Lots of exhibits!

I saw a wonderful show at the Studio Museum in Harlem, a mini retrospective of the work of Alma Thomas.  Thomas was a late bloomer, who only got started on painting seriously late in her life.    Though she was the first African-American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney (in 1974), her work has mostly remained obscure since then, mostly, I think, because her work is abstract and avoids any political issues.    She herself said that she did not want her painting to embody all the terrible things she saw in the world around her, but rather to create her own world outside of these concerns.   The paintings are imaginative, inventive, and intriguing in their use of color and rhythm.
Some samples:

This one was apparently painted after Thomas saw a show of late Matisse cutouts.

I saw a wonderful exhibit at the Met Breuer of works of Paul Klee from their Berggreuen collection.   They normally don't have the inclination to show them very often, but with their new space, they have done so.    There were quite a few early works, where you see Klee moving towards abstraction.  (The captions noted Klee's statement that he moved toward abstraction in order to keep drab reality at bay.)   The paintings are not drab, to say the least.   One other thing that stuck me this time was how much we see of Klee's "handmade" aesthetic, with "primitive", child-like scribbles and nails hammered into the canvas.  And his sense of humor.

There was also a show at the Met Breuer of early photographs of Diane Arbus.   I'm not a big fan of her work.   In the early work, you see her developing her taste for photographing the fringes of society.   One striking kind of images were those taken inside movie theaters while the film was running.  This was in the 1950's.   The exhibit also included a few of her famous later images; it is amazing how iconic some of them have become, like the image of the two identical twin girls dressed alike.


There was a new show of photography at MOMA.    Surprisingly, there were actually photographs on the walls.   It turns out that it was a show honoring a recent donation of photographs by Joyce and Robert Menschel.    It's a wonderful collection, spanning from the beginnings of photography to the present.  There is nothing like looking at great photographs in their original prints, especially by people such as Harry Callahan and Berenice Abbott. I hope the donors realize that the likelihood of these photographs ever being exhibited again is slim.   The normal photography galleries at MOMA have been closed since April "for renovation" and it is rumored  that they will not re-emerge as photography galleries.  (More room for Bjork shows instead?)   So no more exhibits of works by Atget, Evans, Abbott and the like?  They have a huge collection of great photographs, and none of them are on display.   Not trendy enough for them, I suppose.   Makes me want to give up my membership.   MOMA says it's all part of their ongoing expansion and renovation, but they haven't said what will happen.  (The architecture and design galleries are closed, too, which is provoking outrage in the architectural community.)



I also went to the new incarnation of the famous Maastricht art fair which is now setting up in New York as well at the Park Avenue Armory.  The show  includes old masters, Greek sculpture, African art, illuminated manuscripts, and lots of other things.   Like a mini Met Museum, except, of course, it is all for sale.   It's kind of startling to see something like an ancient Greek statue or an early Sienese painting that is available for purchase.  (And they are probably a lot cheaper than a Jeff Koons.)   But there were some really interesting and beautiful things to see.   Like this map, the first known European map which includes New York Harbor.   It's about six feet long, and absolutely beautiful, with lapis lazuli , etc.   Yours for only ten million dollars.

Or if that won't work for you, how about an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus?  (mummy not included.)  It is very well preserved, and the details on the surface are extraordinary.

Or perhaps an early Mondrian is more your thing...

A Japanese screen painting:

There were quite a few dealers selling African and Micronesian art.

No contemporary art at all, of course, and barely anything from the twentieth century.  But that was the specification for the show.   But fascinating none the less.   One very unexpected object was a collection of samples of different colored marble and other stones of the kind used in pieta dura, all stored in a specially constructed cabinet.

Part of the show was in the upstairs rooms at the Armory, so I got a chance to see some of the locker rooms, which are mostly unrestored, many with beautiful wood paneling.





There was a show of recent paintings and other work by Julie Mehretu at the Goodman Gallery.  I am fond her work, mostly because there are many layers of information, with a depth that intrigues me.   I was especially taken with this large scale "photogravure and etching" entitled "Epigraph, Damascus", which from a distance looks like a Japanese scroll painting.

From closer, it looks like this:

When you get even closer, you find out that it has etchings that are overlaid on architectural drawings, apparently of buildings in Damascus.

There was an astonishing show at the DiDonna Gallery entitled "Paths to the Absolute".  It consisted of only 13 works; two each by Mondrian, Kandinsky, Barnett Newman, Malevich and three by Rothko.  And a Pollock and a Still.

(I was allowed to take installation pictures, but not pictures of the individual works.)

I was the only person there, other than gallery staff and two security guards.  (I always think about the Jem Cohen movie about the security guards at the Vienna Museum, and wonder what it can be like to spend the entire day, for days on end, as a security guard in this exhibit.  There are no windows.)   It was absolutely silent, and I spent a long time in rapt contemplation of the work.   What a treat!
One of the Mondrians was a late work, and fascinating because instead of the normal sharply contrasted black lines, there were some that were only half there, as if the were in the process of being erased.   Is this unfinished?   I have no idea.  I have never seen a Mondrian like it.

Enlarged from my installation view:

Eventually you ask yourself, how is it that this presumably for-profit gallery has assembled this spectacular show for me to see for free?    Are these works for sale?   What's their angle?   Almost all of them are listed as belonging to "private collections".  
Well, some internet research turned up the information that the works are not for sale.   But, on the other hand, maybe for the right sum the owners could possibly be persuaded to part with them.  And that's what it is about.

The gallery estimates the net value of the 13 works to be about 450 million dollars.

So that Mondrian belongs to someone, and when the show is over, it will presumably go back home.
The world of art is certainly a strange place.   But I am quite happy to profit from it in my own way.