Specific exhibitions almost always determine my museum-going, but the prospect of air-conditioned sightseeing with friends from Colorado lured me to MoMA during an unusually sweltering heatwave.
I'm not a big fan of abstract art, but "Jack Whitten: The Messenger" made a huge impression, and not just because of the enormous scale of much of his work. The 78-year-old mixed media artist, whose studio had been located in Lower Manhattan since 1962, saw the Twin Towers go up and up . . . and then come crashing down.
Self-Portrait (1979)
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, he spent the next five years creating this mostly acrylic painting which incorporates blood, hair, ash and dust. It actually made me shudder.
"9.11.01"(2006)
With the exception of Whitten's ghostly self-portrait and this tribute to Jean Michel Basquiat, the only indications of his African-American ethnicity are found in his titles.
"For J.M.B" (1988)
"Memory Container" (partial, 1972)
"Golden Spaces" (partial, 1971)
"Four Wheel Drive" (1970)
The intricacy of his mosaic work astonishes.
"Black Monolith Il (Homage To Ralph Ellison The Invisible" (1994)
"Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love In Painting)" (2017)
You really can't go wrong with MoMA's permanent collection although my youngest companion spent more time looking at her phone than the art that that attracts visitors from all over the world. New millennium kids!
"Still Life with Three Puppies" by Paul Gauguin (1888)
Has an anarchist ever been depicted with so much flair?
"Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890" by Paul Signac (1890)
Several works reminded me yet again how much our south-of-the-border neighbor has contributed to 20th century art. I really would like to return to Mexico City. Five days wasn't nearly enough.
"My Grandparents, My Parents, and |" by Frida Kahlo (1936)
I was surprised to see a kitty in "Eat," Andy Warhol's 1964 collaboration with Robert Indiana. Twenty seconds of the 45-minute "underground film" was plenty.
I never would have guessed who painted this Depression-era poet. His left-wing politics likely influenced the artist, triggering an FBI investigation during the early 1950s. By that time her style had evolved considerably.
"Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites" by Mike Kelley (1987) occupies an entire gallery. He sewed the stuffed animals face-in to dampen the cute factor!
Hyundai partners with MoMA to showcase the work of emerging artists and to promote the car company's credit card. This is America, after all.
Randy suggested I check out the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover. "Those prep schools have a lot of money, you know." Tom and I visited before he dropped me off in Boston for my return train to New York after celebrating Audrey's 70th birthday.
Apparently the Addison has enough clout in the art world to borrow items from other institutions for its exhibitions. This work by Leon Golub belongs to MoMA.
Emil Cadoo used multiple exposures in his fractured photography.
Untitled (ca 1960)
Boris Lurie spent time in Buchenwald before emigrating to the United States in 1946. Much of his work, often controversial, refracted his Holocaust experience through a contemporary pop culture lens including a collage that juxtaposed concentration camp bodies with a pin-up girl.
Another exhibit paired paintings by Kay WalkingStick, a contemporary Cherokee artist, with works from the Hudson River School on loan from the New York Historical Society. I much preferred the latter. If I were an art critic, that opinion probably would get me cancelled.
"Four Portraits of North American Indians" by Albert Bierstadt (1859)
I wondered if recent retrospectives of Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper in New York City museums influenced the Addison's choice of works to display from its permanent collection.
I recently discovered "America Today" an incredible room of murals by Thomas Hart Benton at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting below reminded me of the time I spent driving on the Great Cattle Highway near Amarillo during my Seattle road trip.
Edward Hopper's New York doesn't look like anybody else's. To begin with, there are far fewer residents. Even at the height of the pandemic, Manhattan's streets must have had more people. Nor did Hopper shoot for accuracy; his urban landscapes aren't always immediately identifiable and not just because the city has changed significantly since he painted them. Like Washington Square, glimpsed here.
"The City" (1927)
Hopper and his wife, Jo, an artist in her own right, lived in Washington Square for many years. A U.S. government-produced documentary showed Hopper and his wife Jo, an artist herself, working there in the mid-60s, shortly before he died.
If Hopper had had a camera phone, he would have used the landscape mode far more often than the portrait. He saw the city horizontally. Few skyscrapers appear in his work. Robert Moses, who nearly destroyed Washington Square Park, added a highway to the view below shortly after Hopper painted the view below. The Whitney exhibit includes correspondence between the two men. Unsurprisingly, they were antagonists.
"Apartment Houses, East River" (ca 1930)
Who knew that Hopper was so prolific? Or that he used color so masterfully?
"Drug Store" (1927)
"Table for Ladies" (1930)
Women, typically alone, appear far more often than men in Hopper's work.
"Intermission" (1963)
Jo often served as a model.
"Morning in a City" (1944)
The Hoppers were avid theatergoers. Jo saved all the ticket stubs for the shows they saw (Death of a Salesman among them), annotating each with the name of the production. Hopper followed the careers of theatrical designers including Jo Mielziner, whose name Dave had always uttered only with awed regard.
"Two on the Aisle" (1927)
Hopper painted this scene just east of the Dakota in Central Park very accurately. It resonated because Stuart identified the by-then mostly disused tunnel as the site of impromptu gay orgies. I was scandalized!
