Met Breuer

Gerhard Richter’s Met Blockbuster: Open For Just 9 Days!

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

UPDATE- July 16, 2020- The Met now lists Gerhard Richter: Painting After All on its “Past Exhibitions” page¹, meaning it will NOT reopen!

After checking every day, the show appeared on the “Past Exhibitions” page on July 17th. I’ve enlarged the date section for legibility and added the red text…My original look at the show follows-

What if they mounted a blockbuster and nobody got to see it?

Ahhhh….A major show covering TWO whole museum floors with about 100 Paintings? My idea of heaven…

As I write this in early June, 2020 what is known is that Gerhard Richter: Painting After All will be remembered as the last major show to be mounted at The Met Breuer (TMB) before The Met’s lease on the Marcel Breuer’s Madison Ave at East 75th Street building ends in July and The Frick Collection moves in while the renovations of their 1 East 70th Street home take place. What’s still unknown is how long the show ran for. It opened on March 4th, then “temporarily closed” after I saw it on March 12th, due to the coronavirus shutdown. That’s all of NINE days! The Met’s site says “Closing Date To Be Announced” on its listing, but what are their options for reopening it? With The Met’s lease on the Breuer Building ending in July, reopening it there would seem to have to come in June, which we are half-way through. On May 19th, Met CEO Daniel Weiss said that The Met “hoped” to reopen on August 15th, “or a few weeks later.” His announcement made no mention of TMB, but that timeframe would seem to rule out a TMB reopening. Moving it to 1000 Fifth Avenue might seem to be an option, terms of loans and space requirements for shows previously planned permitting. That might also put any number of employees at risk of the virus, though. Then, there’s this-

The X Factor. The show’s listing in the coming attractions section of MOCA’s site with a start date of August 15th.

This show was scheduled to open at MOCA, LA, on August 15th. So, there remains a chance Gerhard Richter: Painting After All (GR:PAA, henceforth) won’t reopen in NYC. IF that does come to pass, its 9 day run will be the shortest for a major show at a major museum here in my memory. That would be a shame considering the last major Gerhard Richter show in NYC was 20 years ago, a chance missed to assess how his older work looks now and see his more recent work. I started looking closely at Mr. Richter shortly after that NYC show, so in the past 20 years I’ve seen his gallery shows (of mostly new and recent work), but I’ve never seen 100 of his Paintings in one place. Being that Mr. Richter is 88, this may be the last major show of his work during his lifetime. The Artist did not attend the opening, though members of his family did, I was told by Met staffers.

Installation view, showing part of Strip, 2013, in the final gallery, seen on March 12th- hours before the show “temporarily closed.”

SPOILER ALERT! Since The Met’s site still says “Closing Date to be Announced” for this show, my hunch is that they will find a way to reopen it, especially because The Met originated GR:PAA (which is co-curated by Met Modern & Contemporary Art Chairman Sheena Wagstaff), and so has a sizable investment in it. My bet is that they will get an extension on the Breuer lease and use that to give this show a proper run, and The Met Breuer the fitting end I think it deserves. So, if you don’t want a peek at it yet, you may want to wait before proceeding. This piece will still be here when it doesn’t reopen! In which case, you’ll have to go to L.A. to see it, and I will be among the very few to have seen it here.

Installation view of the lobby on the 3rd floor, the concluding floor of the show. Surprisingly for a show called “Painting After All,” works in glass greet the visitor on both floors. Mirror, 1986, shown here, right.

Installed on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Breuer, and beginning on 4, GR:PAA is not a retrospective and not a “greatest hits.” It lies somewhere between the two. It covers the whole of his career and juxtaposes many very familiar works, alongside some that are barely known to many here. I can’t help but wonder about the Artist’s involvement in GR:PAA, because the selection and arrangement of it has a bold feel to it. For a show that covers such a long period of time, it also has a bit of a sparseness, the work is not crowded together. Each piece has space to breathe. In the documentary Gerhard Richter: Painting, the Artist and his staff are shown using mockups of exhibition spaces and miniatures of each Painting as they work out and assess the placement of each. It’s hard for me to think that something similar didn’t take place with GR:PAA, though Ms. Wagstaff and her staff have repeatedly shown they are more than capable of mounting extraordinary shows without the Artist’s involvement, so in wondering, I mean to take nothing away from their achievement here, which is yet another Met Breuer show that will live on in memory and in discussion. Here, you have a major, living Artist. If you can get his involvement in your show, why wouldn’t you use it²? Whatever the case is, the selection and arrangement of the work take GR:PAA to another level.

“Art requires freedom…in dictatorships there is no art, not even bad art.” Gerhard Richter.

He would know. Gerhard Richter has lived in two countries where there was no freedom. He was born in Dresden in 1932, 11 months BEFORE Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. His father was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1938 and sent to the horror of the Eastern Front. The elder Richter didn’t return to Germany until 1946. Gerhard finished growing up in East Germany before managing a crafty defection to West Germany in 1961. He’s lived in Nazi Germany, Communist East Germany, West Germany and (the Federal Republic of) Germany in his lifetime.

Table, item #1 in the Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonne, though not his first work. In the Catalogue, this is listed under “Household Icons” in the “Photo Paintings” section of his site, yet, with its abstract elements it seems to straddle the fence between the two categories of Paintings his work is broken down into there.

These experiences have continually informed his work³ be it in the people, places and things he’s encountered in them, or in things that went on while he was living there that he didn’t personally encounter (like the Holocaust) in a career that is closing in on 60 years. Officially, the first work listed in his Catalogue Raisonne (CR 1), Table, is dated 1962, 58 years ago. Among works that pre-date Table are a Mural he Painted in 1955, and the work Elbe, included in this show in a Print version, was created in 1957.

September, 2005, Oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches. Painted four years after 9/11, it’s one of the more haunting works done relating to the tragedy I’ve seen, perhaps because it mimics the view I had of 9/11 from my window. Placed in the show’s first gallery, it greeted this viewer like a cold smack in the face. It’s also the only work that references NYC in the show. Mounted on the same wall with Table, it’s another work that abstracts reality, from 40+ years later, reinforcing the fact that Photographs have been one source of Mr. Richter’s Paintings for at least 5o years.

In the intervening years, Gerhard Richter’s work has been marked by a variety in output that has ranged from Prints, Drawings, Artist’s Books, Sculptures, Films and Paintings. On his website, his Paintings are broken down into two main groups- “Photo Paintings” (further broken down to 36 categories!), and “Abstracts” (in 8 groups by date and 6 other groups).

Self-Portrait, 1996, Oil on linen, 20 1/16 x 18 1/8 inches. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at Gerhard Richter’s work. Now, his Photo-Paintings, to use his term, like this one, look fresher to me than I had remembered and fresher than a number of his Abstracts.

“To talk about painting is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, what language can communicate.
Painting has nothing to do with that.” Gerhard Richter, 1966, quoted in the Documentary Gerhard Richter Painting.

Eight Student Nurses, 1966, Oil on canvas, refers to the mass murder of 8 young women by Richard Speck in Chicago, 1966. These are from his Grays, which evoke the effect of black & white Photographs.

As I walked through Painting After All, I was struck by how fresh the Photo Paintings looked…

S. with Child, 1995, (both)

which I didn’t get from a number of the Abstracts.

Seven Abstract Paintings, 2016, Oil on wood, each 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 inches. In these later abstractions, it looks like the Artist is using other techniques besides only the “squeegee” to modify the paint he had applied.

Part of the latter feeling may stem from the discovery that the late Jack Whitten had been extensively mining the squeegee technique Mr. Richter’s Abstracts are known for a full decade before he did. I’ve seen reference to Mr. Whitten using a squeegee in 1969⁴, but he may have started before that⁵. The earliest Gerhard Richter squeegee work I seem to be able to find is from the mid 1980s.

Jack Whitten, Siberian Salt Grinder, 1974, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, seen at MoMA in 2019.

Still, some of the Abstracts did stand out.

Three of the six Cage Paintings, 2006, each Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 feet square, which get their own room, the other three facing these.

The legendary Cage Paintings were much more stunning in person than in the book of the same name, especially in a group of all six of them, set off in a central gallery of their own on the 4th floor. Seeing them, and being able to be able to walk right up to them and see the details of their layers was one of the highlights of the show.

Four Birkenau Paintings, 2014, Oil on canvas, each 8′ 6 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches faced four Prints made from them in the next to last room of the show.

The other highlight, among the Abstracts, and of the whole exhibition, was the chance to see his recent Birkenau series of Paintings and the Prints he made after them. Installed in the show’s penultimate room along with the only four existing Photographs taken by Sondernkommandos surreptitiously in the titular Nazi Birkenau death camp, Gerhard Richter had wanted for decades to do something regarding the Holocaust. He originally started by using the Photographs as the basis for his work, but soon started over from scratch, abstractly. The results are remarkable and unforgettable. They, literally, drip with pain, bloodshed and horror.

4,900 Colors, 2007, Enamel paint on aluminum.

And there were other “kinds” of abstractions, like 4,900 Colors…

Strip, 2013, Inkget print on fine art paper between acrylic and aluminum.

And Strip, 2013.

Strip began here. Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor, was digitally manipulated in Photoshop hundreds, maybe thousands of times until the thin bands of color we see in Strip are achieved. These would have to be magnified to see an actual image.

This version of Strip, seen in the show’s last gallery on the 3rd floor, began life as Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor. The process Mr. Richter used to create the works in his Strip series is outlined in the Artist’s book, Patterns, in which he took his Abstract Painting (CR: 724-4) and manipulated it in Photoshop, using a mirroring process, he then repeated over and over until the results were reduced to the fine lines of color seen in Strip.

My results after Step 1.

Using his process, I took Abstract Painting, 1990, which I just showed, and began to create my own Strip from it.

My results after Step 2.

I got to the third stage.

My results after Step 3.

Already you can see where this is going, given a few hundred, or more, steps. Even these preliminary results made me feel that this exercise was fascinatingly making some sort of order out of the seeming “chaos” of abstraction.

Installation view of the 4th floor, with the lobby, where the show begins to the right.

Or course, it will be a long time before the final assessment of Gerhard Richter’s work is done, and hopefully, a long time before he stops creating it.

Early, and recent work. Here, early, Four Panes of Glass, 1967 in front of Elbe, 1957/2012, along the back wall, Originally paint roller on paper, 1957, eprinted as inkjet prints in 2012.

“In 2020, art can be made from literally anything. So why still paint?” Met Museum Primer for GR:PAA

Recent. Installation view showing House of Cards (5 Panes), 2020, Glass and steel, the most recent work in the show. That’s the view across Madison Avenue coming in through Marcel Breuer’s window to the left, reflected in the glass.

Though works in other medium are included, as seen above, even with these forays, his Painting have continued, and continued to be the main focus of his work. Highlights from many of the major categories of Painting that Mr. Richter has worked in are included, including his hugely influential landscapes, like Seascape, 1975.

Seascape, 1975, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 inches by 9 feet 10 1/8 inches. I was stopped by this work when I came across it. It spoke to me of so much going on at that moment- the looming covid shutdown, which would begin for Art in NYC a few hours later, and along with it, the status of this show. How the world would be different after…Are the clouds clearing, or is a storm coming? Is that light a dawn, or a sunset?

For me, the title Gerhard Richter: Painting After All has multiple meanings. It can be read as a statement that Gerhard Richter has continued to Paint, or gone back to Painting, after exploring other mediums, his entire career. It can also be read as a statement about all the tumult that has gone on in the Arts over his lifetime, during which time Painting has received unprecedented challenges from Photography and other mediums which have attempted to take it’s prime place among the visual Arts. Regardless of how I, or anyone, feels about a work here or there, the one thing that remains is that Gerhard Richter has consistently shown what Painting can do, what it’s capable of giving us, that other mediums can’t- including Photography, to this point. In doing so, he has set signposts for other Painters to follow to continue to mine what Painting is uniquely capable of.

It can, also, be read as a statement about the survival, and ongoing importance of Painting. After all.

Particularly after my 3+ year immersion in Modern & Contemporary Photography, I’ll go with that one.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is the album Richter 858 by Bill Frisell, that was originally released along with a volume of Gerhard Richter’s Abstract Pictures 858-1 through 858-8. In 2005, then rereleased on Soundlines.

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Here ↩
This is probably discussed and clarified in the show’s catalog. Due to the shutdown, which has closed all bookstores, I have not seen the catalog. I may update/correct this when I do. ↩
In works in the show, like Uncle Rudi and others, and work that are not here, like the intriguing October 18, 1977 series. ↩
Here ↩
In his remarkable book, Notes From The Woodshed, Mr. Whitten, a master woodworker, writes about the making of the tools he used to make them- “The Developer” he called a large one. ↩

NYC Art Shows 2016- Sheena Wagstaff Rules The Waves

This year past, Manhattan Art was largely dominated by two themes. There was a seemingly continual string of shows by many of the bigger names in Abstract Expressionism (i.e. AbEx), one after the other, and I wrote about every one of them, beginning with Jackson Pollock @MoMA, Lee Krasner, Philip Guston (two- here and here), Richard Pousette-Dart, Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko, along with a few excellent satellite compilation shows, each in a different venue, which, apparently is continuing into 2017 with Jackson Pollock set to open at the Guggenheim, completing the circle, for now. It was also a year of Women Artists getting important shows. Patti Smith, Nasreen Mohamedi, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Marilyn Minter¹, June Leaf, Carmen Herrera, Nan Goldin, Mary Bauermeister, Carrie Mae Weems, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Krasner and Mitchell were only some of the highlights. Still? Artists weren’t the only women making a big impact on the NYC Art Scene in 2016. In fact, for my money, the biggest impact of all was made by another woman, The Met’s Chairwoman of Modern & Contemporary (M&C) Art, Sheena Wagstaff.

As far as I’m concerned, no other single person had the impact on NYC Art, all year long, that Ms. Wagstaff and her department did.

Sheena Wagstaff was named Chairwoman of TM’s M&C Department on January 20, 2012. Four years later, her 2016 began with putting finishing touches on TM’s new “branch Museum,” The Met Breuer (TMB), the first “branch” The Met has opened since The Cloisters in 1926! No pressure there. As it was about to open, ostensibly as the showcase for The Met’s “new” M&C Art iniatative, The Times’ Roberta Smith put the situation perfectly into perspective, speaking about the task Ms. Wagstaff faced/faces-

“But the Met is huge and old, with a history of treating contemporary art as an afterthought. Getting it to change is like turning around an ocean liner.” Roberta Smith, NYT, March 3, 2016.

It sailed into it’s mid- March opening with 2 shows- Unifnished: Thoughts Left Visible, a veritable Museum in itself covering 2 full floors (the third and fourth), and, easy to overlook, tucked away on the second floor, Nasreen Mohamedi, the first American Retrospective of the Indian woman artist who passed away in 1990, aged 53. Wait…Who? Yeah. Me, too.

Met Breuer, Opening Lineup, March 8, 2016. 11 months on? The 5th Floor is now gallery space, the 1st Floor Gallery is now the Gift Shop. Those 2 shows? They live on, indelibly. Notice that for all of Art History that’s represented in Unfinished, the signature image chosen is by Alice Neel, a woman, of James Hunter Black Draftee.

Vijay Iyer (piano, left) performs with his trio. Met Breuer, Member’s Opening Day, March 8, 2016.

The first members of the public get to see Unfinished on March 8, 2016. That tiny drawing on the far opposite wall is by Michelangelo.

After over 15 visits later, to my eyes, “Nasreen Mohamedi” was nothing less than 1) an epiphany. Here was an Artist who was a Major figure in Art in the 20th Century who’s name exists in not one Art History survey that I know of.

I now haunt these galleries, in my memory.

2) Therefore, it was easily one of the best shows of the year, and 3) the more I think about it, for many reasons, it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in years.

Most Memorable Art Work of the Year. Nasreen Mohamedi Untitled, circa 1970. When I first saw it, I thought it was a piece of fabric. Nope. This is a DRAWING.

Detail (about 10″ x 6″). Two amazing things about this- 1- The superhuman focus & manual skill on display. 2- The disease that would kill her would take these incomparable motor skills first, and shortly.

The subtlety, uniqueness and micro/macro impact of Nasreen Mohamedi’s drawings is seemingly without precedent. They speak to the “grand design” of the universe, while also giving the feeling that they are somehow familiar, though they are not.

Some call this work The Seven Planes of Existence. All her works were left untitled and undated, only 5 here were signed. Many were given to friends as gifts. She created most while dealing with an illness that would kill her family members, then rob her of her skills, and eventually kill her, as well.

Also an accomplished photographer, I find her photos every bit as wondrous as her work in other mediums. Each Untitled, ca. 1970

Closeup of the photo on the right. What exactly are we looking at?

I spent an hour sitting right next to Sheena Wagstaff at a “Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium,” at The Met 5th Avenue in June. After it was over, I had the chance to speak to her. All I could say to her was “Thank you,” for Nasreen Mohamedi, which gave me the chance to discover her. Then, I told her she had made “the perfect choice” to begin M&C Art at TMB.

Sheena Wagstaff, right, Met curator Brinda Kumar, center, and an Artist who’s name I didn’t get, left, at the Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium, June 3 at The Met. Ms. Wagstaff then sat down immediately to my left.

Six month later, I stand by those words.

Think about how much guts it took to make that call. How daring it was. TMB famously costs The Met 15 million dollars a year to operate. The Met, reportedly, ran a deficiet in 2016, costing jobs. To say “a lot” was, and is, riding on the success of TMB would be an understatement. Not to mention TM’s world leading prestige. Nasreen Mohamedi was followed by diane arbus: in the beginning. Perhaps it would have been “safer” to have run Diane Arbus first. Maybe. Probably. I’m glad it was Sheena Wagstaff’s call (along with the rest of TM’s powers that be), and they chose Nasreen Mohamedi.

A page from one of her diaries. She blotted out much of what she had written. I wonder why. They left these patterns, reminiscent of her drawings.

The show was, apparently, a labor of love for Ms. Wagstaff. Hidden away in the very last gallery, in an iPad on the tables where visitors could peruse the now out of print and rare catalog, were some of the few extant photos from Ms. Mohamedi’s life. One of the last photos was a photo of Nasreen Mohamedi’s unmarked grave. I marvelled that someone had found it and photographed it. I looked for the credit to see who the photographer was. Sheena Wagstaff.

Nasreen Mohamedi was more than a terrific show. It was a statement. What was as easy to miss as the show itself was, as visitors made a bee line to see the copious treasures upstairs, it was more. It was the “answer” to the question about where Ms. Wagstaff was likely to steer The Met’s “new M&C initiative” going forward. As such, it was a shot over the bow of the future.

The future of M&C Art at The Met, and The Met Breuer, appears to be international, and inclusive. I expect more of the unexpected, more of the unknown and under-known. Bring it on. MoMA is running on all cylinders, putting on shows that are spectacular. It’s good for them, the Whitney, The Guggenhim, et al, to have some competition in M&C Art from The Met, and for us.

While Nasreen Mohamedi was blowing my mind on the 2nd floor, upstairs on 3 & 4, Unfinished was blowing everyone’s who saw it. Right off the elevator on 3, you make a right and in a small gallery you’re confronted by Leonardo da Vinci AND Michelangelo (all too rarely seen together in this hemisphere), AND Jan Van Eyck, and a few other works I can’t even remember because my mind was already overloaded. Oh yeah, some guy named Dürer did one. This was TM “showing off,” as I read Ms. Wagstaff say in an interview. Boy, did they. The rest of the show had a roster that would make 90% of all other whole Museums in the USA jealous.

For a New York Minute, Michelangelo, left, and two Leonardos were on display in “Unfinished,” as the show opened. The triumvirate was soon broken up, no doubt due to the fragility of the works.

So? Ok. This was a “fail safe” show. Ms. Wagstaff was by no means finished.

Rembrandt & Velazquez- the two greatest Painters who ever lived, according to many, very rarely seen side by side.

After Nasreen closed, diane arbus: in the beginning came in on 2, with an installation unique in art & photography shows in my experience. Every piece got it’s own wall. Yup. You read that right. Over 100 pieces. Over 100 walls. Amazing. No beginning. No ending. The point being that it was all her beginning.

A rare shot of Tatsuo Miyajima’s Arrow of Time, on view in TMB’s first floor gallery. The only show to take place there before it became the gift shop.

After “Unfinished,” the year at TMB ended with another blockbuster success- Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. This is the kind of show that makes you wonder WHY it took so long for Mr. Marshall to be so recognized. He’s been creating at a very high level for a long time. It was only 3 years ago that he was showing at the always excellent Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea. But? Not everyone was sleeping on KJM. Walking through this show it’s a sad feeling for a New Yorker to read the tags and see great work after great work that belongs to Chicago or Los Angeles. Not even MoMA has stepped up to a large degree with Kerry James Marshall. TM FINALLY got a major work of his last year.

The beginning of Kerry James Marshall: Mastry. In many ways, this was the show of the year.

Now? It’s probably too late.

This, unfortunately, highlights one area where much work remains to be done. The Met’s collection is sorely lacking the work of M&C Masters. As I recently pointed out, as far as I know, they own no work by Ai Weiwei. no work by Nasreen Mohamedi, and only one work (albeit a very, very good one) by Kerry James Marshall (and this was only acquired in 2015), to name but 3 cases. Frankly? I find this shameful. TM recently elected three new trustees, two of which are M&C specialists, so hope springs eternal for a little more wind to be added to those sails.

New York had until January 29 to enjoy seeing a lot of KJM in one place. (My piece is coming soon.) Now? It’s going to be a long wait. Los Angeles? You get your chance beginning March 12.

So? By my scorecard, that’s 4 shows in 9 months that will be remembered and talked about for a very long time, including no less than TWO that were major breakthroughs for the Artists- Nasreen Mohamedi and Kerry James Marshall², putting both in the pantheon of the Artists who belong in our greatest Museums.

But? Ms. Wagstaff, who struck me as having so much energy, downtown NYC could have used her during the Hurricane Sandy Blackout, still wasn’t finished. Over at 1000 Fifth Avenue…(remember The Met’s Main Building?), she and her staff have also rehung TM’s M&C Galleries there, and done an amazing job.

While at sea, mind the lighthouse! Edward Hopper’s iconic The Lighthouse at Two Lights, 1929, receives pride of place in TM’s newly rehung M&C Galleries. Which reminds me- Sheena Wagstaff edited the Tate’s 2004 Edward Hopper Show catalog.

Works have come out of storage that haven’t been seen there in…?, and some, thankfully, have gone there in their stead. The arrangements are new, too. Themes take the place of chronological arrangements in many rooms, while the AbEx Galleries still remain largely together, but subtly ammended. We get to see, what I consider to be, a major work by Philip Guston that I never knew TM owned! Other works are given new prominence, notably Edward Hopper’s famous The Lighthouse at Two Lights, and Richard Pousette- Dart’s Symphony No. 1- The Transcendental, (photo, here, further down the page.)

In this one gallery, I was shocked to discover works by Pousette-Dart (Path of the Hero, 1950, right) and Philip Guston (left, and below) that I didn’t even know The Met owned because they haven’t shown them!

Philip Guston, Performers, 1947. WHERE has this been? With one foot in his past, and one in his future, for my money, this is one of the most important periods of Guston’s career, and very few works from it exist, after he destroyed most. A major Guston.

The result is a veritable breath, no, wind of fresh air throughout. More wind for the sails of that S.S. Met Roberta Smith wrote about.

Sheena Wagstaff had a great year, in my book. Here’s to her. May the wind be at her back. That sound you heard in January was my giving a major sigh of relief at the news that we didn’t lose her when the Tate Museums chose a new Director (Ms. Wagstaff was Chief Curator at Tate Modern before she joined The Met).

P H E W…

Elsewhere, in the big City…

Other Museums and Galleries, of course, put on shows that linger in the memory, and I would be remiss in not including them. In addition to Nasreen Mohamedi’s, another Retrospective tried to make the case for it’s Artist’s place in the canon on 20th Century Art History, and wildly succeeded, in my opinion- Bruce Conner: It’s All True @ MoMA Though he spent some time early in his career in NYC³, he, and his work, were rarely seen here after, and as a result, seeing this broad & in-depth look at his accomplishment over a mind-bending number of mediums was nothing less than a bombshell in it’s impact on myself, and I suspect many other New Yorkers. The depth, the staggering detail in the work (most famously in his films, but we see here it was carried over in most of his other work in other genres.), the mediums he probably invented, (like the music video), techniques he created or mastered, and on and on. This show was a capstone on a great year for shows at MoMA. Picasso Sculpture, Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty, were must see/won’t soon forget in their own right. Bravo, MoMA. Now? About that building and the new one on the way…

Picasso, Owl, seen in Picasso Sculpture. One sure way to make this list? Include an Owl in your show. ; – )

In the galleries, what lingers with me were Ai Weiwei’s return to NYC at long last with 4 concurrent shows, Mark Rothko: Dark Passage, Patti Smith: 18Stations, Philip Guston: Laughter in the Dark, Stuart Davis: In Full Swing, at the Whitney, and William Eggleston: The Democratic Forest (mostly for the chance to study his work at length, which only made me want to look again). And, I always enjoy the chance to be captivated by someone I previously didn’t know, like the amazing Sydney Cash at Heller Gallery, or the up and coming Robert Currie at Bryce Walkowitz- both of who share a fascinating ability to make you see things that aren’t really there.

Sydney Cash’s Split Selfie, 2016, oversees two of his other works that no photo can “capture,” at Heller Gallery. See them better here. When you watch, remember all that’s happening is the viewer moves slightly side to side.

And finally, personally, the chance to meet Patti Smith and Sheena Wagstaff, or run into Chuck Close, were things that remain rich, as much for the opportunity to speak with them as for what I learned from each encounter.

All of these experiences reminds me that in the final analysis? Art is personal. For every one of us.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Andy Warhol” by David Bowie (who we lost this year, and who is Ms. Wagstaff’s fellow countryman, and an Art collector), from his classic album Hunky Dory.

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in 3 shows- 2 in Manhattan, 1 at the Brooklyn Museum, as part of their “Reimagining Feminism” Series ↩
It must be noted that KJM: Mastry is a show organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A. the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and The Met. ↩
when legend has it he was denied entrance to MoMA for the opening of a show that included one of his works. ↩

“The Goddess of Line” (For Nasreen Mohamedi)

The Line is True

Perfect

Without Beginning

Without End

It sings the song of Essence

It Frees the Mind

To go where it might

Without Boundaries

Or constraint.

Whether One

Or Many

They Journey

Through their lives

Freed from Time

Freed from Place

Perusuing the Purity of Your Intention

They are all that remain.

The Brush has been set down

The Color has been sent away.

The Pen paints Black

Lines

On White.

The basic form

That doesn’t exist in Nature

Like yours Do,

Oh, Goddess of Line.

Bold

Subtle

Sure

Ordered

Singular

Or In Concert

They Flowed

From your Mind’s Eye

Through Your Hand

From Your Pen

To the Infinite

To That Place where…

We live without form

Or Any constraints.

The Truth Lives without time

or confinement

Free…To Be

What it is.

A Detail from “Untitled” ca. 1980 by Nasreen Mohamedi (Graphite on Paper)

This is Part Two of my Post on Nasreen Mohamedi. Part One is here.

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Nasreen Mohamedi’s “Simple” Perfection

Stop the Presses.

If you are an Author, or Publisher, of a book on the History of Art in the 20th Century? I’m sorry to say- you left out a unique, important, and great Artist.

Her name was Nasreen Mohamedi.

It’s ok. Until this past month, I, too, would have asked- “Who?”

She’s an Indian Artist who died in 1990 at the age of 53, without having sold a work, and who has had only 4 shows in New York (3 at the Talwar Gallery, the other at the Drawing Center).

Until now.

Out of the shadows. Her Time Has Come.

It’s rare to spot a moment in time and say, “that was the moment when things changed.” Like a light coming on and what was hidden in the dark is made visible. What’s once seen may be very hard to forget. In the case of the Art of Nasreen Mohamedi that moment for those of us her work had remained unseen by happened on March 18 when when the lights came on and the doors opened on the 2nd floor of the new Met Breuer (TMB) for her Retrospective. It’s the “other” big show going on there (“Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible” is on the 3rd & 4th Floor), together inaugurating the Met’s new outpost, 9 minutes away as the feet fly from their 1000 Fifth Avenue Mothership. While she is recognized, and her work eagerly sought after in Europe and Asia, (for up to $250,000., a piece), here, she has remained virtually completely unknown¹. The “light” came on for me shortly after I walked through the doors to TMB’s 2nd floor on the eve of April 14.

Unbeknownst to me, at that very moment, Prince was giving what would, tragically, turn out to be his final performance in Atlanta.

By the time I was half way through the 8 galleries (containing about 130 works) that evening, I was completely & unalterably under her spell. After, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I wanted to see more, and nothing else. Who was she? Where did this come from? 7 subsequent visits later, and counting, I am now borderline obsessed (there is a Part Two to this Post, the first time I’ve done it- link at the bottom). If I were about to have a daughter? I’d want to name her “Nasreen.” Such has been the impact of discovering the person, and her Art.

Mark my words. Well, mark one word, actually. “Nasreen.” I see her work only gaining in importance and influence as she becomes a world figure in Art. Her name will become part of the Art vocabulary. Luckily, it’s a beautiful name, of someone, who by all accounts, was an equally beautiful person. And, a name that’s as easy to remember as her Art is. Now, that word will be spread here, like it already is elsewhere, as more people experience it.

Experience what, exactly?

Her’s is very hard Art to write about, or talk about. The effect it has is, also, hard to describe. I’ve decided not to post pictures of it at the moment because it really needs to be seen in person. So, go and see it for yourself, if you can, and have that experience I love of seeing something new for the first time with fresh eyes, and I hope it is as rewarding for you as it has been for me. My feelings about it center on finding it beautiful- miraculously composed & gorgeously executed, spiritual in the sense that her works are meditation objects, not unlike a tree or a scholar’s rock. They reach for the inexpressible, yet somehow, inside, they resonate as being “true.” There’s a feeling to them of a foreign world that is somehow, strangely, not “alien.” Perhaps that is because there is no chaos in Nasreen’s work, only the most perfect order. There are no crooked lines, no jagged edges, no line out of place, in spite of the fact that she suffered from Huntington’s Disease from her 20’s on, which progressively robbed her of her motor skills, and then, took her life, as it had her siblings before her. Is it any wonder, then, that her work, and her efforts to pursue and develop it, are so intensely focused?

In that sense her Art is like Bach, perhaps, the ultimate genius of order and man-made perfection. In the “Fugue” of Nasreen’s work, the theme continues from piece to piece. As in a fugue, this time the dialogue between voices are only with her own. I found myself settling on Bach’s “Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin,” as performed by Nathan Milstein, as the Soundtrack to my visits. (I should also note that TM commissioned pianist/composer Vijay Iyer to compose a piece for this show, which ECM Records has released on the album, “A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke,” which is the title of the piece dedicated to Nasreen. It features one of her drawings on the cover.) These are conversations she’s having with herself, as we see in her riveting, endlessly fascinating Diaries- works of Art unto themselves, which are generously stationed throughout the brilliantly designed show, that continue on in her paintings, and then in her photography, and finally in her drawings.

These are intensely private, personal works, but in a completely different sense than the work on view upstairs in “Unfinished.” (This show could have been titled “An Unfinished Life.”) Maybe they were therapeutic, physically and psychically for Nasreen. Maybe they were meant to prove to herself how “in tact” she still was as time, and illness, progressed. In any event, that they have come to speak to people in so many countries around the world, and for her to be given the high honor of not only a large show, that occupies an entire floor, by The Metropolitan Museum, but to be selected to be the FIRST Artist given a show, and a Retrospective at that, as part of their new Modern & Contemporary Art initiative at TMB says louder than just about anything else that she has arrived.

She certainly doesn’t seem to have been expecting “Art immortality.” In fact, she’s hasn’t made it all that easy on posterity, and that makes me wonder about how she viewed her own work. Curators don’t even know which way the works should be hung (only 4 works in the show are signed, one tell tale way of knowing which way to hang a work)…

they don’t know the names of the work (every single piece here has the same title- “Untitled.”)…they can only approximate when a work was created (you’ll see “circa” on all but three pieces that she signed and dated)…there is also some mystery to how she achieved some of the incredible effects she got in her work. She seems to have largely kept her work to herself, showing it to guests, but only publicly a couple of times before she passed. Instead of selling it, she gave some of her work as gifts to friends. What A Gift! ²

Nasreen’s (I Love saying her name) work seems basic. In fact, it’s hard to think of any Art that is more basic in concept than her work from 1970 on. She seems to have spent a good deal of her Artistic career continually simplifying, seeking the essence, the heart, the core of her vision. Whereas many Artists begin by drawing, then move to painting, Nasreen did the opposite. Having begun with painting, and collage, in color, most of her post 1970 work is pen with black ink and graphite on white paper. ³

I bet that 75% of all human beings have, at one point of their lives, put pencil or ink to paper and drawn something.

And? Most of hers is lines. Just lines. Or later, lines with circles or semi-circles- the most basic elements there are.

The rest of it is space (or “negative space” as Artists call it). Blank, white paper.

Been there. Seen it.

Ho hum.

Yawn.

Guess

Again.

Be prepared. Her work is among the most subtle you’ll ever see. “God Is In The Details,” van der Rohe famously said. If God is truly in the details, than Nasreen Mohamedi is the “Goddess of Line,” in my opinion (which I will expound on in the next part). In her hands, the “simple” line approaches the sacred. It transcends. It becomes “more,” “something else.” Look closer. Follow it’s course. Look a lot closer, spend some time with it. Live in the layers, the intersections, the distances- near and further. Come back and see it again.

It’s not going anywhere. I promise.

You’ll see something else.

I’ve spent much of the past few weeks looking for it but I have yet to find anyone who’s done what she did. I see a piece here or there that is kinda close (a Paul Klee, a Mondrian, a Ralston Crawford, a Malevich, and another, and yet another Malevich, an admitted influence, among them), but it’s isolated. Different.

Here is a consistent body of work⁴ that creates entirely new worlds that all speak the same language.

It’s the language of Zen.

of Poetry.

of Music.

of Structures hanging in space. (Don’t stars hang in space?)

It’s the channeling of superhuman perseverance into creating gorgeous works of visionary draughtsmanship in the face of terminal loss of motor skills, untold discomfort and pain.

it’s the language of essence, of purity, of unique beauty seen through the eyes of one uniquely beautiful person.

It’s the language of Art.

Even Timeless Art.

Whatever that is- I think this is it.

But, you can only see it at the new Met Breuer until June 5, then time’s up.

Given the scattered distribution of Nasreen’s approximately 200 surviving works- (as I said, she never sold a work, she gave some to friends), and the high prices being paid for one of her drawings, it may make it very hard for any museum to acquire a collection of them. In fact, in my past 14 years of Met attendance, I can’t recall one show where there wasn’t a single work that was not from The Met’s collection, before this one! It may, therefore, be unlikely a show of this size & comprehensiveness is seen here for a very long time. And that will make this a show that will be spoken about in legendary terms. You’ve been warned.

A tip of the hat, then, is very much in order to Chairwoman of The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Department, Sheena Wagstaff ⁵, her associate, Brinda Kumar & the powers that be at The Met for making THE perfect choice to begin their highly anticipated new Modern & Contemporary Art initiative at The Met Breuer. I’m in awe. I can’t begin to imagine how hard a choice this must have been- “Who to show first?” Can you say AUDACIOUS? AUSPICIOUS? I should be used to this, after all it’s The Met we’re talking about, but I’m not. And, oh? By the way? As I’ve said, the show upstairs ain’t bad either.

This is Part One of my Post on Nasreen. Part Two is here. I promise to take a deep breath soon.

*-The Soundtrack for this Post is J.S. Bach’s Sonatas & Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin as performed by Nathan Milstein on Deutsche Grammophon. (I look forward to hearing Vijay Iyer’s “A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke,” with Wadada Leo Smith soon.)

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At the moment, there is only one monograph on Nasreen Mohamedi in print- the superb catalog for this show, which was co-organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain in collaboration with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. ↩
That night, 746 miles south, Prince was singing- “If I gave you diamonds and pearls, Would you be a happy boy or a girl, If I could I would give you the world, All I can do is just offer you my love” From “Diamonds & Pearls”, from the album of the same name, and published by Universal Music Publishing Group. ↩
Her photographs were black and white as well. ↩
I’m referring to the drawings, which are dated here from “circa 1970” until her death in 1990 ↩
If you look at the app on the iPad pictured above in the show’s reading room, it includes a picture of Nasreen Mohamedi’s unmarked grave, 18 miles south of Mumbai, taken by Ms. Wagstaff. A sign of the level of her personal dedication to this Artist. ↩

Live, From the New Met Breuer!

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

It doesn’t officially open till March 18 but being The Met (TM) “regular” that I am, of course they let me in 10 days early. I wish. Actually, they’re letting Members in early, starting today March 8. I still feel special.

I can report the layout is unchanged, so muscle memory from visiting this place when it was the Whitney Museum still works just fine. Ah, the Breuer Whitney Museum. I was involved in the debate surrounding it’s proposed expansion/modification way back in 1987, but I’m saving that tale for my upcoming post about the “New” Whitney Museum, almost a year in the making. Stay tuned. In the meantime…

Think about this for a minute.

The Met announced it would take over the Breuer Building as it’s “outpost” for Modern & Contemporary Art in 2011. Seen here on December 18, 2015. I was told that the silver circles on the windows were meant to echo the lighting of the lobby inside.

This place was the entire Whitney Museum until a year and a half ago ¹. The Met already runs the biggest Museum in the country at 1000 Fifth Avenue, AND The Cloisters way uptown. Now that the Whitney has moved downtown, TM has taken over the building, which is now known as The Met Breuer (TMB). By itself, TMB is as big as the Dallas Museum. To be operating 1000 5th Ave, the Cloisters and now to open a new, additional location of that size, a few blocks from 1000 5th, I find to be a “WOW!” moment.

They seemed to get it up and open pretty quickly (judging from how it looked when I passed by in December).

December 18, 2015. I was told the “Circle” Motif is a take off on the lobby’s ceiling lights. See next.

The same window. Member’s Preview Opening Day, March 8, 2016.

So? What’s new? What’s old? What’s borrowed? What’s blue?

Actually, nuptial euphemisms are not out of place here, since The Met & The Breuer building are “married” for at least the next 8 years, with an option to extend, which is longer than most marriages last between people, while TM’s contemporary galleries are undergoing complete renovations that will take a few years. I fully expect they will turn out to be as exemplary as the American & Roman Wings have. Though the layout of TMB made it instantly “familiar,” my first visit was not without some major surprises.

Members Only. It won’t look like this for long. Only 1 street vendor apparently got the word.

Apparently, I didn’t get the word, either. Since the contemporary galleries are those closing I was expecting ALL of TMB to be contemporary Art. Nope. 2 Floors are devoted to a superb show, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible featuring such well known “contemporary” artists as Rembrandt, Cezanne, Picasso, Van Eyck, Durer and Titian.

Apparently, TMB will be a “satellite” featuring Special Exhibitions AND contemporary Art. Hmmm… To say I’m surprised by this and why they’d do it is an understatement. Well? Unfinished is a VERY large show that handsomly fills Floors 3 & 4. Perhaps they see the Shows as the draw for getting a large number of people into the building, while they “also” display contemporary Art? There is a show, which I haven’t seen yet, by contemporary Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), but no display of works from the permanent collection of contemporary Art, at least to begin with. A cafe & bookstore will be on the top floor, which wasn’t open today. So? Three full floors can be devoted to shows, the small lobby gallery featured a live performance by Vijay Iyer and his trio today, which was well attended and sounded good throughout the adjacent lobby.

“Wake Up over there on the right!” It’s MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, Vijay Iyer, left on piano, performing with his Trio in the first floor Gallery.

Regardless, Unfinished turns out to be a surprise blockbuster, a wonderful chance to look over the shoulder of some of the greatest Artists in history, both Old & Modern Masters, as they create. Create, not created because for some reason, even death, they never “finished” the works in this show. The reasons vary. TM defines Unfinished as it applies to this show as- “This exhibition addresses a subject critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Beginning with the Renaissance masters, this scholarly and innovative exhibition examines the term “unfinished” in its broadest possible sense, including works left incomplete by their makers, which often give insight into the process of their creation, but also those that partake of a non finito—intentionally unfinished—aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended.” However, what is here in nothing short of a chance to experience what it was like to visit the studios of these Artists. Processes and choices are laid bare as an astounding roster of names go by in the course of 197 works. Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, Turner, Jackson Pollock, Robert Smithson, Rauschenberg, Basquiat, Rodin (yes, there are some sculptures, too), David, Kerry James Marshall, Alice Neel, and of course, the “King of the Unfinished Work”- Leonardo da Vinci.

Unfinished, installation view.

Jan van Eyck, Saint Barbara, 1437. I was shocked to see this masterpiece in Unfinished.

Lucian Freud, Portrait of the Hound, 2011, left unfinished on the Artist’s easel at his death.

My initial reaction is that TMB is great for Art lovers. Another major location to see world class Art in the City, with TM’s unequalled expertise, resources and 2 million or so collected works behind it. Unfinished is a must see show, especially for Artists. it’s chock full loans from major Museums (60% of the show), which is rare these days.

How it will turn out for TM, financially², though it also remains to be seen what, if anything, will be done with the contemporary Art collection in the interim.

One day in, that’s the big question for me- What TM’s full plans are for contemporary Art at TMB. I’m looking forward to seeing how they unfold. My gut tells me it’s going to surprise a lot of critics and give TM new cred in a realm it’s been denigrated in for years. Oh? But that new Met logo isn’t wearing well on me.

For now, it’s terrific to have Art back at the Breuer, and, Unfinished is an unmitigated why-hasn’t-anyone-thought-of-this-before joy- for lovers of painting, and Art. I’m pleased to be among the first to “Kiss the Bride.”

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Art of Fugue” by J.S. Bach, left unfinished at the Master’s death, as recorded by Glenn Gould. You can see Gould perform the final part of it here, and the entire hour and a half long piece, here.)

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The Whitney Breuer closed on October 19, 2014. ↩
It costs $17M a year to run per the NYT article linked above.}, is going to be something to watch. I’m hearing that by the 2 year mark it will be apparent where this is going long term, so we shall see. Yes, we’ve “lost” a little temporarily with the closing of TM’s contemporary galleries, but unlike when the American & Roman wings were closed for renovation, TM has more than made up for it with TMB[3. While TM didn’t open alternate spaces, beyond showing some works from the American Wing downstairs in the Lehman Galleries. ↩

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Art, Photography, Life…An Independent Eye

Met Breuer

Gerhard Richter’s Met Blockbuster: Open For Just 9 Days!

NYC Art Shows 2016- Sheena Wagstaff Rules The Waves

“The Goddess of Line” (For Nasreen Mohamedi)

Nasreen Mohamedi’s “Simple” Perfection

Live, From the New Met Breuer!