Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie @ Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Exhibition Overview

Monstrous Beauty 

A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

March 25 – August 17, 2025

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a major exhibition, Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie, which radically reimagine the story of European porcelain through a feminist lens. When porcelain arrived in early modern Europe from China, it led to the rise of chinoiserie, a decorative style that encompassed Europe’s pervasive fantasies of both the East and the exotic along with new ideas about women, sexuality, and race. This exhibition interrogates the ways in which this mutable, fragile material that shaped European women’s identities in the past also led to the construction of abiding racial and cultural stereotypes around Asian women. Shattering the illusion of chinoiserie as a neutral, harmless fantasy removed from the present, Monstrous Beauty casts a critical glance at inherited attitudes toward the style, exploring how negative stereotypes can be reclaimed as terms of female empowerment.

“Monstrous Beauty examines the multifaceted legacy of chinoiserie in 18th-century Europe,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By illuminating the beauty of the object and the power of this art form to reflect, distort, and dictate the ways in which women's identities have been shaped and perceived across time, this thought-provoking exhibition invites viewers to engage with the past in new ways."

Iris Moon, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met, said, “Monstrous Beauty is both a story of enchantment and a necessary unraveling of harmful myths from the past—myths about the exotic—that have a hold over the present. It is time to retell the history of chinoiserie.”

Bringing together nearly 200 historical and contemporary works, from 16th-century European works to contemporary installations by Asian and Asian American women artists, Monstrous Beauty illuminates how chinoiserie ornament actively constructed cross-cultural ideas of female desire and agency. Much sought after as the embodiment of Europe’s fantasy of the East in the 1700s, porcelain accumulated a variety of associations over the course of its complex history. Fragile, delicate, and sharp when broken, it became a charged metaphor for women.

Contemporary works by Asian and Asian American women artists counteract chinoiserie’s stereotypes of exoticism by reclaiming the monstrous as a source of artistic possibility. The exhibition’s central atrium draws viewers in with an installation of Yeesookyung’s porcelain vessels, which feature broken shards mended and turned into dazzling monsters using the kintsugi repair method. Viewers themselves form an active part of the exhibition, joining the conversation between works from the past and pieces by contemporary artists, including a new commissioned work by Patty Chang. Abyssal is a full-size massage table made of raw, unglazed porcelain punctured by holes. After the exhibition closes, the table will be sunk in the Pacific Ocean. Instead of a sturdy horizontal support for a passive body, Patty Chang’s massage table is reimagined as an uncanny object with orifices. Patty Chang writes, “The holes put the body in doubt.” Raising questions about who or what we choose to see, the work recalls the unseen labor of Asian women spa workers, such as the six women killed during the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. Abyssal is also about the possibility of afterlives, regeneration, and transformation. Underwater, the table will serve as a deposit for growing coral.

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie: Exhibition Overview

Through a lens of curiosity and critique, porcelain reemerges here as a politically charged material that changed women’s lives. Five thematic sections introduce a mix of unexpected protagonists into the story of porcelain: queens, mothers, monsters, starlets, shoppers, and cyborgs. The style’s inventive language gave voice to novel tastes and identities, but also created lasting stereotypes that are difficult to break. The works of contemporary Asian and Asian American women artists are strategically positioned throughout the five thematic sections to rupture the illusion of a seamless continuity between past and present.

The exhibition begins with porcelain’s arrival in Europe via maritime trade. Porcelain appeared as strange and marvelous, when blue-and-white plates from Asia began arriving by sea in the 16th century. Merchants used porcelain from China as ballast, its weight offering ships stability in rough seas, before realizing they could sell it to eager consumers. Soon, shiploads of porcelain were being auctioned off in Europe by the late 1600s, even as anxieties around shipwrecks, warfare, and colonial violence surfaced obliquely in monstrous decorative motifs.

The next section explores how Mary II, Queen of England, developed an obsession with Asian ceramics in the late 1600s, giving birth to a taste for chinoiserie that influenced generations of women collectors in Europe. Mary’s main role as queen of England was to birth an heir. Instead, she gave birth to a taste for porcelain, which functioned as a surrogate body, a way to reproduce her presence by filling residences with bright ceramics, textiles, and lacquer panels. This feminine, personal take on chinoiserie contrasted with the French monarchy’s uses of the exotic to assert absolutist power.

Tea became ingrained in European culture, and the following section explores how this exotic beverage was turned into a potent symbol of civility that set Europe apart from the “savage” territories it exploited as well as the women who were in charge of cultivating a world of politeness in the home. Porcelain objects gained strong associations with women at a moment when public debates aired collective anxieties around their growing voices as consumers, tastemakers, and citizens.

Through the porcelain figurines that proliferated in 18th-century Europe, porcelain shaped notions of womanhood in unexpected ways. A shifting cast of goddesses, mothers, monsters, and performers, often clothed in gaudy costumes and adopting exaggerated poses, appeared. A starting point for later stereotypes surrounding the Asian woman, these figurines also put pressure on the fixed European vision of womanhood. These small, toylike objects paired with the period’s dazzling painted export mirrors serve as vehicles for reflecting on women’s self-perceptions—on how they wanted to see themselves versus the images imposed on them.

The exhibition closes with the long afterlives of chinoiserie into the 20th century and beyond. This was a period when modern Asian women directly grappled with the stereotypes created by the legacy of a historical style that conflated Asian femininity with traditional luxury objects and European consumption. The American imagination reshaped the style through film and photography. Like porcelain, these media provided a glossy substrate upon which fantasy images of the Asian woman could be projected and reproduced, and also contested.

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie is curated by Iris Moon, Associate Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition:

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Author: Iris Moon

256 pages, 172 illustrations

Paperback, 7 1/4" x 10 1/2"

ISBN: 9781588397928

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

www.metmuseum.org

Exhibition Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100 @ Museum of the City of New York

Changing the Face of Democracy: 

Shirley Chisholm at 100

Museum of the City of New York

Through July 20, 2025

Thomas J. O’Halloran 

“Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm announcing her candidacy 

for the presidential nomination Cong. Chisholm, 

Cong. Charles B. Rangel, Cong. Parren Mitchell, 

Cong. Bella Abzug,” January 25, 1972, 

Library of Congress, LC-U9-25384- 7B

Celebrating more than a century as New York’s storyteller, the Museum of the City of New York presents, Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100, which is on view through July 20, 2025. As the first major museum presentation dedicated to the legendary Shirley Chisholm, it delves into the life and legacy of this trailblazing legislator, whose contributions to our nation’s public policy endure today.

Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100 marks the centennial of the late Chisholm’s birth. It seeks to ignite the same charismatic spark and passion for democratic processes that fueled Chisholm's policy work and grassroots campaigning. The exhibition unfolds in the Museum's second-floor North Gallery, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the multi-dimensional story of this barrier-breaking figure.

The exhibition promises a multifaceted exploration of Chisholm's journey via three captivating sections: Brooklyn Life, Political Career, and Legacy. It weaves a tapestry of Chisholm’s life and times using historical artifacts, photographs, archival footage, and art.

Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100 examines the impact of a woman whose advocacy shaped politics and policies. It highlights Chisholm's Caribbean heritage and her position as a diasporic figure, delving into her pioneering significance as the first Black woman Brooklyn sent to the state legislature, the first Black woman elected to Congress, and her groundbreaking presidential campaign in 1972. Moreover, it underscores how her legacy reshaped American democracy for future generations of politicians and ordinary citizens alike.

Dr. Sarah Seidman, Puffin Foundation Curator of Social Activism and co-curator of the exhibition, notes, "In Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100, we aim to explore Shirley Chisholm’s endeavors and her enduring influence. From championing causes like reproductive justice, tackling food insecurity, to advocating for voting rights, the exhibition examines how this singular figure emerged from diverse New York networks to serve as a catalyst for change. These networks illuminate Chisholm's impact on the past, present, and future of New York City."

Dr. Zinga A. Fraser, co-curator of the exhibition and Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies Department and Women's and Gender Studies Program, as well as the Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism at Brooklyn College, shares, “The inclusion of the Chisholm Project's oral histories in the exhibition serves as poignant reminders of Chisholm's contemporary relevance, underscoring not only her groundbreaking achievements but also the ongoing resonance of her legacy globally. Showcasing Chisholm as a figure whose influence transcends generations, Changing the Face of Democracy hopes to inspire a new wave of political engagement, reaffirming the enduring relevance of her contributions."

Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisholm at 100 - Key highlights include:

• Rarely exhibited paintings from the 1970s by Faith Ringgold

• A costume worn by Regina King in the 2024 Netflix film "Shirley"

• A vibrant Carnival headdress designed by Kenneth Antoine, paying homage to the annual West Indian Day Parade, which Chisholm helped establish in Brooklyn in 1969.

• Memorabilia from Chisholm's inaugural presidential campaign

• Portrait of Shirley Chisholm by Sherman Beck

• A collection of photographs and mementos from Chisholm's early life, including her wedding portrait and college diploma

• Materials from Chisholm’s first political campaign intended to topple machine politics in Brooklyn

• An iconic image of Chisholm captured by the renowned photographer Richard Avedon

• Oral histories that offer personal insights into Chisholm's enduring legacy, featuring contemporary perspectives from figures such as Gloria Steinem, Sonia Sanchez, David Dinkins, and Basil Paterson

MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street

www.mcny.org 

100th anniversary of the Leica I - 1925-2025

100th anniversary of the Leica I

For Leica Camera AG, the year 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Leica I. First presented to the public at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925, it was the first mass-produced Leica 35 mm camera. With its compact and handy format, it created new photographic applications and revolutionised the world of photography. Leica Camera AG's celebrations around the world are therefore being held under the motto "100 Years of Leica: Witness to a Century” with numerous cultural highlights and exciting new products.

‘I hereby decide: we will take the risk’, with these formative words the entrepreneur Ernst Leitz II decided to mass-produce the ground-breaking invention of the “Ur-Leica” by Oskar Barnack. Barnack, a precision mechanic and head of the testing department at Ernst Leitz Werke, had been continuously dabbling in photography in his spare time and was working on a completely new and compact 35mm camera. He completed the prototype of the original Leica as early as 1914, but further development was delayed due to the challenges of the world war. After its presentation at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925, the Leica I triggered a revolution in photography. As the first compact and lightweight Leica camera with a 24x36mm 35mm format, it made photography a natural part of everyday life. For the first time, it was possible to take pictures of real life - capturing the decisive moment - and thus created completely new possibilities for use and expression. The genre of reportage and documentary, as well as street and artistic photography, was born.

The Leica I is considered the first milestone in the Leica product portfolio and laid the foundation for the continuing success story of Leica Camera AG. To this day, the company proceeds to play a key role in shaping the technological development of photography, investing in groundbreaking technologies and consistently expanding into new business areas. Like no other brand, Leica stands for durable, high-quality products "Made in Germany", an unmistakeable image culture and an extraordinary commitment to the cultural promotion of photography.

Leica Camera Group is celebrating the Leica I 2025 anniversary with a global community of photography enthusiasts. The programme includes international events organised by Leica subsidiaries in major cities such as Dubai, Milan, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo. In addition, the worldwide network of Leica Galleries will host high-calibre exhibitions featuring the work of outstanding photographers. The highlight of the anniversary year will be the celebrations at the company's headquarters in Wetzlar in June. International guests can look forward to a varied programme of cultural highlights during the anniversary week. As a tribute to the region and the city of Wetzlar, the birthplace of Leica, further local cultural projects are planned in the city. The anniversary year will be accompanied by the release of a number of ‘Special Edition’ products that celebrate the groundbreaking invention of an icon of the century. A cinema film on the development of 35mm photography by Reiner Holzemer will be presented as well as an exhibition by the renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado at the Ernst Leitz Museum.

LEICA CAMERA AG

leica-camera.com

Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern - Exhibition @ MoMA, New York + Book

Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern

MoMA, New York

November 17, 2024 – March 29, 2025

Lillie P. Bliss. c. 1924 

The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

The music room in Bliss’s apartment, 

1001 Park Avenue, c. 1929–1931

The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

Installation view of the exhibition 

“The Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934.”

May 14, 1934 – September 12, 1934

The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York

Installation view of Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern 

on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York 

from November 17, 2024, through March 29, 2025 

Photo: Emile Askey

The Museum of Modern Art presents Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern, an exhibition focusing on the collection and legacy of LILLIE P. BLISS, one of the Museum’s three founders and an early advocate for modern art in the United States. The exhibition which marks the 90th anniversary of Bliss’s bequest coming to MoMA, includes iconic works such as Paul Cézanne’s The Bather (c. 1885) and Amedeo Modigliani’s Anna Zborowska (1917). The exhibition, which features about 40 works as well as archival materials, highlights Bliss’s critical role in the reception of modern art in the US and in the founding of MoMA.

Paul Cézanne

The Bather. c. 1885 

Oil on canvas. 50 x 38 1/8″ (127 x 96.8 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York 

Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934 

Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America 

Art Conservation Project 

Photo: John Wronn

Amedeo Modigliani 

Anna Zborowska. 1917 

Oil on canvas. 51 1/4 x 32″ (130.2 x 81.3 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York  

Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934

Photo: John Wronn

When it opened in 1929, The Museum of Modem Art was a destination where visitors could see groundbreaking temporary exhibitions, but it did not have a significant collection. Just two years later, when Lillie P. Bliss died, she left approximately 120 works to the Museum in her will. In an effort to ensure the Museum's future success, Bliss stipulated that MoMA would receive her collection only if it could prove that it was on firm financial footing within three years of her death. 

In 1934 the Museum was able to secure the bequest, which became the core of MoMA's collection. This included key works by Paul Cézanne, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Odilon Redon, Marie Laurencin, and Henri Matisse, as well as a selection of paintings by Bliss's friend, the American artist Arthur B. Davies. 

Georges-Pierre Seurat 

Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor. 1888 

Oil on canvas. 21 5/8 x 25 5/8″ (54.9 x 65.1 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York 

Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934

Odilon Redon 

Silence. c. 1911 

Oil on prepared paper. 21 1/2 x 21 1/4″ (54.6 x 54 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York 

Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934

Bliss's bequest also allowed for the sale of her works to fund new acquisitions, facilitating the purchase of many important artworks, including Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night, which is featured in the exhibition. Other favorites wholly or in part funded through the Bliss bequest, such as Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, are on view in the collection galleries.

Vincent Van Gogh

The Starry Night. Saint Rémy, June 1889

Oil on canvas. 29 x 36 1/4″ (73.7 x 92.1 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York 

Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1941 

Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America 

Art Conservation Project 

Photo: Jonathan Muzikar

At the end of her life, Lillie P. instructed her bother Cornelius Newton Bliss Jr. to burn her personal papers, making it challenging for future generations to recognize the essential part she played in the history of modern art. The exhibition showcases archival materials from MoMA's Archives and other collection, reconstructing Bliss's life before MoMA, including her passion for music, her involment in the Armory Show of 1913, and her interactions with fellow collectors and artists. It also highlight Bliss's critical role in MoMA's founding, and her continued impact on the Museum going forward, through scrapbooks, journals, photographs, and letters.

"It has been a joy to explore the life and work of this courageous woman whom we have known as little more than an important name. We are eager to share our discoveries, and to shine a spotlight on Lillie Bliss for the first time since 1934, when MoMA organized an exhibition to celebrate the new bequest," says Ann Temkin.

Inventing the Modern: 

Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art

by Romy Silver-Kohn (Editor), Ann Temkin (Editor), 

Anna Deavere Smith (Foreword by), 

Mary Schmidt Campbell (Text by), Sloane Crosley (Text by)

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, 2024

384 p. - ISBN 9781633450790

 

The exhibition is presented on the occasion of the release of Inventing the Modem: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modem Art, a revelatory account of the Museum's earliest years told through newly commissioned profiles of 14 women who had a decisive impact on the formation and development of the institution. Inventing the Modem comprises illuminating new essays on the women who, as founders, curators, patrons, and directors of various departments, made enduring contributions to MoMA during its early decades (especially between 1929 and 1945), creating new models for how to envision, establish, and operate a museum in an era when the field of modem art was uncharted territory.

Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern is organized by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Romy Silver-Kohn, co-editor with Ann Temkin of Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art, with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York

11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019

moma.org

Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923 - Exhibition @ New York Public Library

Becoming Bohemia 

Greenwich Village, 1912–1923

New York Public Library

October 12, 2024 – February 1, 2025

Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923 chronicles the extraordinary rise and fall of the first large-scale countercultural enclave in the United States.

During the 1910s an extraordinary gathering of artists, writers, radicals, and free spirits settled in New York’s Greenwich Village, lured there by inexpensive housing and the promise of a relaxed, permissive atmosphere in which to live and work.

Though they harbored diverse creative and personal agendas, these iconoclastic transplants shared an impulse to upend not only the established principles of their respective arts, but also the era’s social conventions and political status quo. To that end, they often advocated for a host of causes such as women’s suffrage, birth control, gender equality, labor reform, socialism, anarchism, free speech, and antimilitarism.

“The Village's bohemian scene of the 1910s and 1920s was a hotbed of aesthetic innovation and radical political activism, attracting and nurturing a who's who of cutting-edge artistic, literary, and intellectual talent,” Michael Inman, Susan Jaffe Tane Curator of Rare Books at The New York Public Library, said. “Influential in its own time, it also served as a template for future American countercultures and avant-gardes.”

Highlights from the exhibition include:

- Rare editions of influential Village-based little magazines such as Others, The Dial, The Glebe, The Little Review, The Seven Arts, The Pagan, and Rogue, among others;

- Photographs of noted Villagers by Jessie Tarbox Beals, including portraits of Merton Clivette, Romany Marie, Tiny Tim, and Bobby Edwards, as well as photographs of noted Village hangouts, including the Washington Square Bookshop, the Samovar, Polly’s restaurant, and Hotel Brevoort;

- A broadside advertising an Emma Goldman lecture on birth control held at Carnegie Hall;

- First editions of John Reed’s and Louise Bryant’s firsthand accounts of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, published respectively as Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) and Six Red Months in Russia (1918);

- First edition printings of The Provincetown Plays (1916), series I–III;

- The April 1920 issue of The Little Review that occasioned the Ulysses obscenity trial; and

- Original costume design drawings for a performance of the Greenwich Village Follies (1920).

While the Village soon developed a reputation as a bohemian utopia and epicenter of the avant-garde—a place in which one might freely discover and express oneself—its stint as a cradle of nonconformism was short-lived: the United States’s entry into the First World War, among other stressors, signaled the imminent demise of its initial age of artistic and societal rebellion.

Becoming Bohemia offers a window into a period of downtown history that had an outsized influence during its time, and whose countercultural legacy continues to be the subject of study and to shape thinkers today.

Additional highlights include:

- Works by William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, Alfred Kreymborg, Marguerite Zorach, and John Sloan, among others;

- A first edition of Des Imagistes: An Anthology (1914), published by Albert and Charles Boni;

- A photograph of the May 1913 suffrage parade in New York City, which was, in part, organized and led by several prominent Villagers;

- The program from the June 1913 Paterson Silk Strike Pageant, which was held at Madison Square Garden;

- An issue of Guido Bruno’s Bruno’s Weekly (1916s); and

- A poster advertising a 1917 bohemian costume held at Webster Hall.

Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923 features approximately 140 works, drawn from across The New York Public Library. 

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

www.nypl.org

Josef Hoffmann @ Art & History Museum, Brussels - "Josef Hoffmann - Falling for Beauty" Retrospective Exhibition

Josef Hoffmann - Falling for Beauty

Art & History Museum, Brussels

6 October 2023 - 14 April 2024

The Art & History Museum in Brussels presents the exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN - Falling for Beauty. This exhibition provides an exceptional opportunity to discover an artist who understood beauty as an absolute requirement for individual and social transformation.

In October 1955, Viennese architect and designer JOSEF HOFFMANN (1870-1956) travelled to Brussels on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Stoclet House, the project that came to be known as a “palace” and shaped his life and career. The enduring myth surrounding this building as well as the particular product culture that emerged from  the craftsmanship of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese workshops), has dominated the approaches to his practice to this day. The exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN - Falling for Beauty wishes to offer a broader perspective by presenting Hoffmann’s artistry, for the first time in Belgium, as it develops through  six decades of production. 

The timeless beauty of Hoffmann’s creations not only shows his relevance as a historical phenomenon but also as a source of inspiration for different generations of students, at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and elsewhere, making him especially an international reference for postmodern practices. Considering the challenge of introducing Josef Hoffmann in Brussels, this retrospective aims to provide a deeper insight in Hoffmann’s ideals and their evolution both due to and regardless of the diverse ideological and social circumstances in which they took form. The exhibition features a variety of well-known works together with rare pieces from private collections. The narrative is nourished by biographical details and new material on previously overlooked aspects; all to further extend our consideration of a leading figure in the field of modern design.

The sections of the exhibition are oriented around one or more architectural models ––including a new model of Hoffmann’s pavilion for the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne in 1914––that serve as epitomes and key references to consider constellations of furniture, objects, designs, textiles, and documents. In this regard, a juxtaposition of multiple narratives is proposed, covering every aspect of Hoffmann’s artistic production: architecture, design, decorative arts, scenography, writing and teaching. In addition, focus will go to his creative method as well as his use of colour.

This project is developed in collaboration with the Applied Art Museum of Vienna (MAK) and takes as its point of departure  the major scientific work presented in the exhibition JOSEF HOFFMANN: Progress Through Beauty (2020/2021), curated by Matthias Boeckl, Rainald Franz, Christian Witt-Dörring. The exhibition is a central event of the 2023 Art Nouveau year in Brussels.

ART & HISTORY MUSEUM, BRUSSELS

Parc du Cinquantenaire 10 - 1000 Brussels

www.artandhistory.museum

The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art” @ Milwaukee Art Museum

The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art”

Milwaukee Art Museum

September 23, 2022 - February 19, 2023

Robert Henri (American, 1865–1929)

Dutch Joe (Jopie van Slooten), 1910

Oil on canvas

Gift of the Samuel O. Buckner Collection M1919.9

Photo by John R, Glembin

Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

George Wesley Bellows (American, 1882–1925)

Dempsey and Firpo , 1923–24

Lithograph

Gift of Philip Pinsof M1956.28

Photo by John R. Glembin

Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

Arthur Bowen Davies (American, 1862–1928)

Rhythms , ca. 1910

Oil on canvas 

Gift of Mr. and Mrs.Donald B. Abert in memory of Harry J.Grant M1966.57

Photo by John R. Glembin

Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art,” a major exhibition exploring the work of the turn-of-the-century Ashcan School and The Eight—widely recognized today as America’s first modern art movement. Mining the Museum’s expansive collection of works by the Ashcan School, The Eight, and affiliated artists—one of the largest and most significant collections of these works in the United States—the exhibition examines these artists’ rejection of traditional art practices and institutions and the impact of this subversion on the trajectory of American modern art. Recontextualizing the pieces in this collection, the show also draws connections between the social issues depicted in these works and those still prevalent in the U.S. today.

So named for their first major exhibition in 1908 at New York City’s Macbeth Gallery, Eight American Painters, The Eight is comprised of artists Robert Henri, Arthur Bowen Davies, William Glackens, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan, all of whom embraced new modes of artistic representation and eschewed exhibition practices that they considered restrictive and conservative. Often embracing a loose painterly style to portray subjects previously deemed inappropriate for high art and museums, these artists—who one critic lionized as “creating a national art,” while another later disparaged as painters of “ashcans,” unwittingly giving them the name by which they would become commonly known—captured the realities of everyday life in the American city at a moment of great transformation: early in their careers, they frequently depicted scenes of immigrants, tenements, urban spaces, and shifting cultural dynamics, social values, and identities. Featuring nearly 150 paintings, drawings, pastels, and prints, The Ashcan School and The Eight presents both iconic and rarely seen pieces by these artists, demonstrating the breadth of their practices and the continued relevance of their work in examining and reflecting the reality of urban America’s working class.

“The Ashcan School and The Eight: ’Creating a National Art,’ is an opportunity to engage new audiences with key works from our esteemed collection that are emblematic of the seismic shift in the ethos of this contingent of American artists who were working at the turn of the 20th century,” said Brandon Ruud, exhibition curator and former Abert Family Curator of American Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Their break from longstanding tradition to instead portray a more authentic depiction of the American experience forged a new national art that prioritized an unfiltered representation of urban and working-class life and catalyzed the evolution of American modern art in the process.”

The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art” builds on the Milwaukee Art Museum’s leadership in the presentation and collection of Ashcan School works of art. Since the early 1900s, the Museum has stewarded works from the Ashcan School, leading up to a transformative gift from the Abert Family, Milwaukee philanthropists who purchased nearly 50 works across media by the Ashcan School and The Eight for the express purpose of donating to and expanding this portion of the Museum’s collection. The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art” advances the Milwaukee Art Museum’s commitment to developing scholarly discourse around these artists’ revolutionary practices, presenting these radical works to new generations of museumgoers, and creating connections across American modern and contemporary history.

Among the notable works featured in the exhibition are:

- Robert Henri’s Dutch Joe (Jopie van Slouten) from 1910, the first Ashcan painting to enter the Museum’s collection.

- Robert Henri’s The Art Student and El Matador (both 1906), pivotal paintings that started the trajectory of the artist’s career and contributed to the group’s break with the National Academy of Design.

- Arthur Bowen Davies’s Rhythms (ca. 1910), George Benjamin Luks’s Bleecker and Carmine Streets, New York (ca. 1905), and Robert Henri’s Chinese Lady (1914), all paintings from the Abert Collection.

- John Sloan’s Isadora Duncan (1911), a painting that epitomizes the Ashcan School’s interest in performance and theater.

- Stuart Davis’s Tenement Scene (1912), an early, rare painting inspired by Davis’s initial study with Robert Henri.

“We are thrilled to welcome visitors from our Milwaukee community and beyond to explore the Museum’s unparalleled collection of works by artists of the Ashcan School and The Eight,” stated Marcelle Polednik, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Five decades ago, the Abert family purchased nearly 50 works by members of the Ashcan School for the Museum’s collection, enabling us to tell the rich story of these important artists and their contributions to the field. This exhibition is an exciting opportunity to revisit these works and others that we have acquired in the years since, and to present them in new ways that both educate and inspire our audiences, while also celebrating the Abert family’s exemplary gift to the Museum.”

The Ashcan School and The Eight: “Creating a National Art” is accompanied by a 172-page catalog with over 200 color illustrations, thematic essays, and an illustrated checklist of the Museum’s entire Ashcan collection. This publication not only indexes these works but also activates them as a catalyst for new scholarship by a team of noted experts, who explore the contexts and concerns that shaped American modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. Contributors and essayists include Brandon Ruud, Abert Family Curator of American Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum; John Fagg, Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Cultures at the University of Birmingham, England; Margarita Karasoulas, Curator of Art at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut; and Nikki Otten, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Milwaukee Art Museum; with a foreword by the Museum’s director, Marcelle Polednik, PhD.

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM

700 N. Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee, WI 53202

mam.org

Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces @ MoMA, NYC

Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces

MoMA, New York

October 9, 2022 - February 18, 2023

Palmer Hayden (American, 1890–1973)

The Subway, c. 1941

Oil on canvas. 30 × 26 in. (76.2 × 66 cm)

The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection

George Mingo (American, 1950–1996)

Zebra Couple, c. 1983 

Oil on canvas. 48 × 64 in. (121.9 × 162.6 cm)

Courtesy the artist’s estate and Hudgins Family Collection, New York

The Museum of Modern Art presents Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces.. Just Above Midtown (JAM) was an art gallery and Black space that welcomed artists and visitors of many generations and races in New York City from 1974 until 1986. A hub for Conceptual art, abstraction, performance, and video, JAM expanded the idea of Black art and encouraged both critiques of and thinking beyond the commercialization of art. Linda Goode Bryant started JAM in 1974, when she was a 25-year-old arts educator and mother of two, to, in her words, “present African-American artists on the same platform with other established artists.” A self-declared laboratory for experimentation, JAM encouraged artists and visitors to challenge hierarchies within the art world and definitions of what art should be.

MoMA’s exhibition follows a loose chronological structure that references the hundreds of solo and group exhibitions, performances, and installations at JAM. The display includes a wide range of art made by key figures like David Hammons, Janet Henry, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Howardena Pindell, and Randy Williams, among many others. The exhibition presents archival photos, videos, and other contextual historical material to give visitors a sense of the collaborative ethos that defined the art gallery and the alternative model of art it championed to respond to a society in need. In addition to the exhibition, the project includes performances, film screenings, public programs, and an exhibition catalogue, co-published with The Studio Museum in Harlem. Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces is organized by Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Curator, with Lilia Rocio Taboada, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance, in collaboration with Linda Goode Bryant and Marielle Ingram. With thanks to Amber Edmond, Brandon Eng, Curatorial Fellows, and Argyro Nicolau, former 12-month Intern, Media and Performance.

Thomas (T.) Jean Lax explains, “This exhibition recognizes Just Above Midtown as the efflorescent space that modeled how art and the relationships art fosters could respond to a society in crisis. This ambitious project not only historicizes JAM’s importance, but also underscores its relevance in the present.

Randy Williams

L’art abstrait, 1977

Wood, canvas, book, book cover, plexiglass, wire, metal bolts, and lottery ticket, 

24 × 41 × 5 in. (61 × 104.1 × 12.7 cm). 

Courtesy the artist. Photo: Mark Liflander

David Hammons

Untitled, 1976

Grease and pigment on paper

29 × 23 in. (74 × 58.4 cm)

© David Hammons. Hudgins Family Collection, New York

Suzanne Jackson

Talk, 1976

Colored pencil on paper 41 1/4 x 29 1/2 inches (104.8 x 74.9 cm)

Courtesy the artist and Ortuzar Projects, New York. Photo: Timothy Doyon

MoMA’s exhibition opens with archival materials that introduce Goode Bryant and JAM to visitors, alongside select artworks that capture the art gallery’s belief in using unconventional and found materials and show the range of styles seen in over 150 JAM exhibitions between 1974 and 1986. Works like Sydney Blum’s SWARMS four (1980), Randy Williams’s L’art abstrait (1977), Valerie Maynard’s The Artist Trying to Get It All Down (c. 1970), and Wendy Ward Ehlers’s Untitled (Three Inches Equals One Week of Laundry) (c. 1974) are presented in tandem with archival documents and photographs from JAM’s opening alongside video footage of Goode Bryant. The interplay of artwork and archive, which visitors experience throughout the exhibition, invites audiences to explore how JAM brought together a community that shared a powerful belief in the ability of artists to use what they had to create what they needed, and to support each other.

The next section of the MoMA exhibition offers a deeper focus on the more than 50 exhibitions that JAM organized from 1974 through 1979. These exhibitions were shown at the gallery's first location at 50 West 57th Street, which was situated in the commercial art gallery district of New York City that was dominated by white gallerists, artists, and buyers. Works on view connect to emblematic group shows at JAM, including its inaugural exhibition, Synthesis: A combination of parts or elements into a complex whole, which presented for the first time Vivian Browne’s painting Untitled (Man in Mountain) (1974) and Norman Lewis’s No. 2 (1973). Synthesis offered a vision of Black art that included and celebrated both figuration and abstraction—a radical departure, at the time, from the broader art world’s status quo of separating those two practices. Visitors also see the pairing of David Hammons’s Untitled (1976) and Jasper Johns’s Hatteras (1963), referencing the show Statements Known and Statements New. This landmark 1976 JAM exhibition juxtaposed works on paper by five widely recognized white artists with works by less established artists of color, to emphasize the importance of creating a desegregated Black space in which non-Black artists show their work, too. The publication Contextures, authored by Goode Bryant and art historian Marcy S. Phillips in 1978, is on view, as well. In Contextures, Goode Bryant and Phillips combined the words “context” and “texture” to create a new concept that referenced artists who questioned the inherent properties of art and used found and remaining materials to create new works of art, while maintaining the integrity of their original form. A loop of archival footage, produced by Randy Williams and Goode Bryant, provides audiences with additional insight into the inventive, experimental process and life at the art gallery.

The corridor gallery provides a window into the behind-the-scenes of JAM's operations, showcasing wallpaper made up of facsimiles of bills, past due statements, and eviction notices. Beginning in 1978 and flourishing at Franklin Street during the early 1980s, JAM ran a professional-development program titled the Business of Being an Artist (BBA) in which JAM staff reviewed individual artists’ work and ran a 33-week course. In 1982, Goode Bryant and video artist Dieter Froese produced and directed a signature film by the same name, seeking support for artist communities beyond New York City and revenue for the gallery through distribution. They interviewed artists, gallerists, curators, and cultural workers about their insider knowledge of the burgeoning contemporary art market, shown as clips in the final work, outtakes of which are on view in this gallery.

As visitors continue through the exhibition, the presentation evolves to focus on JAM’s move downtown, in 1980, to 178–180 Franklin Street. At this location, JAM offered exhibition opportunities to over 500 additional artists and expanded its production of performance, video, and programming—ranging from films to workshops to open rehearsals. JAM continued to organize group shows, often in collaboration with other downtown alternative arts organizations. One of these group shows, Dialogues (1980), was organized with 15 other downtown organizations, including the American Indian Community House and Interart Gallery. Dialogues showcased Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds’s Understanding the Uniqueness of an Ethnic Identity (c. 1980) and Rosemary Mayer’s October Ghost (1980/2022), both of which are on view at MoMA. Performance collaborations brought together artists working across artistic disciplines, including Air Propo (1981), performed by Senga Nengudi, Cheryl Banks-Smith, and Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris. A video of the original performance is on view in the MoMA exhibition.

The last section of the exhibition focuses on the period between 1984 and 1986, when JAM moved to its final physical location in SoHo at 503 Broadway. Here, JAM created a laboratory that specialized in performance, new media, and process-oriented artist support, while subleasing rehearsal and office space to other artist organizations. Visitors see original footage and performance outtakes shot by and capturing artists working at JAM, paired with Lorna Simpson’s Screen 4 (1986) and Sandra Payne’s series Most Definitely Not Profile Ladies (1986). The MoMA exhibition ends with gestures toward the present that speak to JAM’s impact and ongoing legacy, including a diptych by Lorraine O’Grady, Announcement Card 1 (Banana-Palm with Lance) (2020) and Announcement Card 2 (Spike with Sword Fighting) (2020), which serves as a mirror to her first performance at JAM, in 1980, as Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, as well as two new videos by Goode-Bryant

The exhibition continues on the Museum’s fourth floor with Just Above Midtown: To The Present in Gallery 414. This gallery, located within the Museum’s dynamic collection presentation, features Flying Carpet (1990) by David Hammons and a specially commissioned two-channel video, a Negro, a Limo-o (2022) by artists Garrett Bradley and Arthur Jafa and produced by Goode-Bryant that was created in response to her question: how can collaborating with others push artistic limits?

LINDA GOODE BRYANT BIOGRAPHY:

Goode Bryant’s decades of art-based activism began with her founding of Just Above Midtown gallery (JAM), a self-described laboratory that foregrounded the work of African American artists, including David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Howardena Pindell, and many others. JAM’s explicit purpose was to be “in, but not of, the art world,” offering early—and often unique—opportunities to artists to experiment and create freely, away from art market pressures. After closing JAM, Goode Bryant dedicated herself to filmmaking, directing the Peabody Award–winning documentary Flag Wars (2003), an intimate portrait of a community in flux that explores the tensions between preservation and gentrification. Over her nearly 50-year career, Goode Bryant has and continues to advocate for a connection to “our innate ability to use what we have to create what we need.” Most recently, Goode Bryant founded Project EATS, a “living installation” of neighborhood-based, small-plot, high-yield farms that use art, urban agriculture, partnerships, and social enterprise to sustainably grow and equitably distribute fresh, local, organically grown food in communities across New York City.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 

and The Studio Museum in Harlem, 2022

Exhibition Catalogue

A richly illustrated catalogue, published in conjunction with Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces, showcases rarely seen material from JAM’s history—artworks, ephemera, and photographs—that collectively document the gallery’s communal and programmatic activities. Edited by Thomas (T.) Jean Lax and Lilia Rocio Taboada, it includes essays by Lax and Kellie Jones that contextualize JAM and consider its legacy; a conversation between Goode Bryant and Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem; a complete exhibition chronology written by MoMA and Studio Museum staff with nearly 50 annotated entries; and excerpts from oral histories, conducted especially for this project, with JAM staff and artists. 184 pages, 219 b&w and color illustrations. Paperback with jacket, $45. ISBN: 978-1-63345-137-7. Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, and available at MoMA stores and online at store.moma.org. Distributed to the trade through ARTBOOK|D.A.P. in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson in the rest of the world.

Exhibited artists:

Bimal Banerjee (American, born India 1939)

Cheryl Banks-Smith (American, born 1953)

Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953)

Cathey Billian (American, born 1946)

Camille Billops (American, 1933–2019)

Willie Birch (American, born 1942)

Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations, born 1954)

Sydney Blum (American and Canadian, born 1950)

Garrett Bradley (American, born 1986)

Rolando Briseño (American, born 1952)

Vivian Browne (American, 1929–1993)

Linda Goode Bryant (American, born 1949)

Martin Cohen (American, 1945–2021)

Barbara Chase-Riboud (American, born 1934)

Albert Chong (Jamaican, born 1958)

Houston Conwill (American, 1947-2016)

Charles Daniel Dawson (American, born 1943)

Marcy R. Edelstein (American, born 1950)

Wendy Ward Ehlers (American, born 1929)

Peter Feldstein (American, 1942–2017)

Tom Finkelpearl (American, born 1956)

Susan Fitzsimmons (American, born 1949)

David Hammons (American, born 1943)

Maren Hassinger (American, born 1947)

Palmer Hayden (American, 1890–1973)

Cynthia Hawkins (American, born 1950)

Janet Olivia Henry (American, born 1947)

Suzanne Jackson (American, born 1944)

Walter C. Jackson (American, born 1940)

Arthur Jafa (American, born 1960)

G. Peter Jemison (Enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Heron Clan, born 1945)

Noah Jemison (American, born 1943)

Jasper Johns (American, born 1930)

Nina Kuo (American, born 1952)

Norman Lewis (American, 1909–1979)

Rosemary Mayer (American, 1943–2014)

Valerie Maynard (American, 1937–2022)

George Mingo (American, 1950–1966)

Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris (American, 1947–2013)

Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (American, born 1951)

Senga Nengudi (American, born 1943)

Lorraine O’Grady (American, born 1934)

Sandra Payne (American, 1951–2021)

Howardena Pindell (American, born 1943)

Liliana Porter (Argentine, born 1941)

Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925–2008)

Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds (Jamaican, 1911–1989)

Jorge Luis Rodriguez (American, born 1944)

Betye Saar (American, born 1926)

Raymond Saunders (American, born 1934)

Coreen Simpson (American, born 1942)

Lorna Simpson (American, born 1960)

Russ Thompson (Jamaican, born 1922)

Randy Williams (American, born 1947) 

MoMA - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019

moma.org

Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers @ NOMA - New Orleans Museum of Art

Called to the Camera: 

Black American Studio Photographers

New Orleans Museum of Art

September 15, 2022 – January 8, 2023

The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers, a major exhibition focusing on the artistic virtuosity, social significance, and political impact of Black American photographers working in commercial portrait studios during photography’s first century and beyond. Organized by NOMA, the exhibition focuses on a national cohort of professional camera operators, demonstrating the incredible variety of work that they produced and their influence on the broader history of photography. Featuring more than 150 photographs spanning from the 19th century to present day—many of which have never been publicly exhibited and are unique objects.

The exhibition explores how Black studio photographers operated on the developing edge of photographic media from its earliest introduction in the United States. They produced affirming portraits for their clients, while also engaging in other kinds of paid photographic work exemplary of important movements in art like pictorialism and modernism. Called to the Camera features work by over three dozen photographers located across the country, demonstrating how the Black photography studio was a national phenomenon. The exhibition includes an interspersed selection of works by modern and contemporary artists, illustrating connections between the historical legacy of Black photography studios and what we consider to be fine art photography today.

Photographers whose works are featured in Called to the Camera include James Van Der Zee and Addison Scurlock, who worked on a national stage, as well as photographers who were active regionally, among them Florestine Perrault Collins and A.P. Bedou (New Orleans, LA), Reverend Henry Clay Anderson (Greenville, MS), Morgan and Marvin Smith (New York City), and Robert and Henry Hooks (Memphis, TN). Among the contemporary photographers included in the exhibition are Endia Beal, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., and Polo Silk. 

The exhibition features a range of different types of images, from some of the earliest daguerreotypes of significant Black Americans (such as Frederick Douglass) to early hand-painted gelatin silver prints and panoramic photographs, as well as camera equipment, studio ephemera, and an immersive re-creation of a noted studio’s reception room.

“Chief among NOMA’s goals is to support important projects that amplify the histories of under-represented communities,” said Susan Taylor, Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art. “Called to the Camera does exactly that: it articulates a story that is both local and national, centering the importance of Black photographers in their communities and in the history of photography.”

“As we continue to build our notable photography holdings to make our collection and our exhibition program truly reflect our audiences, this thoughtfully researched national exploration of Black American studio photography is a vital contribution to this work,” added Russell Lord, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Brian Piper, exhibition curator and Assistant Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art added, “Building on the foundational work of scholars like Dr. Deborah Willis, this exhibition gathers original works by a professional class of Black photographers linked by a shared set of visual and cultural concerns. By bringing these objects—many never before exhibited—into the art museum, we can help reframe the history of American photography and place Black photographers and sitters at the center of that story. Called to the Camera is, in part, an argument for a reconsideration of how historians and institutions evaluate and display photography.”

The exhibition is organized into five sections across 6,000 square feet that proceed chronologically and thematically from the 1840s to present day. The first section emphasizes the pivotal role Black American photographers played in photography during the 19th century, focusing on the establishment of commercial studio practices in the United States by photographers like James Presley Ball and the Goodridge Brothers. The second gallery evokes early 20th century commercial studios and domestic interiors, providing a contextual framework that illustrates the ways in which Black Americans used photography after 1900 to shape both private lives and public expressions of self. From there, the exhibition focuses closely on the practices of a half-dozen photographic studios, providing insights into both similarities and differences across geographies and exploring how these artists used a range of photographic processes and aesthetic styles through the end of the 1960s.

As a whole, the exhibition considers other work that portrait studio photographers engaged in during this time, including photojournalism, advertising, and event photography. Beyond portraits, Called to the Camera demonstrates how Black American studio photographers worked on the vanguard of fine art photography and argues that the business of the studio cannot be divorced from the rest of these photographers’ practices. 

Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers is curated by Dr. Brian Piper, NOMA’s Assistant Curator of Photographs. The exhibition draws works from both NOMA’s institutional holdings as well as works loaned from both notable public and private collections including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; National Museum of African American History and Culture; the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University; and Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Called to the Camera

Black American Studio Photographers

Exhibition Catalog

Available for pre-order, arriving October 2022

Called to the Camera is accompanied by a catalog distributed by Yale University Press featuring over 100 color plates and essays by leading scholars of photographic and Black American history including Dr. John Edwin Mason, Carla Williams, Russell Lord, and Brian Piper.

The exhibition is sponsored by Catherine and David Edwards; Kitty and Stephen Sherrill; Andrea and Rodney Herenton; Tina Freeman and Philip Woollam; Milly and George Denegre; and Cherye and Jim Pierce. Additional support is provided by Philip DeNormandie; Aimee and Michael Siegel; and the Del and Ginger Hall Photography Fund. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Research for this project was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART - NOMA

One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana 70124

noma.org

History of the NYU Art Collection, Grey Art Gallery, New York University

History of the NYU Art Collection

The Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, enables and encourages transformative encounters with works of art. Engaging with challenging issues in the study of material culture, the Grey serves as a museum-laboratory, sparking interdisciplinary scholarship. Uniquely positioned to cultivate visual literacy and critical thinking, the Grey shares NYU’s fundamental commitment as a global research university to advance knowledge of different cultures, contexts, and histories across time. The Grey also fosters experiential learning through its collections and participates in the cultural, intellectual, and environmental spheres of NYU’s Global Network, of New York City, and of the broader world. In 2025 the Grey will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The creation of the New York University Art Collection was inspired by A.E. Gallatin’s Gallery (later Museum) of Living Art, which opened in 1927 on the same site the Grey currently occupies. As the first institution in the U.S. to exhibit work by living artists—including Picasso, Léger, Mirò, Mondrian, Arp and members of the American Abstract Artists group—Gallatin’s Museum provided an important forum for intellectual and artistic exchange. When the Museum closed in 1942, Professor Howard S. Conant of NYU’s Department of Art Education bemoaned the lack of original art on campus and initiated the NYU Art Collection in 1958. The collection expanded quickly, with many sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs installed throughout the campus. With a fast-growing academic art collection joining the artistic milieu of Greenwich Village—where New York School artists like Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Ad Reinhardt lived and worked alongside NYU’s impressive faculty of artists, art historians, and scholars—NYU continued to play a crucial role in the city’s cultural life.

The university remained without a permanent museum until 1975, when a generous gift from Abby Weed Grey enabled renovation and improvement of the historic space, and the doors reopened as the Grey Art Gallery. This gift, along with the donation of her prescient collection of contemporary art from the Middle East and Asia, greatly augmented the university’s art holdings and provided a space for temporary exhibitions. In 2021 the NYU Art Collection again significantly expanded thanks to a donation of approximately 200 artworks by Downtown New York City artists from the collection of Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett.

For nearly 50 years, the Grey has produced numerous exhibitions and publications on the NYU Art Collection, including New York Cool (2008), a survey of Lower Manhattan’s disparate art world in the 1950s and early ’60s; Abby Grey and Indian Modernism (2015), which explored the vital art scene that blossomed after Indian independence in 1947; Inventing Downtown (2017), the first show ever to survey this vital period from the vantage point of its artist-run galleries; and Modernisms (2019), an examination of how artists from Iran, Turkey, and India engaged in global discourses around key issues of modernity. 

Source: Grey Art Gallery's Press Release, 2022.

GREY ART GALLERY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003

greyartgallery.nyu.edu

David Goldblatt @ Pace Gallery, NYC - Strange Instrument, Curated by Zanele Muholi,

David Goldblatt: Strange Instrument

Curated by Zanele Muholi

Pace Gallery, New York

in collaboration with Yancey Richardson Gallery

Through March 27, 2021

“The camera is a strange instrument. It demands, first of all, that you see coherently. It makes it possible for you to enter into worlds, and places, and associations that would otherwise be very difficult to do.” – David Goldblatt, in an interview with Art21 that aired in September 2018

DAVID GOLDBLATT 

George and Sarah Manyane, 3153 Emdeni Extension, August 1972 

© The David Goldblatt Legacy Trust, courtesy Pace Gallery and Goodman Gallery 

Pace Gallery presents David Goldblatt: Strange Instrument, an exhibition that brings together 45 photographs documenting South Africa—where DAVID GOLDBLATT  was born in 1930 and lived until his death in 2018—at the height of apartheid, between the early 1960s and the end of the 1980s. Curated by artist and activist ZANELE MUHOLI, who was David Goldblatt’s friend and mentee, the exhibition offers a deeply personal meditation on the brutality and humanity that David Goldblatt captured in his strikingly beautiful images of everyday lives under conditions of profound injustice. Strange Instrument marks the first time that Zanele Muholi has engaged with David Goldblatt’s work since his passing in 2018. Taking an expansive and affective approach to their mentor’s body of work, the exhibition presents a portrait of David Goldblatt himself through Zanele Muholi’s eyes.

Surveying the diverse range of David Goldblatt’s output, the show encompasses portraits and street scenes shot on the corners and parks of Johannesburg and other cities, as well as in neighborhoods and segregated townships where black and “colored” communities lived. Many such locales were later subjected to systematic demolition and dispossession of land, making David Goldblatt’s photographs some of their only existing documentation. Such scenes are interwoven with images of commerce, architecture, mining, religion, leisure, and domestic life. The earliest image in the exhibition dates to 1962—just over a decade after the segregationist National Party rose to power in South Africa—and the latest work dates to 1990, the year that anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela was freed from prison. David Goldblatt did not consider himself an activist and never set out to make political work or anti-apartheid “propaganda”; however, he was always clear about his mission to expose the social and interpersonal reality of South Africa’s policies. “I will not allow my work to be compromised,” he once declared in an interview with Art21 which was filmed and edited in the months prior to his passing in June 2018. “I comprise every day just by drawing breath in this country.”

Zanele Muholi first became aware of David Goldblatt in the early 2000s through their involvement in the Market Photo Workshop—a creative community, gallery, and school in Johannesburg dedicated to contemporary photography, which David Goldblatt helped to found. Influenced by David Goldblatt’s Particulars series—which features extreme close-up crops of bodies— Zanele Muholi struck up a friendship with the renowned photographer, though they were separated in age by more than five decades. “David became more than just a [mentor], he became a friend and a father figure,” Zanele Muholi recalls, “He was a chosen person in my life who made a huge difference.” Although David Goldblatt’s body of work spans more than seven decades, the exhibition concentrates on the South Africa of the 1970s and ‘80s—the world in which Zanele Muholi themself came of age.

Equal parts artist and documentarian, David Goldblatt was known for his practice of attaching extensive captions to his photographs, which almost always identify the subject, place, and time in which the image was taken. These titles often play a vital role in exposing the visible and invisible forces through which the country’s policies of extreme racism and segregation shaped the dynamics of life, especially along axes of gender, labor, identity, and freedom of movement. Beyond endowing his images with documentary power, Goldblatt’s titles also dignify the people and places he photographs. To balance the authoritative weight of Goldblatt’s captions, Zanele Muholi has grouped the works in the show into 23 idiosyncratic categories of their own devising—on subjects such as “Nurturing,” “Sleep,” “Friendships,” “Textures,” “Poverty,” and “Pulse”—which reflect their own individual response to the image alongside the historical information contained in the caption.

David Goldblatt’s images rarely picture outright violence or exploitation, but more often capture the subtleties and nuances of apartheid’s insidious effect on the mundane existence of communities of color. The formal beauty of the images is often a mechanism for rendering palpable the sinister ways in which apartheid infiltrated even the most private and mundane aspects of social existence. “A common response from potential publishers was: Where are the apartheid signs?” David Goldblatt once recalled to Art21 of his efforts to publish his work abroad: “To me, [apartheid] was embedded deep, deep, deep in the grain of those photographs. People overseas simply didn’t grasp these extraordinary contradictions in our life.” While David Goldblatt’s ability to gain access to and make photographs in such a wide range of contexts is partly what allowed him to produce such an extraordinary and influential body of work, it also reflected his privileged status as a white person under conditions of strict racial segregation. No black photographer could have moved so easily through such a diversity of social spaces. As a Jewish person, David Goldblatt meanwhile existed apart from the dominant white community of Afrikaaners, and often described feeling internally like an outsider—a self-alienation that sharpened his critical gaze.

For Zanele Muholi, David Goldblatt’s work points us to the fact that ultimately, “photography is about accessibility.” How do images grant access to the lives of others, to vital yet problematic histories that time threatens to erode, and to stories and experiences that might otherwise have been rendered invisible? Access is also a marker of privilege, an index of who possesses the power to make such documents, to wield the camera, to capture a photograph: “How were these images taken really?” Zanele Muholi asks of David Goldblatt’s portraits of anonymous people in the markets and parks of Johannesburg and Transkei. “How do they speak to the South African archives? […] I, as a black person, would not have had access to those spaces and the people that [Goldblatt] had the opportunity to photograph.” Zanele Muholi describes this exhibition as an effort to explore the “living memory” of David Goldblatt, which continues his lifelong project of exposing conditions of injustice and oppression—those “extraordinary contradictions”—which did not disappear with the formal end of the apartheid regime.

DAVID GOLDBLATT (b. 1930, Randfontein, South Africa; d. 2018, Johannesburg, South Africa) chronicled the structures, people and landscapes of South Africa from 1948 until his death in June 2018.

Well known for his photography which explored both public and private life in South Africa, David Goldblatt created a body of powerful images which depicted life during and following the time of apartheid. David Goldblatt also extensively photographed colonial era and post-apartheid monuments, buildings, churches, signs, ruins, and other imprints on the South African landscape made by society with the idea that structures reveal something about the values of the people who built them.

In 1989, David Goldblatt founded the Market Photography Workshop in Johannesburg to provide further education in visual literacy to students disadvantaged by apartheid. In 1998 he was the first South African to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in 2016, he was awarded the Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture of France.

PACE GALLERY 

540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 

www.pacegallery.com