New York City
At MOMA
through June 8th
Focuses on Paul Gauguin’s rare prints and transfer
drawings, and their relationship to his better-known paintings and sculptures
in wood and ceramic. Approximately 150 works, including some 120 works on paper
and a selection of some 30 related paintings and sculptures, it is the first
exhibition to take an in-depth look at this overall body of work.
Created in several discreet bursts of activity from 1889
until his death in 1903, these remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin’s
experiments with a range of media, from radically “primitive” woodcuts to
jewel-like watercolor monotypes and large, mysterious transfer
drawings. Gauguin’s creative process often involved repeating and
recombining key motifs from one image to another, allowing them to evolve and
metamorphose over time and across media.
Also at MOMA
through June 1, 2014
Celebrates the recent joint acquisition of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s extensive archive by MoMA and Columbia University’s
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library. Through an initial selection of
drawings, films, and large-scale architectural models, the exhibition examines
the tension in Wright’s thinking about the growing American city in the 1920s
and 1930s, when he worked simultaneously on radical new forms for the
skyscraper and on a comprehensive plan for the urbanization of the American
landscape titled “Broadacre
City.”
Highlighting Wright’s complex relationship to the city, the
material reveals him to have been a compelling theorist of both its horizontal
and vertical aspects. His work, in this way, is not only of historic importance
but of remarkable relevance to current debates on urban concentration.
Los Angeles
At The Hammer Museum
through May 18, 2014
Approximately 100 works, including prints as well as rare
books and ephemera (such as menus, theater programs, and music scores). This
array of objects gives the exhibition an intimate quality, revealing much about
how women – and men – lived their lives during a time of great social upheaval
and artistic innovation.
Whether as angelic creatures or exotic lures, women filled
the imaginations of artists and were a frequent subject of fin-de-siècle art.
Those who had leisure time were depicted relaxing with an afternoon cup of tea,
as seen in a Mary Cassatt etching, whereas other artists portrayed the drug
addiction common to women facing harsh economic realities.
Also at The Hammer Museum
through May 18, 2014
Focuses on the intersection of two important genres of
contemporary art: appropriation (taking and recasting existing images, forms,
and styles from mass-media and fine art sources) and institutional critique
(scrutinizing and confronting the structures and practices of our social,
cultural, and political institutions). The exhibition brings together works by
thirty-six American artists who came to prominence between the late 1970s and
the early 1990s.
The majority of the works on view are from the 1980s and 1990s, a
groundbreaking period that was shaped by the feminist and civil rights
movements of the previous decades. Conscious of the profound impact on society
of mass media such as television, newspapers, and film, artists examined
critical questions of identity and representation via politically and socially
engaged practices.
San Francisco
NEWS:
the
SFMOMA building is closed for
expansion through early 2016. But
in the interim, you can experience SFMOMA's exhibitions and events at locations
around the Bay Area. Check the
website for info.
Chicago
At the Museum of Contemporary Art through Jun 15, 2014
The 1960s were important years for artists and friends Andy
Warhol (American, 1928–1987) and Marisol (Marisol Escobar, American, b. France,
1930), and marked a formative period in the development of their individual
careers. Warhol began using his celebrated silk screen techniques to produce
serial paintings, often based on mass media images. Marisol made the first of
many portraits and developed her signature style, wooden sculptures with flat
painted surfaces and additional elements such as everyday objects or plaster
castings. Both were prominent figures in New
York City’s lively art scene during this time.
Inspired by the multifaceted relationship of these two
artists, the show presents a focused selection of their works, side-by-side.
Also at the Museum of Contemporary Art
through Aug 17, 2014
MCA DNA: AlexanderCalder
Traces the development of the artist’s ideas over a
fifty-year career, in particular, his exploration of how art can move in
response to its physical environment. The exhibition presents examples of
Alexander Calder’s (American, 1898–1976), mobiles, stabiles, and works on paper
dating from the 1920s to the 1970s—a selection of the museum’s in-depth
holdings of the seminal artist’s work.
Trained as an engineer, Calder applied his knowledge of
mechanics to colorful abstract shapes. Activated by air currents, his dynamic
mobiles are ever-changing compositions. Marcel Duchamp invented the word mobile
to describe Calder’s revolutionary work.
Minneapolis
At the Walker Art
Center
through June 20, 2014
The first major museum exhibition to focus on the drawings
and creative process of Edward Hopper (1882–1967), surveys his significant and
underappreciated achievements as a draftsman. More than anything else, Hopper’s
drawings reveal the continually evolving relationship between observation and
invention in the artist’s work. Includes pairings of many of his greatest oil
paintings with their preparatory drawings and related works.
I've been blogging about art-related things that interest me for seven and a half years! Haven't always posted regularly, by any means ... this is only my 120th entry. The will to post seems to come over me in random spurts. I'm in a spurt right now.
