Here's what I would do if I were Alex Katz (he's 95, just a year older than Andy would have been had he survived this long): I'd get a wheelchair and take an elevator to the top of the Guggenheim Museum.
And then I'd roll down the spiraled gallery, taking in my life's work (it's hung chronologically with his earliest work at the bottom) and screaming "Wheeeeee!"
Queer ones, too. I've read about Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures for years but had absolutely no idea what his experimental film was about. I still don't.
Many well-known artists today were just beginning to show their work.
"Woman Brushing Her Hair on Green Chair" by George Segal (1964)
The exhibit also features rooms decorated in exaggerated period style. Jackie on the end table, Marilyn singing "Happy Birthday" to her husband on the boob tube!
TV also beamed images of the peaceful Black protesters and angry southern bigots into American homes. Many historians credit it with changing minds. I became aware of the Civil Rights movement more through magazine coverage because my father was stationed in France and Germany during the time of this exhibition.
African American artists were producing little-seen work on the same subject.
"The Last Civil War Veteran" by Larry Rivers (1959)
Everybody my age remembers where they were on November 22, 1963. I was on a field trip in Heidelberg and came home to find my mother--a Nixon voter--in tears. It's impossible to imagine that kind of across-the-aisle grief today.
Warhol produced "Jackie Frieze" and Empire, one of his early underground movies, shortly after the assassination. I remember being fascinated by him and the Factory through reports in Time magazine.
I love unsung heroes. Not Robert Rauschenberg (left), of course, but Alan Solomon, an early director of the Jewish Museum and chair of the government committee that selected Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella, along with six other artists he had exhibited at the museum, to represent America at the 32nd Venice Biennale.
After Rauschenberg nabbed the Grand Prize, New York became the center of the art world as pop art took off.
"Third Time Painting" by Robert Rauschenberg (1961)
"Marrakech" by Frank Stella (1964)
Italian television interviewed Solomon, who was prematurely dead at age 49 by the end of the decade. His progressive taste also cost him his job at the museum.
We started Sunday with a long, meandering drive through the Berkshires to North Adams where we met Varick and Ted for a late breakfast at Renee's Diner.
MASS MoCA occupies a 19th century textile printing factory nearby.
It would have been interesting to see these trees hanging near the entrance in bloom. The leaves didn't have far to fall.
Built to harness water power, the museum sits on a peninsula formed by north and south branches of the Hoosic River. This window frames their fork.
Truth be told, I enjoyed the industrial textures, size and the light almost as much as the collection.
The reflective sphere above turned the museum upside down.
Liz Glynn filled a warehouse-like gallery with "The Archaeology of Another Possible Future." Don't ask me what it means, though.
Elizabeth King went in a completely different direction. "Radical Small" barely took up any space at all, though there was plenty to spare in the darkened, spotlit gallery.
Tanja Hollander travelled the world to photograph all of her Facebook friends, more than 600 people. Visitors are asked to jot down what friendship means to them.
Because I'd recently seen "Heart of a Dog," a film by Laurie Anderson (highly recommended!), I recognized her pooch as soon as I walked into a gallery filled with huge, monochrome canvases. Too bad we didn't have reservations to see her virtual reality work.
Magda said "Lolabelle in the Bardo" was her favorite exhibit.
But that was only until she experienced James Turrell's "Into the Light." I snapped this before learning that photographs of his colorful trippy, installations--including both strobe and ultraviolet--weren't permitted.
Jenny Holzer's work, more political than most, examined military interrogation.
A docent informed us that these bones were human, although they didn't belong to interrogation victims. Did you know that you can contribute your body to art as well as science?
There was plenty of work by other familiar artists as well, including Robert Rauschenberg,
