FINALLY, A SIGNIFICANT EXHIBITION has opened on 2 March 2023 at the National Gallery of Art—Phillips Guston NOW.  This show has been “PAUSED” for two years and then again the opening date was delayed from Feb. 26 to March 2.  My response to this was YIKES!  However, what further flabbergasted me were the reasons for this delay given by a NGA spokesperson: “We heard very strong concerns about opening an exhibition that includes pictures of the Ku Klux Klan during Black History Month. The new opening date addresses that concern and allows more time for in-gallery training and conversation for front-facing staff prior to the opening.”  Although the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols on 7^th January by Memphis police was never mentioned, possibly this factored into the changing of the date.  However, why would I be surprised, given the Director of the NGA initiated the postponement of the Guston exhibition from the new opening in September 2020 after the first delay because of the pandemic?  

I stated in my earlier review of the Philip Guston Now show at the Boston MFA: “On 21 September 2020 the directors of the exhibiting museums put out a statement on the NGA’s website: “After a great deal of rejection and extensive consultation, the four institutions have jointly made the decision to delay our successive presentations of Philip Guston Now. We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted. We recognize that the world we live in is very different from the one in which we first began to collaborate on this project five years ago.”

It might be presumed Kaywin Feldman was a major player behind these decisions given her thoughts about postponements. When asked about these ‘delays’ in her interview with Rob Brunner for the Washingtonian, she stated, “It was a difficult process because there were four museums involved and we all had different reasons and challenges with the exhibition. In the past, museums sort of assumed that their audience was homogenous and came from the same perspective. Now we’re understanding that our audiences are more diverse in every way: age, life experience, and background. So we realized we need to slow down and be more thoughtful in presenting the Philip Guston show. We’re including all of the more challenging works of art that we’d planned to show from the beginning; nothing’s being removed. But we’re going to think about how we present it and help the frontline staff think about works of art that can cause people to feel trauma or experience uncomfortable things. We’ll provide training for our staff in how to work with visitors in those circumstances.” It is important to note that this statement came from the NGA and not the other institutions!

Consequently, with much trepidation I attended the press preview for the Phillip Guston NOW show at the National Gallery of Art on 2 March.  I expected to encounter odious signage similar or worse to that with which the MFA polluted the previous exhibition. For instance, at the entrance of the MFA display one read this: “Emotional Preparedness for “Philip Guston Now”—The content of this exhibition is challenging. The Museum offers these words in a spirit of care and invitation. It is human to shy away from or ignore what makes us uncomfortable, but we unintentionally cause harm by participating in this practice.” 

I thought things would go from BAD to WORSE at the NGA.  However I was elated NOT to find irrelevant blah, blah, blah condescending words on the gallery walls.  Perhaps there is still hope on the horizon for museums!  At the entrance to the NGA show the viewer first sees an intelligently made video providing one with significant information about Guston’s life, going back to his Jewish heritage, the holocaust, issues of Anti-Semitism, his artistic evolution and his focus on the KKK.  This superb documentary sets the tone and stage for what is to come. 

Harry Cooper, senior curator and head of modern art, has done a brilliant job orchestrating an excellent exhibition after the NGA’S contentious “PAUSE”. Although his director insisted on community committee participation regarding Guston’s art, his subjects and presentation, Cooper rendition of this exhibition provides viewers with a succinct display that portrays the innovative genius of Guston the artist.  This presentation is hung astutely in a chronological manner, including approximately 110 paintings and 115 drawings from an estimated 40 public and private collections.  Of the four venues showing this work, the NGA’s is the largest exhibition including more than 30 additional paintings and drawings on view only in Washington.  Additionally in a ground floor gallery of the East Building, an installation titled Poor Richard comprised of 73-caricature pen and ink black and white drawings inspired by President Nixon’s life and career.  Depicting Guston’s eccentric contour style, they were made while he was living in seclusion up in Woodstock, NY. They represent the Pre-Watergate period and are part of a promised gift from the Guston Foundation to the NGA. Harry Cooper has assembled a special catalogue illustrating the drawings along with a perceptive essay.

  As the song goes “What a difference a day makes…”…Well, “What a difference a curator makes” is my tune regarding the presentation of the Phillip Guston Now exhibition at the NGA.  This is an exquisite display providing a discerning narrative about Guston’s work.   What is especially meaningful is how Cooper has placed the “controversial” paintings in a special area titled The Marlborough Gallery.  Here one is witness to a reunion of the paintings from Guston’s groundbreaking October 1970 show at Marlborough Gallery in New York that not only outraged his Abstract Expressionist colleagues but also other members of the art world including artists, critics, collectors and curators alike!

The careful positioning of the works creates a powerful context for the display. The art shown by Guston in 1970 was harrowing, persistent and challenging yet beautiful. Cooper spectacularly hung these thought-provoking paintings depicting blood, broken bottles, severed legs, and figures donning soft hoods with eye slits reminiscent of KKK-like hoods, as they smoke and ride around in cars through bleak urban scenes. 

“…museums should be places fostering open debate, showcasing difficult and stimulating work as well as being places that allow its audience to see, interpret and experience, without didactic guidance from non-curators!”

What the viewer sees in this exhibition is that Guston had created a new visual world in his late canvasses, using allegorical shapes and figures drawn largely from his early life and family history.  They are executed in ways that showed a lifetime of studying magnificent Renaissance painting, early Modernism and Surrealism with delightful references to the comical compositions of Krazy Kat and other comics.

Furthermore, Cooper gives viewers an option to enter or avoid The Marlborough Gallery.  He provides an alternative pathway of a minimalist, long, pink corridor filled with small drawings where one can elect to go either way without any fuss or blatant condescending signage.  Being able to handle difficult subject matter takes vision and insight and Cooper demonstrates that he understands those principles.  Additionally I was most grateful not to find the absurd wall signage, timelines that had nothing to do with Guston, ridiculous black boxes, an EXIT DOOR so to avoid seeing the KKK paintings and other stupidity that detracted from Guston’s work at the MFA.  The difference here at the NGA is that this installation was assembled by a seasoned curator and not a committee with members lacking any curatorial expertise!

Those coming to the NGA to see Phillip Guston Now are fortunate that an intelligent curator over-viewed the handling of this exhibition.  As I said in my previous review of this exhibition, museums should be places fostering open debate, showcasing difficult and stimulating work as well as being places that allow its audience to see, interpret and experience, without didactic guidance from non-curators! My advice to visitors, just look at the paintings! 

PS. Cancellations and “PAUSES” have become routine at the NGA. Since Feldman took the helm at the NGA after replacing “Rusty” Powell, the Chuck Close retrospective was cancelled (due to accusations of his sexual misconduct—perhaps we should remove all Picasso’s from major museums walls—no secret about his behavior with women). Moreover the scholarly exhibition Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600–1750 organized by Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings (who has since left the NGA) was also cancelled in mid-August 2021, just five weeks before it was due to open on 26 September. The exhibition received international acclaim in Rome in 2022.  I can only ask myself, ‘what’s going on’ at the NGA?’

Elaine A. King, Contributing Editor

Ten Things to know about Phillip Guston: https://www.nga.gov/stories/philip-guston-10-things-to-know.html

Why Philip Guston now? Cecily Brown, Glenn Ligon, and Musa Mayer, the painter’s daughter, weigh in on what makes Guston’s works compelling today: https://www.nga.gov/stories/watch-artists-reflect-philip-gustons-paintings.html