Exhibition Reviews

The1898 Spanish-American War featured at DC’S National Portrait Gallery

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY in Washington, DC, has opened “1898: U.S. IMPERIAL VISIONS AND REVISIONS.” The museum describes this as the first major Smithsonian exhibition to examine the U.S. intervention in Cuba, and the nation’s expansion into Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. As such, it marks the 125th anniversary of the U.S. acquiring overseas territories and its emergence as a world power.

“PRAYER & TRANSCENDENCE” now at Washington, DC’s Textile Museum

THE TEXTILE MUSEUM at the George Washington University Museum has organized a fascinating exhibition that explores the role and iconography of classic prayer carpets–a subject I knew nothing about, but which I enjoyed thoroughly under the guidance of a superb docent.

A REDISCOVERED LINCOLN PORTRAIT AT THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY is currently displaying a remarkable portrait of Abraham Lincoln.The nine-foot-tall portrait by W.F.K. Travers, done from life in 1864-1865, is one of only three known full-length paintings of Lincoln. For decades, it hung in relative obscurity in the Madison, NJ, town hall. Art collector and benefactor Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge established the Hartley Dodge Foundation in the early 20th century and filled the municipal building with her collection. She added the Travers portrait to the walls of the town hall “after Congress dithered over its purchase for the Capitol” in the 1920s.

The Counter/Self at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery

THE COUNTER/SELF IS THE TITLE of this exhibition, immediately captured my attention. I have always been interested in the hidden characters of people, including myself. We all have many faces and various personalities in addition to the one we consider our true self. It brings to mind Janus with his two faces in mythology and all the people through historical and contemporary times who often changed their personalities. As I have experienced myself, it can happen when we’re under social pressure, relocating, or trying to succeed in a society that has a different culture than the one we’re used to. Every self is performative and we also summon different characters to avoid conflict with others or to please them, as needed. Each of us express or hide our various sides of ourselves. Both social and personal identities are created by inner drives and external expectations that mirror our dreams and fears. There are also the masks we choose to put on intentionally to transfer us into another world or character. So, I thought this exhibition would offer endless possibilities in addressing this complex and exiting theme.

Phillip Guston NOW, PART II: What a Difference a Curator Makes!

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?

THE FREER GALLERY’S CENTENNIAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE FREER GALLERY IN Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s first art museum on the National Mall, is celebrating its centennial this year. Opening in 1923, it was built to house the Asian and Near Eastern collections of Charles Lang Freer, one of the “titans of industry” who made vast fortunes in America’s Gilded Age.

Freer (1854-1919) was born into a family of modest means in Kingston, N.Y. He went to work in a cement factory after his mother died when he was fourteen, then gradually worked his way up the manufacturing pipeline, securing ever-higher positions at the New York, Kingston, and Syracuse Railroad. In 1880 he co-founded the Peninsular Car Works in Detroit, where he oversaw the manufacture of Peninsular’s rail cars and locomotives; in 1892, he orchestrated the merger of a dozen rail companies and became wealthy enough to retire in 1899 when he was 49.

Vincent Rosenblatt, *Bate-bola #86,* Turma do Indio, Rio de Janeiro 2017

NYC’s HIGH LINE GALLERY 4 presents an exhibition of recent works by twenty Brazilian and Iranian artists, curated by Iranian Roya Khadjavi, and Brazilian Flavia Tamoyo. In the dead of a New York winter, this engaging diverse salon style exhibition comes as a revelation, where creativity and inclusiveness are the threads that weave together the energies of cross-cultural collaboration. The curators selected works whose forms and colors combine to express a unique take on the artists’ personal lives and concerns, that speak to issues both public and private dominating their thoughts. The show includes Maritza Caneca, Afsaneh Djabbari Aslani, Sylvia Martins, Dana Nehdaran, Malekeh Nayiny, Rona Neves, Zahra Nazari, Anna Paola Protasio, Maryam Palizgir, Mana Sazegara, Atieh Sohrabi, Bruno Schmidt, Erick Vittorino, Vincent Rosenblatt, Dariush Nehdaran, Mana Sazegara, Faraaz Zabetian, Malekeh Nayiny, Atieh Sohrabi, and Farnaz Zabetian.

It has become voguish for museum curators to present works by undervalued artists, oft from third world countries or by African-Americans, especially women. The Phillips Collection has joined this leaning but diverts from this trend by presenting the first exhibition in the United States of Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-84), a white male from Italy. Although not widely known in the USA, he was a celebrated artist of his time. His paintings are in renowned collections as the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, British Museum in London, Chicago’s Art Institute, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Middlebury College’s Art Museum, Washington’s National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Federico Zeri (1921-98), the eminent art historian, called him “Italy’s greatest artist of the 19th century” and “Italy’s Sisley, Monet, and Pissarro”. While not a bedazzling exhibition, nonetheless it is one that yields new insights into Impressionist art beyond its traditional cast of historical artists. De Nittis’s brand of paintings links the styles of Salon art with an idiosyncratic interpretation of Impressionism.

Billed as “A Penetrating Portrayal of A Queer Giant,” performance artist John Kelly’s explosive gay-themed show “Underneath The Skin,” – bolstered by actor/dancers Hucklefaery, Estado Flotante, and John Williams Watkins, each playing multiple characters, a slew of videos, (one featuring Lola as Gertrude Stein), lots of song and dance, oodles of simulated male to male sex, and a cornucopia of informative lecture-like projections, all centering around the life and work of little known historical footnote Samuel Steward (1909-1993), channeled to a fare-thee-well by Kelly is currently holding court at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City at the Ellen Steward Theatre through Thursday, December 22.

NYC’s Gagosian & Nathaniel Mary Quinn: “Not Far From Home: Still Far Away”

Nathaniel Mary Quinn, “Not Far From Home; Still Far Away,” on view at Gagosian, presents an exploration of Quinn’s relationships in fourteen intense portraits, created in a range of media that includes oil paint, gouache, charcoal, oil stick and pastel. Distortion is the keynote of Quinn’s inner-based perception, expressed in a vision that transforms the artist, his friends and his female subject, apparently his mother. He disregards visually perceivable features, boldly executing truncated, layered, re-imagined, and spliced images that exude a sense of deep emotional anguish. Quinn’s impeccable inventive paintings compare with the visceral images Francis Bacon created in his portraits, and Picasso’s Synthetic Cubist women.