Step out of the summertime heat and into any of these exhibitions opening in New York City museums this month. Evocative nudes, sculpture of the avant-garde, queer art and more will be the focus of these shows. Continue reading for our selection of NYC museum highlights in July.
The Met Breuer: “Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection”
July 3 through October 7, 2018
The Met Breuer will present “Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection.”
Featuring a selection of some 50 works from the Met’s Scofield Thayer Collection, this exhibition will bring together the art of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Pablo Picasso. The erotic and evocative watercolors, drawings and prints—largely depictions of the nude form—will be shown together for the first time in this exhibition that marks the centenary of the deaths of Klimt and Schiele. The exhibition will also provide a focused look at the collection of Scofield Thayer (1889-1982), an aesthete and scion of a wealthy family.
Thayer, as the co-owner and editor of the literary magazine The Dial, introduced Americans to the avant-garde literature of writers like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, accompanying their work with reproductions of modern art. His collection of around 600 works, mainly on paper, was acquired during his travels through Europe and during his time as a patient of Sigmund Freud in Austria.
The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021. www.metmuseum.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Standing Nude with Orange Drapery" by Egon Schiele, 1914. Watercolor, gouache and graphite on paper. 18 3/8 in. × 12 inches. Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982. Courtesy of The Met Breuer.
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The Whitney: “David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night”
July 13 through September 30, 2018
The Whitney will present “David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night,” a retrospective of the late artist’s work.
A self-taught artist who came to prominence in New York City during the ’80s, David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) saw the outsider as his true subject. Queer and HIV-positive during a time of conservative resurgence and government inaction during the AIDS crisis, Wojnarowicz created iconoclastic work that explored and fought against American myths and their violent repercussions. During an intense period of innovation in New York, Wojnarowicz refused a signature style. His work—spanning photography, painting, music, film, sculpture, writing and activism—adopted instead a wide variety of techniques with an attitude of radical possibility, the better to infiltrate the prevailing culture.
The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014. www.whitney.org.
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David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) with Tom Warren, "Self-Portrait of David Wojnarowicz," 1983–84. Acrylic and collaged paper on gelatin silver print, 60 × 40 in. (152.4 × 101.6 cm). Collection of Brooke Garber Neidich and Daniel Neidich, Photograph by Ron Amstutz. Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art.
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Bronx Museum: “Diana Al-Hadid: Delirious Matter”
July 18 through October 14, 2018
Bronx Museum will present “Diana Al-Hadid: Delirious Matter,” a solo show of the sculptor’s work.
Diana Al-Hadid, a Syrian-born and Brooklyn-based artist, creates work that refers to boundaries as a way to challenge preconceived notions of how one defines and experiences space, drawing from an array of art historical and scientific references. Treading a line between the real and imagined, her work addresses the tension between interior and exterior, belonging and alienation, the ruined and the yet-to-be completed. The focal point of exhibition, “Nolli’s Orders,” is a monumental sculpture referencing Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome, in which he rendered publicly accessible buildings as transparent and private ones as solid. Using the same lexicon as Nolli, Al-Hadid conveys public and private spaces, figure and ground, with voids, solids, transparency and opaqueness. Hadid’s sculptural work will also be shown concurrently through a special commission by the Madison Square Park Conservancy alongside additional works and primary source materials.
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is located at 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10456. www.bronxmuseum.org.
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Installation view of "Nolli's Orders" by Diana Al-Hadid, 2012. Courtesy of The Bronx Museum.
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The Whitney: “The Face in the Moon: Drawings and Prints by Louise Nevelson”
July 20 through –
The Whitney will present “The Face in the Moon: Drawings and Prints by Louise Nevelson,” a retrospective of the artist’s work.
Best known for her monochromatic wooden sculptures, Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) produced a distinctive body of works on paper throughout her long career. The exhibition, drawn entirely from the Whitney’s collection, will follow her work in drawing, printing and collage. From her early focus on the human body through her progression into abstraction, Nevelson used unconventional or recycled materials. Seeking to transform the materials that she used and the subjects that she depicted, Nevelson created prints with layered scraps of fabric, evoking deeply textured environments, while her paper collages reconfigured disparate materials, such as scraps of paper and foil, into unified, unexpected compositions, much like her wooden sculptures. Challenging viewers to see their environments differently through her work, Nevelson believed that art could reorient one’s relationship to the built and natural world.
The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014. www.whitney.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
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Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), "Untitled," 1928. Fabricated red chalk on paper: sheet, 17 5/8 × 13 3/8 in. (44.8 × 34 cm); mount: 19 9/16 × 15 1/2 in. (49.7 × 39.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the artist 69.220. © 2018 Estate of Louise Nevelson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
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MoMA: “Constantin Brancusi Sculpture”
July 22, 2018 through February 24, 2019
MoMA will present “Constantin Brancusi Sculpture,” a retrospective of the late artist’s work.
Born in Romania, Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) moved to Paris in 1904 and quickly became emerged in the avant-garde art circles of the time. Rejecting realism, Brancusi’s work evoked subjects rather than resembled them. He carved his work directly from wood or stone, or cast it in bronze, rather than modeling clay like his peers, and made bases for many of his sculptures, or placed them directly on the floor so that they lived alongside ordinary objects and people. An experimental modern spirit, in his work Brancusi depended on both ancient techniques and contemporary technologies. The exhibition will feature 11 sculptures by the artist alongside drawings, photographs, films and a selection of never-before-seen archival materials.
The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019. www.moma.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
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Constantin Brancusi. "Mlle Pogany." Version I, 1913 (after a marble of 1912). Bronze with black patina, 17 1/4 x 8 1/2 x 12 1/2" (43.8 x 21.5 x 31.7 cm), on limestone base, 5 3/4 x 6 1/8 x 7 3/8" (14.6 x 15.6 x 18.7 cm). Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange). © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.
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