{"id":1533,"date":"2011-11-18T10:01:17","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T14:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2011-11-18T10:02:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T14:02:31","slug":"toms-gallery-picks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/?p=1533","title":{"rendered":"Tom’s Gallery Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAN ABOUT TOWN:<\/strong> November 2011<\/p>\n

The winter art season in New York is in full swing, with more interesting exhibitions than any one person can see.\u00a0 One major blockbuster is the vast survey of the career of William DeKooning<\/strong> at MoMA (through January 9).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
de Kooning, Painting, 1948<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beginning with early realist works he made while a youth in Holland, it traces his path through 1930s flayed figures and still lifes, followed by the richly complicated black and white paintings of the post World War II years, to his most famous works, the Women of the mid 1950s, to his powerfully gestural landscapes.<\/p>\n

DeKooning famously reworked his paintings constantly, scraping out, painting over, until the final product was a record of his painting processes.\u00a0 He developed a unique style that combined the spatial ambiguities and geometries of Cubism with the spontaneous organic forms of biomorphic Surrealism. Almost every painting is layered with gestural strokes of paint that question their own power by being overlapped, partially erased, or otherwise canceled, and it takes a lot of time to thoroughly see a single painting, particularly if one also wants to think about the artist’s unusual sense of color.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Willem de Kooning, Woman 1, 1950-52<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The popular MoMA exhibition features 200 works spread out over 15,000 square feet.\u00a0 How to see it all?\u00a0 A friend of mine has visited the show 4 times and intends to return 4 more; he is a MoMA member so he takes advantage of the member\u2019s privilege of entering the Museum at 9:30, an hour before it officially opens.\u00a0 That\u2019s one way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
de Kooning, Garden in Delft, 1987<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But even spending an hour running through it when it\u2019s crowded will give a strong sense of DeKooning\u2019s amazing career as a painter, leaving one with an experience that is emotional, complex, rewarding, and perhaps unfinished\u2014like his paintings.<\/p>\n

In the near vicinity of MoMA there are some wonderful exhibitions that you can see without having to squeeze around someone to look at a painting like at the DeKooning\u00a0 show. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
un effet du japonais, 194<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alexander Calder<\/strong>\u2019s dozen sculptures, mostly mobiles, all from 1941, demonstrate the wonderful lightness and precise whimsy of the inventive sculptor at his best (Pace 32 East 57th<\/sup>, through December 23).<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harvey Quaytman<\/strong> has a richly austere show of abstract paintings at David McKee (745 Fifth Avenue, through December 23). All are composed of rectangular forms in square canvases.\u00a0 But Quayman, who died in 2002, was inventive with materials and highly sensitive to them.\u00a0 He will put two whites next to each other and they differ because one has ground glass mixed into the pigment creating a color and texture that subtly contrasts with its neighbor.<\/p>\n

These are set against chocolaty brown areas made of iron rust, or deep matte blues and blacks painted over warmer colors that are allowed to sparkle through in tiny highlights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bounty, 1989<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

R.H. Quayman, one of the hottest painters on the art scene today, is his daughter (and a Bard alum), and although her paintings are very different you can see his legacy in her refined shades of white and gray, and her hyper sensitivity to the physical edges of her paintings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MAN ABOUT TOWN: November 2011 The winter art season in New York is in full swing, with more interesting exhibitions than any one person can see.\u00a0 One major blockbuster is the vast survey of the career of William DeKooning at MoMA (through January 9). Beginning with early realist works he made while a youth in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-man-about-town"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/arthistory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}