I think this was my
favorite piece in the show, because of the way it seemed to bring every other object on view in the gallery together in harmonious relationship.
The large
scale pieces in this show are all from the late 1960's and early 1970's and still resonate with architectural impact.
Untitled, the artist's large oil on
canvas piece in this show, is an interconnected mix of elegant, organic lines in muted tones with pops of color.
Each work is part of a larger dialogue, be it in conversation with
other pieces in the show, and with the overall practice and manipulation of specific materials.
While there are a few minor works and a couple
of pieces in the show that while interesting do not rise to the occasion, this is still a major thematic exhibition of rare artistic quality not often seen gathered in one place.
The
best pieces in the show work because, as with the best Hollywood films, they present a glittering surface, beneath which is a strong underlying narrative.
In the middle of it all is Robert Rauschenberg's White Painting (1951), one of the
earliest pieces in the show and perhaps the one which, in its simple paradox of filled - in blankness, epitomises the cyclical quest for the end of painting.
Other
pieces in the show include Planet, a 10m bronze baby and a series of burning sculptures which thanks to new technology, can burn with real fire inside the museum without a flue.
Many art viewers will be familiar with several key
pieces in the show like Nan Goldin's photographs from Ballad of Sexual Dependency or Schneemann's Interior Scroll.
Whereas those «black paintings» were gloomy, bleak and pessimistic, I see these paper pieces as poetic, dark dirges and elegies... The
[pieces in this show] are subtitled either as «Collateral Damage» or «Near Certainty.»
The most exciting
pieces in the show for me were the most recent works, The Eye Man (2014) and Corner Café (2014 - 2015), large canvases making their public debuts.
And the artist, often associated with his antic performances, is getting credit for his depth lately: the Financial Times called his work in the Whitney's «Blues for Smoke» exhibition the «most
poignant piece in the show.»
The selection of
recent pieces in the show points out the recurring use of graphic elements such as stripes and zigzagging lines, which play a special role in the artist's practice.
But for his
main piece in this show he has filled a whole wall of a big gallery with a symmetrical abstract design that looks like a giant inkblot in a Rorschach test.
It was a storefront, guerrilla sort of gallery, and it was the
only piece in the show when it was first seen there.»
(Of course, you should look at all the other
great pieces in the show, but this is my blog, so I'm channeling my inner five - year - old and bragging about me.)
As the
biggest piece in the show, the large drawing is actually only lower portion of a huge composition that Verlato started on back in mid 80s, just after the massacre of the Eisel stadium.
For another installation, he strung up plain white bath towels on a laundry line, cordoning off the
nicest piece in the show and unfortunately keeping viewers from seeing it up close.
Another
Smith piece in the show, a rippling work on paper, seems to turn the slim silhouette of the sculpture on its side.
Despite being the
smallest piece in the show, this rectangular amalgamation of oil paint, acrylic paint, household paint, varnish and mixed media collage on canvas (then mounted on board) had that rare feeling of monumentality.
One of the most
astounding pieces in the show is the gargantuan Purple / Red / Gray / Orange (Fig. 5), which, at 18 feet long and five feet high, is the largest print ever attempted at Gemini, and truly the equal of any of Kelly's work in any medium.
Almost all the 30 -
odd pieces in the show have some kind of sociopolitical charge, but a few are especially compelling and poetic.
Duncan's
pieces in the show document and hold the power of the sun and the fragility of time and are a continuation of his long fascination and study of the sun as a generative life - force.
The
newest piece in the show, du voyage, des gens (Travel, People, 2011), is a three - minute video of an anonymous Roma woman playing the fiddle in the tourist - filled space in front of the Centre Pompidou.
Following in Lozza's footsteps, Romberg created a group of works in 1980 that resemble color charts — there were six
such pieces in this show.
The
graphite pieces in the show have a direct response to Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings, and the intent of almost losing the brush stroke.
The floppy typography acts as a bridge between the two and three
dimensional pieces in the show, creating a sense of continuity that is lacking within the paintings themselves.
In what might be the most
effective piece in the show, dozens of head - sized spheres constructed out of garbage bags and twine are suspended just a foot or two off the floor.
One installation known as Forest, however, is a more somber and
reflective piece in the show that features poles representing tree trunks and serves as a memorial of the Holocaust.
One of the most
striking pieces in the show is a chunky, stacked «ziggurat» from the mid-eighties that seems to be both a sculpture and a painting.
By far the most
arresting piece in the show, and indeed, one of the most arresting artworks I've ever seen, is Slowly Turning Narrative.