 27, 2021. Up to the left. Down to the right, please.

At 6pm that day The Met closed due to the coronavirus pandemic shutdown1. It remained closed until August 29th. Five and one half months. Unprecedented in its history. Unwilling to risk being indoors until I could be vaccinated I missed the shows The Met held during the first six months after its reopening.

When it announced Alice Neel: People Come First, conceived by Sheena Wagstaff, would open on March 22nd, 2021, I thought back to what I had said about Alice Neel: Uptown, one of my NoteWorthy Shows for March-May, 2017- “…the breath of fresh air it provided only hints at how much pent-up longing I think there is to see more of her work. The time has come!”

The entrance. The show opens with a nude. Pretty daring, but given how often Alice Neel asked her sitters to pose nude, fitting.

On March 27th that time did indeed come. Seeing the show a few weeks later once the vaccine kicked in I had one primary reaction-

What a terrific love letter to New York City! At a time when one may never have been needed more.

March 27, 2021.

Fittingly, when I went in March, only fellow New Yorkers were my fellow visitors. In Alice Neel: People Come First’s parade of over 115 works the endless variety of people from all races, colors, orientations, and occupations that makes New York City great and unique is what is REALLY on view in this show.

“For me, people come first. I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.” Alice Neel2.

Yes, Alice Neel’s place among the Masters of 20th century Art, established, at long last, in her Whitney Museum Centennial Retrospective in 2000, is reaffirmed. Yes, there are facets of her work that have been overlooked and are now getting attention, like her use of abstraction. But, it’s all secondary to the first theme- as she, and the show’s title says, people come first. Alice Neel Painted “pictures of people,” as she said. She spent about 60 years doing just that and the show draws on her entire career in the generous 115 or so works on view.

Carlos Enriquez, 1926, left, and French Girl, 1920s, right. Mr. Enriquez, a legendary Painter in his own right, was Alice Neel’s first husband and father of her first child, Santillana, who died of diphtheria as an infant daughter, and her second child, Isabetta, to whom she would be estranged for much of Isabetta’s short life.

How was she able to have this career? Born and raised in Pennsylvania, after marrying Carlos Enriquez, who went on to become one of the most renowned Cuban Artists of the century, in 1925, Alice Neel moved with him to Cuba from 1926-7, then returned to Pennsylvania, where they broke up. From there she moved to NYC in 1927. Both of these early, marvelous, works strike me as standing apart from typical student efforts, showing the young, mid-20s, Painter breaking free to seek her own style, finding her essence, and achieving success as captivating works. Phillip Bonosky wrote of her in his Journal in 1957, “She’s worked out her own code of behavior, whose cornerstones are two: 1) her freedom to paint; 2) the well being of her 2 boys. For 1, she will surrender everything else, and what other people place high- the sanctity of one’s flesh in bed- she subordinates to this superior law of her life. And the second also comes lower- but higher than anything else but the first. What other people strive for and cannot live without- good furniture, good clothes, a conventional acceptance by society, etc., etc.- she gives up without any sense of loss whatsoever3.”

On this spot, behind the car, a brownstone stood in the 1930s where Alice Neel lived during the Depression, a few blocks from where I am writing this piece. It’s now part of a school building.

“Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto. I’ve lived all over this town,*” as David Byrne wrote in the lyrics for the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” the SoundTrack for this post.

She spent time living in  the Bronx and a few neighborhoods in Manhattan over 54 years here, including one a few blocks from where I am now, before moving uptown for good, first to East Harlem, and finally to West Harlem. She Painted wherever she was. Street scenes, still lifes, and “pictures of people,” related to her and not. No matter when, where or who she Painted, her work has the remarkable quality of both looking of its time and not looking dated now. That said, never fond of discussing possible influences, her style was always wholly her own and it evolved over her career.

“I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime. I might not ever get home,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

Ninth Avenue El, 1935. Night on West 14th Street at Ninth Avenue Painted at the peak of the Depression, the figures seem to carry the weight of the world with them. Looking at this now, and living in this area today, it’s hard for me, or no doubt most of my neighbors, to believe there was an elevated subway train here 90 years ago. It closed in 1940, only 5 years after this was Painted.

Standing on the same spot today in daylight. West 14th Street & Ninth Avenue, July 28, 2021, looking across to the Meatpacking District. The area is undergoing hard times, again. All the stores to my immediate left are For Rent, a large Apple store stands to my right. Today, there is not a hint that an elevated subway was once here.

“There isn’t much good portrait painting being done today, and I think it is because with all this war, commercialism and fascism, human beings have been steadily marked down in value, despised, rejected and degraded,” she explained in 19504.

Elenka, 1936, is a work that shows the way for much the Artist did the rest of her career with its subtle complexity. It’s a daring picture of a strong woman with an intense gaze reinforced by the strong colors and shapes surrounding her, contrasted with the femininity of what she wears. The background is partially nebulous and partially furniture or building. The somewhat straightforward pose gives the feeling of being caught off guard, which of course Elenka wasn’t.

It’s interesting that during her “today,” Artists including Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, to name two, were Painting portraits, though not nearly as well-known as they would become. Still, no matter what they, or anyone else was doing, Alice Neel, a humanist to the last, remained true to herself.

Futility of Effort, 1930. Alice Neel described this as one of her most “revolutionary” Paintings. Partily inspired by the death of her young daughter Santillana, partly by a news account of another infant death where the child choked on the bars of the crib while her mother ironed in the next room. It was shown on a wall by itself at the far end of a rectangular gallery.

She was also a survivor who persevered as a Painter as a single mother, virtually unprecedented among major Painters of the 20th century, or before, and a mother who lost an infant child,

Alice Neel, Nancy and Olivia, 1967, left, Vincent van Gogh, Madame Roulin and Her Baby, 1888. One of the highlights of the show was a gallery showing Alice Neel’s work in dialogue with Met Museum masterpieces by other Artists including Jacob Lawrence, Helen Levitt, Mary Cassatt, among others including Van Gogh, here. Alice Neel lost an infant daughter, and Vincent longed for a family fruitlessly his entire life. Knowing that, it’s hard not to read both of these works as autobiography, poignantly hung side by side.

But there were other sides to Alice Neel, the woman, besides the mother.  “I’m cursed to be in this Mother Hubbard body. I’m a real sexy person,” she once said[Met Alice Neel: People Come First Exhibition Catalog, P.2]. One way it came out is her penchant for asking her sitters to undress for their “picture.” A good number of them complied- men, women, pregnant women, and couples. Even Andy Warhol.

“This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco. This ain’t no fooling around. This ain’t no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain’t got time for that now,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

Andy Warhol, 1970, Oil and acrylic on linen. Alice Neel is revolutionary for the consciously “unfinished” look of a number of her Paintings, including this one, one of  masterpieces. Done less than 2 years after the assassination attempt on his life, according to Phoebe Hoban, the two Artists discussed doing the picture this way (half undressed) with eyes closed, making it close to an actual collaboration5.

The show featured a number of the nudes, including Alice Neel’s daring nude Self-Portrait, 1980, at age 80! She also trail blazed Painting pregnant women nude, and some of them were on view as well. Finally, there were numerous pictures of children, both hers, and neighborhood kids, as shown earlier.

“We dress like students, we dress like housewives. Or in a suit and a tie. I changed my hairstyle so many times now, I don’t know what I look like,*” from “Life During Wartime.”

Marxist Girl (Irene Peslikis), 1972, all works are Oil on canvas, unless specified. “This captivating portrait …depicts artist and activist Irene Peslikis—a member of a new generation of revolutionary feminists that Neel began to paint in the early 1970s. Alice Neel’s relationship with second-generation feminism was sometimes strained, but she nonetheless supported—and was supported by—the movement.” @metmuseum.

Further to that quote from @metmuseum, I find the piece daring and free with a power that exudes from Ms. Peslikis’s gaze in a pose that is at once natural and ground-breaking, matched by an extraordinarily daring and free background. Alice Neel had gone on record6, powerfully, against Abstract Expressionism in its heyday. Her views changed over time. Here she is, using its techniques to marvelous effect in the background, as she does in a number of other works of the 1970s. She said then, “I don’t think there is any great painting that doesn’t have good abstract qualities.7.” I’ve been thinking about those words since I read that quote…

“I don’t know what you expect to do in the world, Alice. You’re only a girl.” Alice Concross Hartley Neel (1868-1954), Alice Neel’s mother8

Last Sickness, 1953, left, and City Hospital, 1954, Ink and gouache on paper. Alice Neel’s mother, was no fan of her daughter becoming a Painter, as the quote from her, above, shows, yet Alice never turned her back on her. She died of cancer shortly after the Painted picture. City Hospital shows her mother at the bottom with an overworked nurse looking over other patients at her.

Her mother, who took her to cultural events, Alice describes as “intelligent and well read” continued, “None of us will be remembered.” “Well, I am not so sure about Alice,” Alice remembered her father saying9.

Richard Gibbs, 1968- Everything about this work strikes me as daring. The pose looks like a very casual take on Rodin’s The Thinker. Mr. Gibbs’ shirt is a riot of color with lines that go in the opposite direction to the path laid out for the eye to follow from front to back. That path, itself, is an adventure. We are seemingly inside and outside at the same time. Part of a room or building occupies the right part of the piece, a sudden landscape occupies the left, leading to a shining sun high up top. This inside-outness reminds me a bit of Dali or de Chirico, but for Alice Neel, who is known as being a somewhat traditional Painter of portraits, or pictures of people, as she preferred, it’s quite daring. The shadows under the chair leave me wondering, too. What are they of? Then, there’s the skin tones. Marvelously flat on Mr. Gibbs’ legs, feet, arms and hands, and more layered and nuanced on his face.

Many of Alice Neel’s non-family subjects were people fighting for causes, people who lived what they believed, and that is what comes across in her “pictures” of them. Taken as a whole one of the things her work is is a miniature picture of New York during her lifetime. While there are some cityscapes, Alice Neel’s New York City consists of its people in all their ages, sizes, shapes and variety.

“Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?,*” from “Life During Wartime10.

James Farmer, 1964. The year this was Painted, the civil-rights leader was among those arrested at the 1964 World’s Fair for protesting segregation and racial violence.

Mostly an outsider to the big NYC museums and larger Art world during most of her lifetime (though she attended them and marched in protests of some of their more controversial shows), Alice Neel fought for her Art most of her life. She had to. She didn’t find a lot of supporters in the Art word until late in her life (the Whitney held a Retrospective in 1974, when she was 74, and the posthumous Centennial show in 2000, her last big NYC museum show before this one). Phoebe Hoban says that between 1927 and 1964 she had about 6 solo shows. From 1964 to 1984, she had over sixty11. The first full-length monograph of her work was finally published in 1983, a year before she passed (see BookMarks, below).

James Hunter- Where are you? Black Draftee-James Hunter, 1965. One of the most compelling works in Alice Neel’s career, Mr. Hunter appeared for one sitting and never returned. Alice Neel declared the work finished and its gone on to spellbind viewers ever since. (Including me, when I saw it last at Unfinished at The Met Breuer in 2015.) Drafted for Vietnam, his name does not appear on the Wall in Washington, DC. To this day, what happened to him remains unknown.

Listening to her recorded interviews she always makes a compelling case for work and anyone interested in her Art should seek them out online and watch or listen to those first before reading anyone else speak about her work. In this interview, I love how she immediately corrects anything the interviewer says about her Art that she doesn’t agree with!

“Transmit the message, to the receiver. Hope for an answer some day,*” from “Life During Wartime,”

The line for Alice Neel: People Come First on March 27th. I imagine it’s significantly longer now.

Standing in line at The Met, in the very halls she frequented, I couldn’t help wonder what she would have felt seeing the line of visitors stretching all the way down the long hallway waiting to see her work. The same work she mostly kept in her archives, as a picture in the show, below, depicts.

The archive of her work lining the walls of her apartment. Alice Neel hated to part with one of her Paintings and was known to Paint a copy when she did.

“The sound of gunfire, off in the distance. I’m getting used to it now,*” from “Life During Wartime.”

Living in Manhattan these past 30 years, it’s easy to relate to the solitary, single-minded sense of purpose her life exudes. “Tough times don’t last. Tough people do,” the age old quote goes. Alice Neel survived a lot of tough times. Now her Art is helping New Yorkers survive this horrible time by reminding us of who we are and what our strength is.

BookMarks-

The poignant inscription in a signed copy of Patricia Hills’ monograph says it all. Alice Neel died the following year. Photographer unknown.

The Alice Neel bibliography is relatively small but growing. Here are a few recommendations based on living for at least a year with each recommended book, each  used in preparing this piece.

Alice Neel: People Come First, Met Museum Exhibition Catalog, is the most up to date monographic overview of her work and career. It features the most current research and has the most images currently (mostly the works in the show which were exceedingly well chosen) in very good quality on good paper, many in a large size. Recommended as a first, or go-to, monograph on Alice Neel until a more complete look at her whole career is published.

Alice Neel, by Patricia Hills, will always be NoteWorthy for being the first full length hard-cover monograph on Alice Neel and the only one released during her lifetime. Many good sized illustrations in color. It was also done with cooperation with the Artist. It holds up well today and copies in Very Good or better condition are still reasonable. Recommended as a 2nd monograph on Alice Neel, it remains a valuable reference book for the reasons I mentioned.

Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, by Phoebe Hoban is another Art biography from Ms. Hoban. I found this one better than her Jean-Michel Basquiat bio, particularly when it comes to addressing the Art (a serious weakness of the J-M Basquiat book in my opinion). At the moment, there is no other full-length Alice Neel biography. Given Alice Neel’s steadily increasing popularity, and her increasing stature as an Artist, a woman and an influence, I suspect that will not be true indefinitely and a more definitive biography may be still to come. Done after the Artist’s passing it does not have Alice Neel’s input but it does have quotes from family members. Includes 23 pages of small illustrations in color and black & white. The binding is exceptional- rare for a large 500+ page paperback. Recommended, for now.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Life During Wartime,” with lyrics by David Byrne by Talking Heads from Fear Of Music, 1979. Regarding the references used above, check out the annotated lyrics on genius.com. Here it is performed live, at The Mudd Club, LA, of all places, on August 13, 1979-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. The PBS series Inside The Met shows behind the scenes leading up to, during and after the shutdown. ↩
  2.  Mike Gold, “Alice Neel Paints Scenes and Portraits from Life in Harlem,” Daily Worker, December 27, 1950, p.11 ↩
  3. Phoebe Hoban, Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, P.236 ↩
  4. Mike Gold, ibid, p.11 ↩
  5. Phoebe Hoban, ibid, P.310 ↩
  6.  “I am against abstract and non-objective art because such art shows a hatred of human beings. It is an attempt to eliminate people from art, and as such it is bound to fail.” Mike Gold, ibid, p.11 ↩
  7. Met Alice Neel catalog, P. 104 ↩
  8. Met Exhibition Catalog, P.12 ↩
  9. Met Exhibition Catalog, P.18. ↩
  10. See the annotated lyrics, here. ↩
  11. Phoebe Hoban, ibid, P 254 ↩

The Met Breuer: Hail, and Farewell

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Part Two of a series.

2,197 days.

I’m about to enter it for what would turn out to be the last time, on what would turn out to be its very last day. I’ll miss it.

That’s how long The Met Breuer (TMB) was open. March 8, 2016 (Member’s preview) through March 12, 2020, when it “temporarily closed” for the pandemic shutdown1. With the calendar turning to July, The Met’s time in the Breuer Building has ended, as I outlined in Part 1, making March 12th the final day it was open to the public. I was there on both its first and last day, and some in between. Though I regretfully missed some of TMB’s shows, I saw the major shows and a good many of the others. 

The Met Breuer, March 12, 2020.

My interest in The Met Breuer was born in curiosity. In May, 2011, they announced they would be taking over the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue.

“With this new space, we can expand the story that the Met tells, exploring modern and contemporary art in a global context that reflects the breadth of our encyclopedic collections. This will be an initiative that involves curators across the Museum, stressing historical connections between objects and looking at our holdings with a fresh eye and new perspective. This project does not mean that we are taking modern and contemporary art out of the Met’s main building, but it does open up the possibility of having space to exhibit these collections in the event that we decide to rebuild the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing where they are currently shown…” Met Director, Thomas P. Campbell, in The Met’s press release May 11, 2011. 

Going up. The elevator doors open onto Jack Whitten: Odyssey in October, 2018, one of the true blockbuster shows mounted at TMB.

After decades of being in denial about Modern & Contemporary Art’s worthiness of being in The Met, this marked a gigantic turn. Of course, it came 40 years too late to acquire most of the major works (or ANY of the major works) of some of the most important Artists of the past 40 years. Truth be told, I for one, was in agreement with The Museum about M&C Art from 1980 until about 2014, when I felt enough time had passed to begin to assess what had been done. A LOT of money had been invested in renovations to, and an 8 year lease on, the building Marcel Breuer had designed at 945 Madison Avenue at East 75th Street fo the Whitney Museum (see Part 1 for more on the history). The pressure was on. The Met, under then Director Thomas Campbell, had decided to make its mark in Modern & Contemporary Art, and brought Sheena Wagstaff on board from the Tate Modern, London, in January, 2012, as Chairman of the Department. What approach would Ms. Wagstaff (who’s shows at the Tate ranged from Edward Hopper to Jeff Wall), her staff and The Met take to M&C Art and how would it hold up against shows up at the Guggenheim, MoMA, The New Museum, The Whitney and the Brooklyn Museums?

Home is a Foreign Place, one of the 3 shows that closed TMB, drawn from recent additions to the Permanent Collection showed how far The Met’s collection of M&C has come.

Going into the opening, the press was all about how The Met was “hopelessly behind” NYC’s other Big Five museums, let alone those elsewhere in the country, in Contemporary Art. 2,197 days later, The Met Breuer has done the remarkable- It’s put The Met on that map. It did so by mounting a number of the most important shows of the past four years. From Nasreen Mohamedi and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, which opened TMB, to Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, which closed it. In between, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, will remain it’s peak moment in my mind, though there were others. And there were a surprising number of revelations along the way.

Sol LeWitt was an Artist I never paid much attention to until I saw this work, 13/3, 1981, Painted balsa wood, in the Breuer’s show, , in December, 2017. Ever since, his work continues to fascinate me

Originally scheduled to be open as TMB until July 5th, it still would have closed with the Gerhard Richter and Home Is A Foreign Place: Recent Acquisitions In Context and From Gericault To Rockburne: Selections From The Michael & Juliet Rubenstein Gift, the final three shows on its 2020 schedule. While the legacy is complete, in terms of the shows mounted, the influence was cut short as countless thousands more would have gotten to see these shows over the approximately four months longer they would have remained open. 

For now, I look back at some Highlights from The Met Breuer. The name of each show, listed in no particular order, is linked to the piece I wrote about it at the time-

Approaching this work, I thought “What is a piece of textile doing here?” “Untitled, 1970s, Graphite and ink on paper,” the wall card read. Wait. What? This is a DRAWING? Then, all of a sudden, a loud click when off in my mind, and Art was never the same for me again.

Nasreen Mohamedi Revelations. That might be the word that lingers with me with I think about TMB. They began on Day 1…The first show I saw that first day at TMB remains my personal favorite of all the shows I saw there. I had no idea who Nasreen Mohamedi was when I got off the elevator that day on 2. But Sheena Wagstaff sure did.

Incomparable is the word I now use to describe Nasreen Mohamedi, who lived in obscurity for 53 years and gave away her Art as gifts. Seen here in one of the handful of existing Photos of her, this one has lingered in my mind from the first moment I saw it, here in a slide show in the final gallery in March, 2016.

The show included Photos taken by Ms. Wagstaff of the area of Nasreen’s unmarked grave well off the beaten path in Kihim, Mumbai, India. THAT’S passion. THAT’S dedication. At that moment I saw them, I knew TMB would be one of NYCs most important cultural institutions. 

Unfinished, Member’s Preview. The first look at one of the most memorable shows to appear at The Met Breuer, March 8, 2016. Work by Titian, left.

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. In the hundreds of years Art shows have been mounted, someone must have mounted one around this concept, right? I haven’t heard of it. If there was one, I doubt it was mounted as incredibly well and included rarely seen works by Michelangelo, Leonardo (the twin Kings of the unfinished work in the Renaisaance), Jan van Eyck, JMW Turner, and countless others. TMB’s first major blockbuster, and the other inaugural show in March, 2016, along with Nasreen Mohamedi. It belied The Met’s stated “mission” with TMB as “an outpost for Modern & Contemporary Art,” filling two floors, while the Nasreen got one. Given all the riches included, I have yet to hear anyone complain. Overall, over time, TMB was what The Museum said it would be.

Diane Arbus: In The Beginning was a revelation, as well, as much for the work as for the amazing way the show was installed- each of the over 100 pieces got its own wall- another thing I’ve never seen before. It also included a portrait of a departed friend of mine, Stormé DeLarverie, who told me more than once that it was she whose scuffle with police had incited the Stonewall uprising (she disagreed with the use of the term “riot.”), and that she had posed for Diane Arbus in 1961. At the time, I took both claims with grains of salt. Now, the world knows that both are facts, and in her gorgeous portrait by Ms. Arbus, which I snuck a shot of and show in my piece, Stormé will forever live on in The Met. In In The Beginning, she, fittingly, got a wall to herself.

The beginning of Kerry James Marshall: Mastry.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. As great a Painting show as I’ve seen in years. Maybe decades. 

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed. A welcome reminder of the enduring accomplishment of this wonderful Artist who’s rarely seen in a show here. Between showed Mr. Munch is one of the very few Artists to successfully use techniques, styles and colors in realms that had only been used by Vincent van Gogh, who he was only 10 years younger than, and who he outlived by 54 years. 

Lichnos, 2008, at the entrance. 100 feet into this show my jaw was on the ground. It stayed there throughout.

Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017. Quick. Who’s the other Artist who is a Master of one medium, and who kept his mastery of another from public view his entire career? One stunning revelation after another that never let up. More remarkable for such a large show.

As I said in my piece on the show- “TWO whole museum floors of about 100 Paintings? My idea of heaven…” Having five floors at The Breuer added different dimensions to any number of shows, allowing a good number of shows to fill two whole floors- the kind of space that would be VERY hard to have at 1000 Fifth Avenue. The space between works at Gerhard Richter: Painting After All was one of its most memorable features and gave it an entirely different feel, allowing each work “space to breathe,” rare in big shows, and something I’ll miss very much.

Gerhard Richter: Painting After All. Exquisitely selected and hung, somehow managing to condense almost 6 decades of work into a selection that while not a “greatest hits” included enough of them, along with a good many surprises, and a chance to see the monumental Birkenau works. Unfortunately, it was open for all of NINE DAYS! It turns out that I saw it on its final day, at considerable risk. 

Along with other memorable shows-

Marsden Hartley’s Maine Marsden Hartley was unique and an Artist, though steeped in what the Europeans had and were doing, found his own ways. This was a show that served to open the mind, even in 2017, to the possibilities of Painting seen through a very free eye and mind in often daring fashion. A real breath of fresh air.

Marsden Hartley, Mont Sainte-Victoire, c.1927. Pretty daring to go to Aix-en-Provence and go toe-to-toe with the Master, Cezanne, in the land he made iconic. This work, in a show about Marsden Hartley’s work in Maine, this work set the stage for his bold brushwork and use of color in what would come.

Lygia Pape:A Multitude of Forms  No one medium could hold Lygia Pape’s vision, so the visitor to A Multitude of Forms was met with an ever-changing presentation that delighted the eye as much as it captured the mind.

Lygia Pape, Tetia 1, C, 1976-2004, Golden thread, nails, wood, lighting, a work that wonderfully characterized the ephemeral nature of Ms. Pape’s work in a show remembered for its endless variety and surprise. Seen at Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, her first major show in a US museum in June, 2017.

Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy-

Rachel Harrison, Snake in the Grass, 1997. A work inspired by the Artist’s trip to Dealey Plaza, sight of JFK’s Assassination. While I was captivated by it, NHNYC Researcher Kitty said this work reminded her of being in her father’s garage.

And shows consisting of work from The Met’s Permanent Collection including-

Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso From the Schofield Thayer Collection. With only 9 by Klimt and the majority by Shiele- no complaints here.

Provocations: Anselm Kiefer At The Met Breuer-

Anselm Kiefer, Iconoclastic Controversy, 1980, Gouache and ink on photograph, the wall card reads in part, “Rooted in the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images, the medieval debate involved the persecution of the artist-monks and the destruction of icons. Here he restaged the conflict in his studio with miniature versions of WWII tanks (one has destroyed a piece of clay in the shape of an artist’s palette)…The image links the iconoclastic battle to the Nazi’s attack on 
“degenerate art” in the late 1930s, which led to the destruction of hundreds of works of modern art.”

and Home Is A Foreign Place: Recent Acquisitions in Context. (Installation view of its lobby shown earlier)-

Mark Bradford, Crack Between the Floorboards, 2014. Can an Art writer have personal favorites? If he/she is a human being, it’s pretty hard not to. Mark Bradford is one of mine. So, I will long remember that this piece was the third to last work I saw on what turned out to be the closing day of The Met Breuer in the show Home Is A Foreign Place. The penultimate piece was Untitled, 1970, by Nasreen Mohamedi.

It’s fitting to end this piece with this show. Here, one could see just how far The Met’s Permanent Collection has come. Yes, there is a long way to go. Museums elsewhere in the US have built a lead in Contemporary Art that is, perhaps, insurmountable. But, The Met now has enough work in its own collection to mount fascinating shows like this. I was most impressed by the steps they’ve taken thus far as I looked at the acquisition dates on the items in Home Is A Foreign Place.

The very last work I saw at The Met Breuer is this piece from a series by Walid Raad, from 2014-5 in Home Is A Foreign Place. The wall card spoke about the Artist’s interest in the shadows these objects cast and how they enhance and expand the form. A bit like the shadow a museum visit casts…

And then, there were the shows I missed, like Vija Clemins. Phew…ALL of this in exactly 4 years! I think that’s a track record that can hang with what any of NYC’s other big museums- including The Met, 1000 Fifth Avenue.

Yes, there were a lot of very good, even great, shows at The Met Breuer during its four year run. You probably have your own list of favorites. Regardless of which show we’re talking about, the Breuer Building gave all of its shows the added dimension of space- often a whole floor, even two. There’s a lot to be said for that, and it will be very difficult to mount such shows at 1000 Fifth Avenue2. I’ll miss the place as The Met Breuer. I already cherish the days I got to spend there.

This is the Second part of my look back at The Met Breuer. Part 1 is here. Some thoughts on the “bigger picture” are coming.  

*- Soundtrack for this post is “Hail & Farewell” by Big Country. “Hail and farewell, Life begins again…”

You can now follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. By my count. Subtract 10 days if you want to count from its official opening on March 18th. ↩
  2. The huge China: Through the Looking Glass Fashion show in 2015 was mounted in different parts of The Met, which probably remains the only way to do it. ↩

A Look Back At The Met Breuer

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

First part of a series. 

I was there when it opened (to Members) March 8, 2016, and now I find I was there when it closed on March 12, 2020.

First look. Approaching The Met Breuer for Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016.

With the calendar turning to July, what had been a “temporary” closing due to the pandemic has become permanent with the turning over of The Met’s lease on the building Marcel Breuer designed at 945 Madison Avenue at East 75th Street to The Frick Collection. Originally commissioned by The Whitney Museum, who occupied it for almost 50 years after it opened in September, 1966, The Met (TM, henceforth) rechristened it “The Met Breuer,” (I promptly christened it TMB). The Frick Collection will now move in.

There was no press release or official announcement when The Met’s (TM) turned the Breuer building over to The Frick Collection, effective July. There was a mention on TM’s Instagram page, and now only this on the Visitors page on TM’s website.

In mid-July, the status of Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, which was had been open for just 9 days, and which I saw March 12th, its last day, was clarified when its listing along with those of the two other shows that were open at the time of the “temporary” closing, were moved to the “Past Exhibitions” section of The Met’s website.

After checking every day since March, the show appeared on the “Past Exhibitions” page on July 17th. I’ve enlarged the date section for legibility and added the red text to their listing.

So, with the status of its final chapters finally clarified, the book is now closed on The Met Breuer. It’s time to begin to assess it and its legacy. In Part 1 of my look back, I’ll look at the beginning and the end of TMB. Part 2 will look at some of the highlights of the intervening four years. Part 3 will include some thoughts on the “bigger picture” and what it may “mean.”

Back to the future. March 7, 2015

After trying to get approval for a remodeling of the Breuer Building failed1, the Whitney then decided to build a new building downtown in the Meatpacking District, and so moved out of the Breuer Building in October, 2014. It’s seen here empty in March, 2015, almost exactly a year before The Met Breuer would open here.

The Met announced it would take over the Breuer Building as it’s “outpost” for Modern & Contemporary Art in 2011. Seen here on December 18, 2015. I was told that the silver circles on the windows were meant to echo the ceiling lighting of the lobby inside shown further below.

Looking down at the lower level, December 18, 2015. See the next picture.

The same window. March 8, 2016, Member’s Preview Opening Day. The white wall on the lower level is in front of a bar that had not been completed. The circular ceiling lights are partially seen upstairs.

Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016. Close-up of the sign to the right follows.

On the sign are the two inaugural shows that are both now legendary in my book- Nasreen Mohamedi and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible both unseen when I took this shot before going in.

The original Marcel Breuer lobby lighting seen in October, 2018.

The building remained largely unchanged by The Met, except for extensive renovations to the lower level, where they installed the Flora Bar and Cafe. Over the years, I’ve warmed up a bit to the design of this building, which is generally described in unattractive terms, including “brutalist.” I’ve always wondered how Marcel Breuer felt about this term being applied to his work. I characterize the building as “overly cold.” To me, now, it feels like it’s keeping a secret close to its vest, one that even an exploration of all its floors does not reveal. There are some details of the design I’m quite fond of- the windows, particularly the large front facing window, and the lobby ceiling lighting. Both of which strike me as “warm” touches in the midst of the unrelenting cold stone inside and out. Even the seating is stone.

“Wake Up over there on the right!” It’s MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, Vijay Iyer, in the shadows, left, on piano, performing with his Trio for Members during their preview in the first floor Gallery, March 8, 2016.

Being in this space, listening to Vijay Iyer’s Trio, reminded me that my very first exposure to the work of the great Joseph Cornell was the Joseph Cornell: Cosmic Travels show, 1995-96 I saw in this space when it was the Whitney2. I’ve been a big fan ever since.

A rare shot of Tatsuo Miyajima’s Arrow of Time, on view in TMB’s first floor gallery seen in 2016. The only show to take place there before it became the gift shop.

The same space seen in October, 2018, soon after it became the Store, as it would remain.

After various attempts at showing Art in this space, it became the gift shop.

Nasreen Mohamedi, lobby installation view.

The first two shows got TMB off to an “auspicious” start, as I called my piece on Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. I had no idea the impact Nasreen Mohamedi would have on me, creating an open and closed case for her place among the great Artists of the 20th century. I returned to see it thirteen times, and I still walk around it in my mind.

Chairs in the final room of Nasreen Mohamedi with one of Marcel Breuer’s unique windows.

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, installation view that first day.

Scenes from The Last Day of The Met Breuer…

Back for what turned out to be the last time, March 12, 2020.

The Met 150th Anniversary banners flying on the corner on what would turn out to be the last day of The Met Breuer strike me as being quite ironic. Unfortunately, they have not had much to celebrate this year. The Met Breuer was closed on the 150th Anniversary of The Met’s founding, April 13th, and then permanently when the calendar turned to July. Losing a branch is a memorable event, but (considerable financial savings aside) not something to celebrate. What it was, is, in my view.

Last call. The sign on the final day lists three very good shows, the other two open for a bit longer than the scant 9 days Gerhard Richter: Painting After All was.

Three very good shows were up that final day, including Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, which will be remembered among all the Artist’s many shows, I believe. I saw all three that day. My look at the Gerhard Richter show that final day is here. At the time, NYC had little idea about the virus that would soon devastate us, how it was spread and what precautions to take. I wasn’t wearing a mask, March 12th. I didn’t have one. A number of the guards were. I didn’t realize then how big a risk I was taking going to The Met Breuer that day, or seeing the other shows I ran around to see just before the March 13 shutdown.

Gerhard Richter, 4,900 Colors, 2007, Enamel paint on aluminum.

A number of pieces I saw that day also spoke to the conditions looming in the City, and the world. Looking at Mr. Richter’s 4,900 Colors it was hard not to feel that the future was fuzzy and out of focus. It still is.

A final look at the lobby counter before leaving for the last time.

I stood outside for a few minutes as the clock approached the 6pm closing, just taking in the scene. When would TMB reopen? There were no thoughts, then, that it wouldn’t, though of course I had TM’s announcement of the summer hand off to The Frick in the distant back of my mind. Summer was a long way off in late winter. As I was leaving, I overheard two staff members say to each other “See you June 1st,” and I wondered if they knew something I didn’t. June 1st? Wow. They’ll be closed for TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! It would turn out to be four and a half months, and never reopen. The Met announced in early July “tentative plans” to reopen at 1000 Fifth Avenue on August 29th. By then, it will be five and a half months.

Last look. It’s 5:50pm, March 12, 2020, as I’m leaving. The Met Breuer is “temporarily closing” in 10 minutes, yet this intrepid staff member is busy cleaning the front doors. It would never reopen to the public, and so this remains my last memory of it.

I’m left with the feeling that when The Met Breuer’s doors closed March 12th, something else may have closed with them. I’ll address that in Part 3. Next, I’ll look at what I saw between March 8, 2016 and March 12, 2020.

*- Soundtrack for this post is “Soundwalk 9:09” by John Luther Adams, commissioned by The Met for The Met Breuer’s opening, that takes its title from the amount of time it takes to walk from 1000 Fifth Avenue to The Met Breuer, in two parts. “Uptown” for listening while walking from TMB uptown to TM, and “Downtown” for the reverse. Both pieces may be heard here.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. I was active in trying to get it, and the proposed Guggenheim Museum expansion at the time, stopped, with mixed results, as I recounted here. ↩
  2. For some reason the Whitney doesn’t list this show on their site. Though I don’t have pictures of it, I know it was there- I still have the exhibition brochure, and so do these folks. ↩

Gerhard Richter’s Met Blockbuster: Open For Just 9 Days!

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

UPDATE- July 16, 2020- The Met now lists Gerhard Richter: Painting After All on its “Past Exhibitions” page1, meaning it will NOT reopen!

After checking every day, the show appeared on the “Past Exhibitions” page on July 17th. I’ve enlarged the date section for legibility and added the red text…My original look at the show follows-

What if they mounted a blockbuster and nobody got to see it? 

Ahhhh….A major show covering TWO whole museum floors with about 100 Paintings? My idea of heaven…

As I write this in early June, 2020 what is known is that Gerhard Richter: Painting After All will be remembered as the last major show to be mounted at The Met Breuer (TMB) before The Met’s lease on the Marcel Breuer’s Madison Ave at East 75th Street building ends in July and The Frick Collection moves in while the renovations of their 1 East 70th Street home take place. What’s still unknown is how long the show ran for. It opened on March 4th, then “temporarily closed” after I saw it on March 12th, due to the coronavirus shutdown. That’s all of NINE days! The Met’s site says “Closing Date To Be Announced” on its listing, but what are their options for reopening it? With The Met’s lease on the Breuer Building ending in July, reopening it there would seem to have to come in June, which we are half-way through. On May 19th, Met CEO Daniel Weiss said that The Met “hoped” to reopen on August 15th, “or a few weeks later.” His announcement made no mention of TMB, but that timeframe would seem to rule out a TMB reopening. Moving it to 1000 Fifth Avenue might seem to be an option, terms of loans and space requirements for shows previously planned permitting. That might also put any number of employees at risk of the virus, though. Then, there’s this-

The X Factor. The show’s listing in the coming attractions section of MOCA’s site with a start date of August 15th.

This show was scheduled to open at MOCA, LA, on August 15th. So, there remains a chance Gerhard Richter: Painting After All (GR:PAA, henceforth) won’t reopen in NYC. IF that does come to pass, its 9 day run will be the shortest for a major show at a major museum here in my memory. That would be a shame considering the last major Gerhard Richter show in NYC was 20 years ago, a chance missed to assess how his older work looks now and see his more recent work. I started looking closely at Mr. Richter shortly after that NYC show, so in the past 20 years I’ve seen his gallery shows (of mostly new and recent work), but I’ve never seen 100 of his Paintings in one place. Being that Mr. Richter is 88, this may be the last major show of his work during his lifetime. The Artist did not attend the opening, though members of his family did, I was told by Met staffers.

Installation view, showing part of Strip, 2013, in the final gallery, seen on March 12th- hours before the show “temporarily closed.”

SPOILER ALERT! Since The Met’s site still says “Closing Date to be Announced” for this show, my hunch is that they will find a way to reopen it, especially because The Met originated GR:PAA (which is co-curated by Met Modern & Contemporary Art Chairman Sheena Wagstaff), and so has a sizable investment in it. My bet is that they will get an extension on the Breuer lease and use that to give this show a proper run, and The Met Breuer the fitting end I think it deserves. So, if you don’t want a peek at it yet, you may want to wait before proceeding. This piece will still be here when it doesn’t reopen! In which case, you’ll have to go to L.A. to see it, and I will be among the very few to have seen it here.

Installation view of the lobby on the 3rd floor, the concluding floor of the show. Surprisingly for a show called “Painting After All,”  works in glass greet the visitor on both floors. Mirror, 1986, shown here, right.

Installed on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Breuer, and beginning on 4, GR:PAA is not a retrospective and not a “greatest hits.” It lies somewhere between the two. It covers the whole of his career and juxtaposes many very familiar works, alongside some that are barely known to many here. I can’t help but wonder about the Artist’s involvement in GR:PAA, because the selection and arrangement of it has a bold feel to it. For a show that covers such a long period of time, it also has a bit of a sparseness, the work is not crowded together. Each piece has space to breathe. In the documentary Gerhard Richter: Painting, the Artist and his staff are shown using mockups of exhibition spaces and miniatures of each Painting as they work out and assess the placement of each. It’s hard for me to think that something similar didn’t take place with GR:PAA, though Ms. Wagstaff and her staff have repeatedly shown they are more than capable of mounting extraordinary shows without the Artist’s involvement, so in wondering, I mean to take nothing away from their achievement here, which is yet another Met Breuer show that will live on in memory and in discussion. Here, you have a major, living Artist. If you can get his involvement in your show, why wouldn’t you use it2? Whatever the case is, the selection and arrangement of the work take GR:PAA to another level.

“Art requires freedom…in dictatorships there is no art, not even bad art.” Gerhard Richter.

He would know. Gerhard Richter has lived in two countries where there was no freedom. He was born in Dresden in 1932, 11 months BEFORE Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. His father was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1938 and sent to the horror of the Eastern Front. The elder Richter didn’t return to Germany until 1946. Gerhard finished growing up in East Germany before managing a crafty defection to West Germany in 1961. He’s lived in Nazi Germany, Communist East Germany, West Germany and (the Federal Republic of) Germany in his lifetime.

Table, item #1 in the Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonne, though not his first work. In the Catalogue, this is listed under “Household Icons” in the “Photo Paintings” section of his site, yet, with its abstract elements it seems to straddle the fence between the two categories of Paintings his work is broken down into there.

These experiences have continually informed his work3 be it in the people, places and things he’s encountered in them, or in things that went on while he was living there that he didn’t personally encounter (like the Holocaust) in a career that is closing in on 60 years. Officially, the first work listed in his Catalogue Raisonne (CR 1), Table, is dated 1962, 58 years ago. Among works that pre-date Table are a Mural he Painted in 1955, and the work Elbe, included in this show in a Print version, was created in 1957.

September, 2005, Oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches. Painted four years after 9/11, it’s one of the more haunting works done relating to the tragedy I’ve seen, perhaps because it mimics the view I had of 9/11 from my window. Placed in the show’s first gallery, it greeted this viewer like a cold smack in the face. It’s also the only work that references NYC in the show. Mounted on the same wall with Table, it’s another work that abstracts reality, from 40+ years later, reinforcing the fact that Photographs have been one source of Mr. Richter’s Paintings for at least 5o years.

In the intervening years, Gerhard Richter’s work has been marked by a variety in output that has ranged from Prints, Drawings, Artist’s Books, Sculptures, Films and Paintings. On his website, his Paintings are broken down into two main groups- “Photo Paintings” (further broken down to 36 categories!), and “Abstracts” (in 8 groups by date and 6 other groups).

Self-Portrait, 1996, Oil on linen, 20 1/16 x 18 1/8 inches. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at Gerhard Richter’s work. Now, his Photo-Paintings, to use his term, like this one, look fresher to me than I had remembered and fresher than a number of his Abstracts.

“To talk about painting is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, what language can communicate.
Painting has nothing to do with that.” Gerhard Richter, 1966, quoted in the Documentary Gerhard Richter Painting.

Eight Student Nurses, 1966, Oil on canvas, refers to the mass murder of 8 young women by Richard Speck in Chicago, 1966. These are from his Grays, which evoke the effect of black & white Photographs.

As I walked through Painting After All, I was struck by how fresh the Photo Paintings looked…

S. with Child, 1995, (both)

which I didn’t get from a number of the Abstracts.

Seven Abstract Paintings, 2016, Oil on wood, each 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 inches. In these later abstractions, it looks like the Artist is using other techniques besides only the “squeegee” to modify the paint he had applied.

Part of the latter feeling may stem from the discovery that the late Jack Whitten had been extensively mining the squeegee technique Mr. Richter’s Abstracts are known for a full decade before he did. I’ve seen reference to Mr. Whitten using a squeegee in 19694, but he may have started before that5. The earliest Gerhard Richter squeegee work I seem to be able to find is from the mid 1980s.

Jack Whitten, Siberian Salt Grinder, 1974, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, seen at MoMA in 2019.

Still, some of the Abstracts did stand out.

Three of the six Cage Paintings, 2006, each Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 feet square, which get their own room, the other three facing these.

The legendary Cage Paintings were much more stunning in person than in the book of the same name, especially in a group of all six of them, set off in a central gallery of their own on the 4th floor. Seeing them, and being able to be able to walk right up to them and see the details of their layers was one of the highlights of the show.

Four Birkenau Paintings, 2014, Oil on canvas, each 8′ 6 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches faced four Prints made from them in the next to last room of the show.

The other highlight, among the Abstracts, and of the whole exhibition, was the chance to see his recent Birkenau series of Paintings and the Prints he made after them. Installed in the show’s penultimate room along with the only four existing Photographs taken by Sondernkommandos surreptitiously in the titular Nazi Birkenau death camp, Gerhard Richter had wanted for decades to do something regarding the Holocaust. He originally started by using the Photographs as the basis for his work, but soon started over from scratch, abstractly. The results are remarkable and unforgettable. They, literally, drip with pain, bloodshed and horror.

4,900 Colors, 2007, Enamel paint on aluminum.

And there were other “kinds” of abstractions, like 4,900 Colors…

Strip, 2013, Inkget print on fine art paper between acrylic and aluminum.

And Strip, 2013.

Strip began here. Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor, was digitally manipulated in Photoshop hundreds, maybe thousands of times until the thin bands of color we see in Strip are achieved. These would have to be magnified to see an actual image.

This version of Strip, seen in the show’s last gallery on the 3rd floor, began life as Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor. The process Mr. Richter used to create the works in his Strip series is outlined in the Artist’s book, Patterns, in which he took his Abstract Painting (CR: 724-4) and manipulated it in Photoshop, using a mirroring process, he then repeated over and over until the results were reduced to the fine lines of color seen in Strip.

My results after Step 1.

Using his process, I took Abstract Painting, 1990, which I just showed, and began to create my own Strip from it.

My results after Step 2.

I got to the third stage.

My results after Step 3.

Already you can see where this is going, given a few hundred, or more, steps. Even these preliminary results made me feel that this exercise was fascinatingly making some sort of order out of the seeming “chaos” of abstraction.

Installation view of the 4th floor, with the lobby, where the show begins to the right.

Or course, it will be a long time before the final assessment of Gerhard Richter’s work is done, and hopefully, a long time before he stops creating it.

Early, and recent work. Here, early, Four Panes of Glass, 1967 in front of Elbe, 1957/2012, along the back wall, Originally paint roller on paper, 1957, eprinted as inkjet prints in 2012.

“In 2020, art can be made from literally anything. So why still paint?” Met Museum Primer for GR:PAA

Recent. Installation view showing House of Cards (5 Panes), 2020, Glass and steel, the most recent work in the show. That’s the view across Madison Avenue coming in through Marcel Breuer’s window to the left, reflected in the glass.

Though works in other medium are included, as seen above, even with these forays, his Painting have continued, and continued to be the main focus of his work. Highlights from many of the major categories of Painting that Mr. Richter has worked in are included, including his hugely influential landscapes, like Seascape, 1975.

Seascape, 1975, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 inches by 9 feet 10 1/8 inches. I was stopped by this work when I came across it.  It spoke to me of so much going on at that moment- the looming covid shutdown, which would begin for Art in NYC a few hours later, and along with it, the status of this show. How the world would be different after…Are the clouds clearing, or is a storm coming? Is that light a dawn, or a sunset?

For me, the title Gerhard Richter: Painting After All  has multiple meanings. It can be read as a statement that Gerhard Richter has continued to Paint, or gone back to Painting, after exploring other mediums, his entire career. It can also be read as a statement about all the tumult that has gone on in the Arts over his lifetime, during which time Painting has received unprecedented challenges from Photography and other mediums which have attempted to take it’s prime place among the visual Arts. Regardless of how I, or anyone, feels about a work here or there, the one thing that remains is that Gerhard Richter has consistently shown what Painting can do, what it’s capable of giving us, that other mediums can’t- including Photography, to this point. In doing so, he has set signposts for other Painters to follow to continue to mine what Painting is uniquely capable of.

It can, also, be read as a statement about the survival, and ongoing importance of Painting. After all.

Particularly after my 3+ year immersion in Modern & Contemporary Photography, I’ll go with that one.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is the album Richter 858 by Bill Frisell, that was originally released along with a volume of Gerhard Richter’s Abstract Pictures 858-1 through 858-8. In 2005, then rereleased on Soundlines.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. Here ↩
  2. This is probably discussed and clarified in the show’s catalog. Due to the shutdown, which has closed all bookstores, I have not seen the catalog. I may update/correct this when I do. ↩
  3. In works in the show, like Uncle Rudi and others, and work that are not here, like the intriguing October 18, 1977 series. ↩
  4. Here ↩
  5. In his remarkable book, Notes From The Woodshed, Mr. Whitten, a master woodworker, writes about  the making of the tools he used to make them- “The Developer” he called a large one. ↩

2018: The Year In Art Seen, And Met

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Will Art ever be more popular than it is now? On January 4th, 2019,  The Met announced another attendance record was set in 2018 when almost 7.4 million visited The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer or The Cloisters1.

On this late summer day, I’ll be lucky if I can figure out a way to get up the stairs to get in! Click any Photo for full size.

Simply put, when I think back on 2018, I’ll remember the extraordinary number of truly great shows I saw at The Met and The Met Breuer this past year, among those 7.4 million. While I certainly spent quality time at the other Museums and saw wonderful shows at each of them (not to mention countless galleries and a few Art & Book fairs), it’s almost impossible to top the list of shows The Met, collectively, mounted this year- especially when you consider that I didn’t even see the biggest show of them all- biggest by attendance that is, the show that drew 1,659,647 visitors- Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination (I saw the parts of it that were installed outside of the show proper).

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination– A view of part of the show installed to the south of the Great Staircase.

I chose to skip it. My friend, the fashion Blogger extraordinaire, Magda, saw it and did a terrific piece on it, here.  As for the Art I saw in 2018? I’ll remember most standing on this spot near the south west corner of the 2nd floor of The Met, and marveling at the sight in front of me in a 270 degree range.

I’ve never seen the likes of this before. A 270 degree panorama from “the spot.” 2nd Floor, Metropolitan Museum.

Before my eyes, there were no less that 4 major and/or historic shows going on within yards of each other AT THE SAME TIME!

A fortnight of heaven. From right to left- 1- Rodin At The Met, 2- Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer, 3- David Hockney 80th Birthday Retrospective, 4- Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris. This photo was taken on February 4th, 2018. The last day all four of these shows were open at the same time.

Behind me, to the far right in the panorama, above, was Rodin At The Met (1, above), which I had just walked through to get to this spot.

Rodin, The Tempest, before 1910, Marble, seen in Rodin In The Met.

Just to my right was the once in a lifetime Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer (2), containing 133 of the Master’s Drawings and 3 Sculptures. Just to the left of that was the David Hockney 80th Birthday Retrospective (3). Down the hall to the left, Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris (4) recently opened. The run of all four overlapped from January 23rd to February 4th, when I took the above, just 13 days.

Had enough? C’mon. This is NYC!

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Oil on canvas, 1833-36, on loan from the New York Historical Society. Installation view of Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings. 170 years later, they would inspire Ed Ruscha to create a contemporary version that was shown in conjunction with the National Gallery, London, incarnation of this show.

ALSO going on at that very moment down in the American Wing, Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings was a quite pleasant surprise, AND, over at The Met Breuer, the revelatory Edvard Munch: Between The Clock And The Bed was closing that very day! The Met, typically, has up to 25 shows up at any one given time. But, SIX MAJOR Shows up at the same time is extraordinary. WHERE else in the world does that happen?

Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait: Between the Clock and the Bed, 1940-43, Oil on canvas. His last significant “self-scrutiny” as he referred to his self-portraits, he stands before the faceless clock and bed, in front of his Paintings.

Thus far, I’ve written about 3 of them-

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer

Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings

Edvard Munch: Between The Clock And The Bed

Given all of this, even before January, 2018 was over, I knew nothing was going to top The Met in Art in NYC this year. But? Keep an open mind, right? Let em try! Well, now that the year is over, and I take stock at all that happened, nothing changed my mind. In fact, there were more great shows at The Met as the year unfolded. So much happened that in spite of all of my coverage, there are other shows and Artists I feel the need to show and talk about. I’ve decided to focus on 3 Artists here I encountered or discovered in Met shows in 2018- one, very famous, another, who recently passed without receiving as much acclaim as I feel he deserves, and a third who, I feel, is one of the most important Artists of our time.

First, a spot quiz- Before you read the caption, who is this by?

Tyger Painting No 2, by David Hockney, 1960, when the Artist was about 22, Oil and mixed media on board.

When I saw that David Hockney was installed right next door to all the treasures by no less than Michelangelo, the Artist called “Il Divno,” I couldn’t help but wonder what that initial phone call was like…a Met executive reaching out to Mr. Hockney by phone, saying something like, “David, this is _______ from The Met. We have some good news for you, and, maybe, some not as good news for you. The good news is The Metropolitan is giving you an 80th Birthday Retrospective! Congratulations! The not as good news is it’s being mounted right next to a once in a lifetime Michelangelo show containing 133 of the master’s Drawings and 3 of his Sculptures…” And you say you want to be a famous Artist? Stay humble. Fame is relative, possibly fleeting.

The Met reported 702,516 people visited the Michelangelo show, and 363,877 attended David Hockney.

I haven’t spent much time looking at the Art of David Hockney, but I have with his exceptional books, particularly the now classic, Secret Knowledge, and the fascinating History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen. Secret Knowledge, which has made a real contribution to Art History, was nothing less than a bombshell when it was released in 2001. His, and physicist Charles Falco’s, theory that the Old Masters (including Jan van Eyck, my first personal God of Painting) used optics, recently developed in Van Eyck’s time, to get the incredible realism they achieved was deemed heresy. Until you looked at the “evidence” they presented, including a huge wall Hockney created of postcards of Paintings created before 1400 and up to modern times that showed a sudden sharpening of their realism occurring about the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Upon closer look, their theory made perfect sense. I wished it had come years earlier when I was struggling to learn how to draw by “eyeballing” my subjects, which, of course, continues to have its place. Secret Knowledge became a superb BBC TV Documentary, and then a television series, and its impact is being felt to this day. The 2016 Film Tim’s Vermeer shows inventor Tim Jenison using these techniques to “re-create” how Vermeer might have done his Paintings. Of course, Secret Knowledge is a theory, not history, though as I said, it’s one that makes sense. Perusing it and A History of Pictures, released in late 2016, I was led to Cameraworks and his interviews on Photography, which I’ve found equally compelling. So, the David Hockney Retrospective gave me a long-delayed chance to consider his long, prolific and restless Art career. Afterall, since the passing of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, he is oft referred to as “England’s foremost living Painter.” 

Arizona, 1964, left, Portrait Surrounded by Artistic Devices, 1965, right.

Though his popularity would be a while coming, requiring a move half way around the world to California, David Hockney showed a remarkable tenacity early on, Painting in styles that were, well, “different” from that of any other Painter of the time. He moved from abstraction to works that were somewhere between abstract and figurative, generally including a figure, before landing on a style that retained his use of color while becoming even more representational.

A Bigger Splash, 1967, Acrylic on canvas. Without the unseen swimmer, the splash becomes a passage out of Abstract Expressionism, jarring the all too peaceful scene.

Moving to LA, his style exploded into color, a sudden taste for representationalism in a style that came to epitomize upper class California living to the point that its now sparked something of a “response,” from Ramiro Gomez, who focuses on the workers maintaining these places-

Ramiro Gomez, No Splash, 2013, 96 x 96 inches, after David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash, 1967, focuses on the pool workers instead of the residents. Photo: Osceola Refetoff for Charlie James Gallery

David Hockney could have continued to paint these ad infinitum and, no doubt, sell every single one he produced. But, he’s far too restless, and curious, to stand in any one spot for too long.

The Twenty-Sixth Very New Painting, 1992. Picasso and Cubism have never been very far from David Hockney’s mind- to this day.

He then revealed his own take on portraiture in single subjects and couples before exploring, and breaking the boundaries of, Photographic perception with his “joiners,” which explored his belief that we don’t see the way the camera sees- with a fixed, single, viewpoint.

In Pearblossom Highway, 11-18th April, 1986, #1, 47 x 64 inches, a “joiner” composed of hundreds of Photographs, David Hockney explores his belief that a camera has a fixed viewpoint and a single vanishing point. So, putting hundreds of Photos together creates many. He’s said he considers this work “a panoramic assault on Renaissance one-point perspective2.”

All along he drew, and he drew and he drew. There were times when I admit looking at his work and wondering how well he could draw but being well acquainted with the difficulties involved in mastering the line, as the show moved through his Drawings, its seminal and central place in his practice becomes clear as he relentlessly forged ahead. As the Drawing section ended, he seemed to me to have finally made peace with Drawing, having taken it from graphite on paper to the use of the Camera Lucida and more recently, to the iPhone and the iPad.

Three iPad Drawings, shown in-progress side by side in the final room.

His painting, too, continually evolved over the years and decades.

A Closer Winter Tunnel, February-March, 2006.

He left LA to return to the home his late mother had lived in and turned his attention to a little known area called the Yorkshire Wolds and created a remarkable series of landscapes, including some multi-panel monumental works, along with multi-channel videos that show this area that no Artist had previously “discovered” to be full of picturesque wonders.

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1971. The “coolness” here can be partially explained by the fact that this was a rare commission the Artist accepted and so, he didn’t have a personal relationship with them.

Mr and Mrs Ossie Clark, 1970, Photograph. Not mentioned anywhere in the show, and not very well known, is that David Hockney used Photographs, usually his own, as source material for years. Later, he finally created Photographs as stand-alone works. It’s fascinating to see what’s changed in the finished Painting. (From David Hockney on Art, Conversations with Paul Joyce, P.14, hence the curve.)

Personally, I find a cool distance in most of David Hockney’s work (felt most clearly in his double portraits, but present in everything from his landscapes to his single portraits) that the bright colors and the often undeniable beauty do not hide. This works to his advantage during the period he spent immortalizing the Yorkshire Wolds, beginning in 2005, until about 2013, near where he grew up, seen before. It’s hard for me to look at these beautiful works without being a little bit reminded of the work of another of his long time influences, Vincent van Gogh. Particularly because Mr. Hockney chose to largely create these works on the spot, en plein air, during all four seasons, late winter seen above. The passage of time looms large in this series of works, as it has in the intervening years since Mr. Hockney worked in these fields as a  young man. Yet, in them we see everything change- the seasons, the weather, individual trees, everything except the Artist. That we can only see through surveying his work through the years.

Ordinary versus Reverse Perspective.

David Hockney revealed an Artist who doesn’t get enough credit for his progressiveness, the resistance of his work to current fads, and its individuality. From the beginning he turned a deaf ear to trends and norms, rejecting both Abstract Expressionism and Pop while somewhat brazenly, and frankly, featuring homosexuality (which was illegal in England until 1967). After the tragic death of an assistant, Mr. Hockney sold the Yorkshire house in 2015 and returned to L.A. “Reverse perspective,” as he refers to it, has taken full hold in his most recent work, as seen in the final gallery at The Met, and at Pace on West 25th Street in David Hockney: Something New in Painting (and Photography) (and even Printing), in April and May.

Here, in David Hockney: Something New in Painting (and Photography) (and even Printing) at Pace, spring, 2018, Mr. Hockney cleverly manages to include all the works on the surrounding walls in the Pace show in this Photographic Drawing, as he calls it, which forces the eye to move around the work, each stop becoming a new perspective.

Taken to another level, I think, he’s also comparing Photography to Painting. In addition to his fascinating thoughts on perspective and how cameras see versus how humans see, I found he had already put down in print quite a few things I was feeling about Painting versus Photography a year and a half into my deep dive into “post-The Americans” Photography. I’ll save those for another piece.

Mr. Hockney has been first a number of times, so far, in a rage of realms, including Photography. Being first is not something history often rewards. David Hockney’s popularity seems to know no bounds, and his influence is there to be seen in the work of any number of Artists. Yet, as with every other Artist, posterity will decide where David Hockney’s Art belongs, and time will tell if it will be as popular in hundreds of years as it is now, or not. In the meantime? I’m interested to see what this Artist who lives to create does next.

Coincidentally, and fortuitously, 10 days after I took that panorama from “the spot,” The Met’s William Eggleston: Los Alamos opened, giving me a chance to revisit the work of the Artist who’s show at David Zwirner in December, 2016 led to my deep dive into the world of Contemporary Photography. I wrote about Los Alamos here.

Exit/Entrance installation view of History Refused to Die, showing the recto of the titular work, the recto  is seen below, center.

After the six major shows ended, I returned to The Met to see History Refused to Die, a sleeper of a show publicity-wise, that honored the recent gift to The Museum by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation by featuring a selection of 30 Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings and Quilts from it by self-taught contemporary African American Artists, highlighted by a number of truly amazing works by the late Thornton Dial (1928-2016).

Thonton Dial, History Refused to Die, 2004, Okra stalks and roots, clothing, collaged drawings, tin, wire, steel, Masonite, steel chain, enamel and spray paint, front, center. Verso of the work seen above.

Mr. Dial created a body of work after having watched the events of 9/11 on television. It, and the subsequent war were the subjects of a few works seen here, among others.

Thornton Dial, 9/11: Interrupting the Morning News, 2002, Graphite, charcoal, and watercolor on paper.

Thornton Dial, Victory in Iraq, 2004, Mannequin head, barbed wire, steel, clothing, tin, electrical wire, wheels, stuffed animals, toy cars and figurines, plastic spoons, wood, basket, oil, enamel, spray paint and two-part epoxy putty on canvas and wood.

Thonton Dial, The End of November: The Birds That Didn’t Learn How to Fly, 2007, Quilt, wire, fabric, and enamel on canvas on wood.

While I returned a few times to see Mr. Dial’s work again, I was also impressed with that of Ronald Lockett (1965-1995), a cousin of Thornton Dial.

Ronald Lockett, The Enemy Amongst Us, 1995, Commercial paint, pine needles, metal and nails on plywood.

One of the great things about this show was the complete freedom the Artists worked with. It’s hard for me not to believe that that was one of the benefits of being self-taught in their case. Yes, even today, you can be a self-taught Artist and still get in to The Met’s Permanent Collection.

Over my 1,500+ visits to The Met, I’ve spent countless hours sitting there in front of Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, Enamel on canvas, 105 x 207 inches, dating back to before I started counting my visits. Seen here on August 31st, at the entrance to what was then the Abstract Expressionist galleries.

Just to the left of one of the two entrances/exits to History Refused to Die, I paused to revisit an old friend.  Almost 30 years ago, I sat on those benches for hours on end staring at and contemplating one of the most remarkable and revolutionary Paintings in Western Art, Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, at the time my favorite Painting in The Met (“favorite” does not mean “the best.” I don’t believe in that), and, perhaps, the crown jewel of The Met’s Abstract Expressionism collection. In my opinion, this is a key wall in The Met. Its the entrance to the Abstract Expressionist galleries behind it, and it looks out to visitors passing the “corridor” I’m standing in going to the stairs. Over all these intervening decades, its never been moved from this spot. Little did I know when I took this Photograph on August 31st, it would be the last time I would see it here.

Fall brought the revelation that was Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture 1963-2017, which opened at The Met Breuer just before History Refused to Die closed. Finally, and currently, back at 1000 Fifth Avenue, while the very good Delacroix show was going on down the hall, Epic Abstraction, opened on December 17th, a show I also find somewhat remarkable. It’s an “ongoing” show, meaning it has no end date at this point, largely because it and Reimagining Modernism, downstairs on the first floor, are reinstallations of works from The Met’s Permanent Collection, along with a few loans (in the case of Epic Abstraction).

Immediately adjacent to the sign, mere steps into the show, lookie here! It’s my old friend Autumn Rhythm! 

When I walked in the first time, I was startled to see that the show begins with Autumn Rhythm! Wow. They moved it! While I admired it at the beginning of this “epic” show, questions immediately flooded into my mind. An Abstraction show that BEGINS with Autumn Rhythm? That’s incredibly bold. Talk about throwing down a gauntlet for all that’s come after. Well, the subtitle of the show is Pollock to Herrera, so, chronologically, this is the beginning. That Sheena Wagstaff, Randall Griffey (credited with organizing Epic Abstraction & Reimagining Modernism- kudos) and the Modern & Contemporary Staff chose to move Autumn Rhythm and give it pride of place in this show I take as a “sign” they may agree with me about its importance. While I wondered what is going to maintain this level in the rest of the show to come, my mind then turned to the inevitable question- WHAT did they choose to hang in that prime spot where Autumn Rhythm hung for the past few decades?

Epic. Jackson Pollock, 3 Drawings, each, Untitled, 1938-41, Colored pencils and graphite on paper.

The first room is entirely devoted to the work of Jackson Pollock, except for one work- Kazuo Shiraga’s Untitled, 1958! Highlights, besides the reinstalled Autumn Rhythm include 3 spectacular colored pencil Drawings that should permanently quiet anyone who thinks that Jackson Pollock couldn’t draw. As remarkable as this start was, the second gallery is entirely devoted to Mark Rothko, save for a central sculpture by Isamu Noguchi! This is sure to stagger any long time Met goer. For decades, only 2 or 3 Rothkos have been on view at any given time. What museum on earth, besides the National Gallery in Washington, has enough Mark Rothkos sitting in storage to fill an entire gallery? Talk about an embarrassment of riches. I couldn’t believe it. Instantly, my fears about how they were going to keep the pace of this show going disappeared. Of course. They topped themselves.

Finally, making it through the first two galleries, still in shock, I turned the corner to finally see what was now in the spot Autumn Rhythm occupied. A sharp right turn, and my eyes alighted on this-

Mark Bradford, Duck Walk, 2016, Mixed media on canvas. Taking its title from Chuck Berry’s strut across the stage strumming his guitar, now hangs where Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) hung for decades.

If you don’t think a lot of thought went into this, Untitled, 1950, by Clyfford Still, one of Mark Bradford’s influences, hangs directly adjacent to it on the wall to the right, with the Sculpture, Raw Attraction, 2001, by Chakaia Booker, Rubber tire, steel, and wood, between them, behind the lady in red, and Tanktotem II by David Smith, barely seen at the far left.

Mark Bradford’s Duck Walk, 2016, a Mixed media on canvas diptych floored me the minute I saw it. It’s every bit as daring as Autumn Rhythm, in my opinion, done in a completely unique way, as Pollock’s was 66 years earlier in 1950. Mark Bradford uses layers of colored paper that he cuts through using a very wide range of techniques. Of course, Mr. Bradford didn’t do it in a vacuum. He’s had influences, including David Joseph Martinez and Clyfford Still, who’s been somewhat overlooked it seems to me among Abstract Expressionists. But not by Mark Bradford.

Detail of the center where the two canvases meet. Interestingly, the two pieces are shown in the opposite configuration on The Met’s website.

“Abstraction for me, I get it-you go internal, you turn off the world, you’re hermetic, you channel something. No. I’m not interested in that type of abstraction. I’m interested in the type of abstraction where you look out at the world, see the horror-sometimes it is horror-and you drag that horror kicking and screaming into your studio and you wrestle with it and you find something beautiful in it. That’s what I was always determined to do. I have never turned away.” Mark Bradford3.

Mrs. N’s Palace, 1964-77, by Louise Nevelson. Notice the black line on the floor going off to the left. That was left by a wall The Met took down to install this monumental work, the back of which is to the left. I’ve never seen this space, the room behind the Mark Bradfordls Duck Walk open like this before.

Now? Four visits in to Epic Abstraction, I can think of no other work in the show that deserves to be hung in this spot more. It not only holds its own with anything else in the show, which is a who’s who of Modern & Contemporary Abstractionists that includes de Kooning, Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Franz Kline, Carmen Herrera, Cy Twombly, Dan Flavin, Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell (including some pieces I’ve never seen on view), along with Pollock, Rothko and Noguchi. I was also very pleased to see that The Met managed to get a great work by a great contemporary Artist before the Artist’s prices made it possible only by donation. (Recently, tennis star John McEnroe sold a Painting by Mr. Bradford for over 12 million dollars at auction-to the Eli Broad Museum, in LA). It now joins single Paintings by Kerry James Marshall4 and Jack Whitten in The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Art collection, a collection that, unfortunately, can’t compare with the collections of museums in Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco in works by these Artists, at this point, due to…? I don’t know why. The Met owns 2 Paintings and a set of 6 prints, which are currently on display in the Drawings & Print Gallery, by Mark Bradford, seen below, with the accompanying card-

On the heels of Tomorrow is Another Day (named for the last spoken lines in Gone With The Wind), the show he mounted at the 2017 Venice Biennale after being chosen to represent the USA5, and his current installation, Pickett’s Charge, his largest work to date, currently on view at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington (well, if and when the government re-opens, through 2021), I believe Mark Bradford is one of the world’s most important living Artists. He is an Artist who has been speaking truth about the reality of the world and the issues it faces from early on in his career and doing so in his own ways, developing unique techniques in a variety of medium. “The world is on fire,” he said in a 2017 interview in the catalog accompanying Pickett’s Charge, “whether we like it or not.” “I do feel there are moments in history when the intensity of the world in which you live comes to your door. We are at that moment now. There’s no way around it. Politically and socially we are at the edge of another precipice. I’m standing in the middle of a question about where we are as a nation6.”

Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies By The Sea, 1996, 75 1/4 inches x 18 feet 5 inches, left, Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Studio), 2014, Acrylic on PVC panels, 85 5/16 x 119 1/4 inches, right.

It’s also hard for me to not look at the choice of installing Duck Walk in this spot as a statement. Has the baton been passed to the next generation? Mark Bradford was born in 1961, 5 years after Jackson Pollock’s tragic early death. This baton passing might have also be happening downstairs in the Modern & Contemporary Mezzanine, Gallery 915, The Met’s large Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies by the Sea, which for many, many years has occupied an end wall, has been moved to a side wall, and its former spot is now occupied by Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Studio). (Note- Anselm Kiefer was the subject of Provocations: Anselm Kiefer at The Met Breuer in early 2018).

If you continue further down the stairs to the first floor, you’ll discover the early Modern Art galleries have, also, been completely reinstalled, as Reimagining Modernism 1900-1950. It’s endlessly fascinating to me to see which pieces have come on display and which have gone into storage, (or loan?)

The signs they are a-changin’

Times are changing at The Met, in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries, and in the rest of the Museum, as new Director Max Hollein now takes charge (though I imagine Epic Abstraction & Reimagining Modernism were being planned prior). Along with The Met as a whole, the Modern & Contempoaray Department had another remarkable year. The list of memorable and/or important shows that have already appeared at The Met Breuer continues to grow. This is the second time in three years I’ve singled out Sheena Wagstaff and her Modern & Contemporary Department for having great years in NYC Art. Yes, the New Museum, who I singled out last year, continue to impress and grow, and yes MoMA had a number of memorable shows this year, including Stephen Shore  and two featuring the work of Charles White, the Guggenheim impressed with Danh Vo and Hilma af Klint, but none of them had the year The Met had, in my view, particularly in Modern & Contemporary Art.

They started from so far behind compared to the other Museums. I wonder how many others are now noticing.

BookMarks- I only list items in BookMarks that I strongly believe in and personally recommend. If you like what you see here, you can make a donation to help keep NHNYC.com ad-free through PayPal by clicking on the box to the right of the banner at the top of the page that will take you to the Donation button. Your support is VERY much appreciated. Thank you!

David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge (New and Expanded Edition): Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters is one of the most revelatory Art History books of the century thus far and is recommended to the Art History buff and the Art student. The Expanded Edition is only available in paperback, but it is the version I recommend. Keep an eye out for the excellent 2 part BBC Documentary, too.

His A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen, is a wider look at Art History, seen from an Artist’s perspective, which makes it somewhat unique, and is recommended for the general Art History student and buff. There is also a version for children.

Hockney’s Cameraworks is a remarkable book, unlike any other Photography monograph I know of. It includes a look at his Photography through 1984, along side a fascinating interview. Currently out of print, it’s highly recommended to Photographers, Hockney fans, and those interested in this sticky debate about perspective in Art, and definitely worth looking for. Copies in very good condition (minimal wear to the book or dust jacket, without marks of any kind or writing) may still be found for less than 100.00.

The best overview of Thornton Dial’s work, currently, is Thornton Dial in the 21st Century published by Tinwood Books in 2006. The time has come for a complete, comprehensive monograph on his life and work, and this, the best we currently have, is recommended until it arrives.

Mark Bradford (Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series) is the best and most current introduction to Mr. Bradford career. After that, it’s a toss up between 2010’s Mark Bradford published by Yale U. Press or Tomorrow Is Another Day, one of Michelle Obama’s “personal favorites.”  The Yale book is the most comprehensive book on his work to 2010, with the best images of his work to that date, while Tomorrow is an in-depth look at the work Mr. Bradford created for the US Pavillion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Coming Up” by Paul McCartney fromMcCartney II, 1980, seen here performing it with Wings, and Linda McCartney, Live in Kampuchea, 1979-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. Met attendance numbers quoted in this piece are from this press release. ↩
  2. //www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/106006/david-hockney-pearblossom-hwy-11-18th-april-1986-1-british-1986/ ↩
  3. Mark Bradford: Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series, Interview with Anita Hill, P.18 ↩
  4. The Met also owns a woodcut (a print) by Mr. Marshall ↩
  5. Containing work that is now on view at the Baltimore Museum, under its Director, Christopher Bedford, long one of the leading Mark Bradford champions ↩
  6.  //hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/mark-bradford-picketts-charge/ ↩

The Met To Close The Met Breuer In 2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Outside The Met Breuer. Click any Photo for full size.

This, today, from Met Museum President and CEO, Daniel Weiss-
The Met
Dear Member:

I am writing to bring you up to date on a new series of developments related to The Met Breuer and, more generally, on our long-term goals for modern and contemporary art at The Met.

We are in the process of creating an arrangement between The Met and The Frick Collection through which the Frick will use the Breuer building while its own building undergoes a substantial upgrade and renovation. This collaboration would ensure that the public continues to have access to the Frick’s collections, exhibitions, library resources, and education programs.

Although final details are still under review, as currently envisioned the Frick would begin its programming at the Breuer building in late 2020, after obtaining the necessary public approvals for its renovation project. The Met will continue operations at the Breuer until the summer of 2020.

In the last few years, under the outstanding leadership of Sheena Wagstaff, the Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Met Breuer has received critical and public acclaim for its exhibition program, which has been devoted to telling multiple histories of modernism from across the world.

Most of all, we have enjoyed sharing the building with Members like you. Together, we have examined modern and contemporary art through unparalleled exhibitions such as Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-Now) and Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, and important displays of artists who were overdue for recognition, such as Nasreen Mohamedi, Marisa Merz, Lygia Pape, Kerry James Marshall, and, now on view, Jack Whitten.

In the coming months, we have several major exhibitions planned for the current Modern and Contemporary galleries at The Met Fifth Avenue, including Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera later this fall, and our special exhibition galleries in the main building, as well as a number of large photography exhibitions. Finally, our programming at Breuer will continue until summer 2020, with a very exciting and diverse exhibition schedule ahead.

Our long-term commitment remains with the main building, and, of course, the Cloisters. We are actively working to reinvigorate and reimagine the role of modern art in the Fifth Avenue building, guided by the leadership of The Met’s new Director, Max Hollein, and in partnership with Sheena and the Modern and Contemporary team.

We are extraordinarily proud of our work at The Met Breuer. Over the last three years, we have accomplished exactly what we set out to do, namely, present modern and contemporary art within the context of our broader mission and encyclopedic collection. Building on that success, we are now able to realize an even more ambitious program at The Met Fifth Avenue.

I am excited about the collaboration with The Frick, and the opportunity to unify and expand modern and contemporary initiatives at The Met Fifth Avenue.
Dan
The Met
Fifth Avenue 1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028		 The Met
Cloisters 99 Margaret Corbin Drive
Fort Tryon Park
New York, NY 10040		 The Met
Breuer945 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021		 metmuseum.org

According to Mr. Weiss, the new arrangement will save The Met about 45 million dollars over 4 years1. That The Met would try and exit their lease on the Breuer building early is not totally unexpected, but that they were able to execute it so soon (two and a half years after the Met Breuer opened in March, 2016, and a year and seven months after the resignation of Director, Thomas P. Campbell, under who’s regime, the Museum had taken on the Breuer), seems quite fortuitous for their bottom line beginning in a few years, and so will probably be seen as a coup for the Museum. Part of the reason The Met wanted the Breuer was to display Modern & Contemporary Art while those galleries at 1000 Fifth Avenue were being renovated. With that plan shelved in 2017, and the existing galleries continuing to serve, today’s announcement makes me wonder what effect, if any, there is to the April, 2013 gift of Leonard Lauder’s superb collection of 78 Cubist paintings, drawings, and sculptures, among them 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, and 14 Légers valued at more than $1 billion, which was seen as part of The Met leasing the Breuer, and which were to be housed in part of the new Modern & Contemporary Wing. Nothing about it is mentioned in Mr. Weiss’ letter.

Thornton Dial, History Refused to Die, 2004, verso, seen in the excellent show of the same name that just ended at The Met 5th Avenue,, put on by Sheena Wagstaff and her team.

On the Art front, I am pleased to see that Sheena Wagstaff will, apparently, continue as Chairperson of Modern & Contemporary Art. As I’ve said, in my view, she has done a terrific job.

UPDATE- To be clear, The Met will still hold the lease on the Breuer building. They will be “subleasing” it to The Frick Collection for the final 4 years of The Met’s lease on it. This wasn’t made clear at the time of Mr. Weiss’ letter.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “One Too Many Mornings” by Bob Dylan from The Times They Are A-Changin’. Lyrics, here. 

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
For “short takes” and additional pictures, follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram.

Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

 

  1. New York Times, March 5, 2016 ↩

Art In Manhattan, 2017- And Then There Were Five

It was a year of discovery. A year where I discovered some great Artists I previously hadn’t known, finally caught up with some I knew about but hadn’t gotten to see much of their work, and got lost exploring some remarkable Retrospectives- for Raymond Pettibon and Robert Rauschenberg, both accompanied by memorable satellite shows. Most of these are represented in my monthly NoteWorthy Show selections throughout the year. But? There was more! So, I’m going to take this moment to pause and look back at the revelations of 2017, look at some memorable shows I didn’t write about at the time, and finally, highlight a pair of men who, I feel, had an exceptional 2017 in Manhattan Art.

No doubt about it- the biggest discovery this year was a long overdue deep dive into the world of Contemporary Photography. From seeing well over 100 Photography shows, to spending five long days at “AIPAD: The Photography Show” (with well over 120 galleries from all over the world showing work), to going through hundreds of PhotoBooks, and meeting many Photographers, legendary, famous, or not quite yet, along with the staffs of two of the world’s leading Photography organizations- Aperture and Magnum, both celebrating major anniversaries this year. Rarely did a week pass when Photography wasn’t in the the picture. Of course, in a world were there are now more cameras than people it’s impossible to get to see everyone who’s doing great work. As happens each year, NO matter WHAT I do to prevent it, this year too, there were shows I didn’t find out about until they closed. UGGGH!!!! Along the way, there were quite a few revelations, and a good many other things solidified…at least for the moment.

First, the revelations. In Photography, particularly among those younger than 50 (I say 50 only because I seem to know/have heard of many of those over) and unknown to me, Gregory Halpern was the biggest revelation I had this year. His book “Zzyzx” won the prestigious Aperture Best Book Award for 2016, but I didn’t know that when I discovered his work at Aperture’s booth at AIPAD. I had never heard of him.

Gregory Halpern, “Untitled,” 2016, from his “Buffalo” series. Click any Photo for full size.

The work, “Untitled,” was a Photograph Aperture had run in the Spring, 2017 issues of it’s excellent quarterly magazine, in a pictorial by Mr. Halpern, titled “Buffalo.” I didn’t know that then, either. I simply saw the work, and then couldn’t get it out of my mind. It now hangs a few feet away. Out of everything I saw at AIPAD, particularly by those younger than 50 and unknown to me, this work grabbed me and didn’t let go. I went home that night with one thought on my mind- “WHO is Gregory Halpern?” After researching him most of the night, (including finding his incredibly honest and insightful answer to one very important question), serendipitously, I got to meet him the next day, and spoke to him about his book. It turned out to be a classic case where some things are better left unexamined. Gregory was so forthcoming in his answers about specific images I came too close for comfort to losing some of their mystery.

Gregory Halpern standing next “Untitled,” at Aperture’s Booth at AIPAD, March 31st.

In addition to being, in my eyes, one of the most talented Photographers of his generation, he is, also, one of it’s best writers. He’s the co-author of one of the most popular and respected Photography Manuals of 2017, “The Photographer’s Playbook,” and his occasionally published articles always enlighten and leave me wanting more. A Harvard grad, he’s now a professor in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology for some very lucky students. As if all of that isn’t enough, his wife, Ahndraya Parlato is, also, one of the revelations of the year as a Photographer. Her Photographs “glow”- in one way or another. Her most recent book, “A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,” is ethereal…mesmerizing…magical.

Leaving aside age or era, the work of Fred Herzog was, also, unknown to me. Early pioneers of color Photography have taken decades coming to the attention they deserve, such was the disdain color held among the Photographic cognoscenti for color Photography. With the publication of “Fred Herzog: Modern Color,” in February, 2017, an Artist who was fairly well-known, and appreciated, in his native Canada finally began becoming wider known in the USA. His work was memorably shown by Equinox Gallery of Vancouver at AIPAD this spring, where, I felt, it stood out.

Fred Herzog, “Main Barber,” 1968, seen at Equinox Gallery’s AIPAD booth.

Fred Herzog considers Saul Leiter THE master of early color Photography, and even with a giant like William Eggleston to consider (who’s 1976 MoMA show, “Photographs by William Eggleston,” which can be “visited” here, is widely credited with making color Photography “acceptable” in the world of “Fine Art”), it’s hard to argue with him. No Photographer new to me, regardless of age or period, had a bigger impact on me this year than Saul Leiter.

Saul Leiter, “Through Boards,” Circa 1957. This image appears (cropped) on the cover of the now classic book, “Saul Leiter: Early Color,” 2006, which launched the “Saul Leiter Renaissance.” It’s, perhaps, my very favorite Photobook. Sadly, now out of print, it would take real diligence to find a very good copy for less than $100. But, there are many worse uses of time. Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation.

It took until 2006 for Saul Leiter to be recognized- FIFTY EIGHT years after he started taking color photographs. As with William Eggleston, Mr. Leiter was, also, a devoted Painter. I can see it in both of their work, and I believe it’s part of the reason their work speaks to me, perhaps, more than the work of any other Photographer of any period. It was his friend, no less than the great Artist Richard Pousette-Dart (who’s also an under appreciated Photographer), to encouraged him to pursue Photography.

“Walk with Soames,” 1958, This was 20 YEARS before William Eggleston’s ground breaking MoMA show “legitimized” color Photography in the Art world! Photo by Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Mr. Leiter saw and used color in his Photography in ways no one else has, achieving effects that today’s finest digital manipulators can only dream of. Saul Leiter didn’t need Photoshop to get his results. As very good as his Black & White work is, like Turner or Van Gogh, Saul Leiter was a true Poet of color, perhaps the greatest Master of Color in Photography, though it’s, of course, impossible and pointless to qualitatively compare.

“T,” Circa 1950(!).Photo by the Saul Leiter Foundation. Daring. Gorgeous.

A number of established Photographers had terrific shows in NYC in 2017 that I didn’t get to write about here. Among them are Mark Steinmetz, Mike Mandel, Raghubir Singh (though marked by controversy), Richard Avedon, Herman Leonard, Michael Kenna, and Edward Burtynsky. But, I’m going to address one I simply can’t let pass, because I continue to think about it.

Richard Misrach’s Photo, “Effigy #3, near Jacumba, California,” 2009, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, right rear, with Guillermo Galindo’s Musical Instrumet/Sculpure “Effigy,” 2014, center2014. Barely visible are two strings between the forearms. The grey rectangle on the lower left side of the pedestal is where a speaker is mounted.

“Richard Misrach: Border Cantos,” (at Pace, 510 West 25th Street), was an utterly remarkable and serendipitous collaboration between renowned Photographer Richard Misrach & Composer/Sculptor Guillermo Galindo on the subject of our southern border, those protecting it, and those trying to cross it. To accompany Mr. Misrach’s large, atmospheric Photographs, Mr. Galindo created a whole orchestra of Musical Instruments out of objects found along the border, and proceeded to compose and record a 4 hour score that was looped in the show’s back room to meditative effect, ingeniously installed so that the music being played was coming from speakers mounted inside the display of the specific instruments that were playing at any given moment. (The Artists have an excellent website for this show where you can, also, hear these remarkable instruments.)

Instruments, like this. Guillermo Galindo, “Tortillafono/Wall Vibraphone,” 2014, Metal. The discarded metal cap of an electrical box from the failed SBInet (Secure Border Initiative) surveillance program was turned into a mallet and string instrument sits in front of Richard Misrach’s “Artifacts fround from California to Texas between 2013 and 2015,” 2013-5, 86 x 57 inches, Pigment prints mounted to Dibond. Photos of items found along the border.

And this- Guillermo Galindo, “Teclata,” His description- “On this keyboard, empty cans, bottles, and a plastic cup act as piano strings. The surface of the instrument is decorated with Border Patrol ammunition boxes.”

The surround sound effect was like sitting in the middle of a small chamber music group. The instruments, themselves, were beautiful as sculpture, and the music, which sounded to me like a cross between Harry Partch (who, also, made his own instruments) and John Cage, on instruments that looked like Rauschenbergs, had me asking if it had been released on CD. Why not?

Richard Misrach, “Playas de Tijuana #1, San Diego,” 2013, Pigment print mounted to Dibond, 42 x 160 inches.

Mr. Misrach, who has spent forty years working in the American Desert on his renown “Desert Cantos” project, showed a remarkable selection of images taken since 2004, but more intensely since 2009 (the collaboration with Mr. Galindo dates back to 2012), that told the story in slices. The effect of the music, the images and the sculptures (musical and non) was hypnotic, and ultimately meditative on the situation, the people protecting the border, and the refugees, while at the same time, even for those directly untouched by this story, the show spoke to a larger sense of walls, borders and refugees, and resilience. The Artists found, or created, beauty in this situation, reflecting the very perseverance that is at the essence of survival.

Richard Misrach, “Wall, east of Nogales, Arizona,” 2014, 68 x 84 inches, Pigment print mounted to Dibond

On the Painting & Drawing front, the most important Painting/Drawing gallery show I haven’t addressed was Kara Walker (at Sikkema Jenkins and Co.). Before it opened the buildup was downright intense. First, these posters began appearing, which certainly raised eyebrows until you notice (along the lower left side) that the text was written by the Artist. The show was also featured in a cover article in one of the last print issues of the Village Voice. I can’t remember the last time an Art show made the Voice’s cover, but this was the last time one did.

 Kara Walker sounds a bit weary in the poster, and particularly in the “Artist’s Statement” that appears on the show’s page on the Sikkema website.

“Dredging the Quagmire (Bottomless Pit),” 2017 Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen, 18 feet long, seen in the show’s first room. A “bottomless quagmire” is what the history of and current state of race and gender relations does feel like at this moment in time.

In the lower right side, this almost submerged head seemed to echo Ms. Walker’s weariness in her Artist’s Statement. “But frankly I am tired, tired of standing up, being counted, tired of ‘having a voice’ or worse ‘being a role model.'”

After all the anticipation and buildup, at the packed opening, Ms. Walker, herself, was only to be seen for a little while, at least while I was there.

Kara Walker at the opening, September 7, 2017, with part of  “U.S.A. Idioms,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, almost 15 by 12 feet, in the background.

While she continues to create her signature Silhouettes, showing a gorgeous 2017 work titled “Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” that’s almost 18 1/2 feet long, the bulk of the show consists on her ink and collage works, that have increasingly come to the forefront of her shows as time has gone on, most recently in her Cleveland Museum show, “The Ecstasy of St. Kara,” 2016, and at MoMA’s “Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection,” which closed on July 30, 2017, where her “40 Acres of Mules,” a Charcoal Drawing on 3 sheets totaling almost 18 feet long that was acquired by the Museum the year before, was on view in what was something of a one-work preview for her Sikkema show.

“Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something),” 2017, Cut paper on canvas. For me, one thing Ms. Walker’s Silhouettes all seem to ask is “Why do you see, what you see?”

Whereas it’s hard for me to imagine the care, patience and deliberation it must take for Ms. Walker to create one of her silhouettes, her Drawing & Collages look like they are done in bursts of raw energy and passion. At times the images approach the quality of a caricature of an event. No matter the differences in creation, when you see her Silhouettes and Drawings side by side they’re unmistakably by the same Artist.

While the Silhouettes, mostly, seem to leave quite a bit to the imagination, including the race of each character, her Drawings & Collages do not, especially when it comes to violence. Nothing is held back, hinted at or hidden. In the Drawings and collages, she has taken away the curtain inherent in Silhouettes in depicting racism and gender crimes. We see the faces, skin color, eyes, and what each one is involved in doing.  You can choose to look away, but otherwise, it’s pretty hard to “miss” what’s going on. The results are shocking, though they have precedent going back to Goya’s “Los Caprichos,” and “The Disasters of War,” and Daumier through Warhol, as well as in the work of Photojournalists and “Conflict Photographers” from all over the world. In Kara Walker’s work, though, the time is centered between 1788, when slavery was legalized in the US, through post Civil War “Reconstruction.”  Where the Silhouettes present a shadow of the figure, and the actions, the Drawings shine direct light. In fact, there are almost no shadows in her drawings- there’s no where for the perpetrators to hide.

“The Pool Party of Sardanapalus (after Delacroix, Kienholz,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, Almost 12 feet long.

Eugene Delacroix, “The Death of Sardanapalus,” 1844, Oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris. Kara Walker is, also, an astute student of Art History. In her work, Sardanapalus lies horizontally near the upper left corner, apparently, taking no interest in the orgy of death going on, as he does, lying arm on elbow on a huge red bed in Delacroix’. Her Ed Kienholz reference is a bit harder to track down, but it might be this one.

In “Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, the ground is, also, gone. The figures hang in the space of the paper, though some sense of perspective remains- as you get closer to the top of the sheet, they get smaller.

“Christ’s Entry into Journalism,” 2017, Sumi ink and collage on paper, 140 x 196 inches.

In this work, Ms. Walker’s figures cut across time, with some appearing to be contemporary. To the right of center, a figure “rocks the mic.” In the lower center is a figure that appears to be a modern riot trooper, in a helmet with face shield and body armor. He appears to have clubs in each hand. Right next to his left hand is what appears to be a black head, in a hoodie, on a platter, being carried by a woman, who looks away, while others nearby watch, some with shock on their face, some pointing to the scene. Just behind them, an extended arm holds and American flag, while above them a figure gives a Nazi salute with one hand while holding a Rebel flag with the other. Up top, a lynched figure hangs from a tree branch while women on either side of him perform acrobatics, with Klansmen standing next to them. In front of that naked black women are attacked by a group of men, while, again, others see what is going on. In the center of the work, the decapitated hoodied head looks straight across at a Civil War soldier pointing a gun at him, across time. Is this 1863? Or 2016?

“Storm Ryder (You Must Hate Black People as Much as You Hate Yourself),” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

The primacy of Drawing in her work was reinforced with the recent release of one of Ms Walker’s Sketchbooks from 1999, when the Artist was 29, as a book appropriately titled, “MCMXCIX.” It contains Drawings that, in style and subject, visitors to the Sikkema show will immediatley recognize. Interestingly, as Raymond Pettibon does in his shows (the latest concluding on June 24th, shortly before Ms. Walker’s opened), she prefers her larger works be tacked to the walls.

“Future Looks Bright,” 2017, Oil stick and Sumi ink on paper collaged on linen.

Kara Walker may be growing tired of being a “role model,” of being “a featured member of my racial group and/or my gender niche,” (as she says in her Artist’s Statement referenced above). Of course, I can’t imagine being Kara Walker, but I can understand that it gets to be “too much.” I’m not sure, however, what her other choice is. I mean, I’m sure she COULD do something else if she REALLY wanted to. After seeing all the work and passion she put into this show? I guess I’m just not convinced that she really DOES want to do something else. Yet.

Finally…Looking back on 2017… Last year I wrote that I felt Sheena Wagstaff had the best year in NYC Art. She’s had a very good 2017, too. But, this year, I think that The New Museum’s Massimiliano Gioni & Gary Carrion-Murayari. had special years, highlighted by the truly exemplary, and revolutionary, “Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work” retrospective, which they then remounted simultaneously in Maastricht and Moscow. I feel it was “revolutionary” because totaling an unheard of 800 works, including brand new works created by the Artist for this show (some on the very walls of the New Museum), they gave an exhaustive look at Pettibon’s career, yet the show never slowed, never failed to keep and even raise interest. It even included work Pettibon did as a small child that he has now ammended in his own, unique style. Word has recently come that Gary Carrion-Murayari, who kindly answered my questions on the Pettibon Moscow show he co-curated, has also been named as a co-curator for the New Museum’s 2018 Triennial, so he could be ready to have another “big” year. Stay tuned!

The end result is that Massimiliano Gioni, Gary Carrion-Murayari, and the New Museum have served to put the “Big Four”1 Manhattan Museums on notice that, on their 40th anniversary, we are going to have to get used to saying the “Big Five.”

———————————–
A Special “Thank You!” to all the Artists who gave me their time and shared their thoughts with me in 2017, and to David White & Gina Guy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Gary Carrion-Murayari and Paul Jackson of the New Museum.
“Thank you!” to the Hattan Group and Kitty for research assistance, and to The Strand Bookstore for being open until 10:30pm seven nights a week. R.I.P. Owner, Fred Bass this week.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Heroic Elegy, Op. 36,” (1918), by Ernest Farrar, in honor of the 100th Anniversary of WW1, which was featured in another memorable show, “World War 1 & The Visual Arts” at The Met this year, as a way of honoring it, and all the Artists, and Musicians, lost during it. Shortly after “Heroic Elegy’s” premiere, Second Lieutenant Farrar was ordered to the Western Front. Two days after he arrived there, he was killed at the Battle of Epehy. He was 33. I first heard it while I was driving in Florida on September 11, 2002. The classical station there played it in honor of the first anniversary of 9/11. So taken with it was I that I pulled over and listened to it with my eyes closed, then immediately set about researching it’s composer. Though he wrote other fine works, “Heroic Elegy,” is special. It’s lightning in an 8 minute bottle. As beautiful as it is, there’s a quality, a confidence, in it that seems to promise so much more to come that he, tragically, never got the chance to give us, like the other Artists & Musicians lost far too early in this most senseless of wars.

“On The Fence, #17, The Good Riddance” Edition.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. With all due respect to The Frick Collection, who the powers that be that came up with “the Big Four” left out. ↩