lunedì 11 luglio 2011

Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective



Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective
April 13, 2011–August 28, 2011
The Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor

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Visit joy2learn.org for a multimedia presentation by Richard Serra.
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Visit the online Met Store to purchase the exhibition catalogue.
This first retrospective of drawings by the contemporary American artist Richard Serra (b. 1939) presents a comprehensive overview of some forty years of his drawing activity. It traces the development of drawing as an art form independent from yet linked to his sculptural practice. Drawing for Serra has always played a crucial role in the investigation of new concepts and new creative methods. It has been a means of exploration of formal and perceptual relationships between the artwork and the viewer. His innovative ideas have radically transformed the traditional understanding of drawing as a form outlined against a background of the paper support, and exponentially expanded the definition of modern drawing through novel techniques, unusual media, monumental scale, and carefully conceived relationships to surrounding spaces.
Through some fifty drawings and a selection of sketchbooks, the exhibition presents the evolution of Serra's drawing from the early 1970s—when he worked primarily on paper with more traditional mediums such as ink, charcoal, lithographic crayon—to the mid-1970s when he turned to black paintstick, a crayon comprised of a mixture of pigment, oil, and wax. He has been using paintstick in its various forms since then, creating heavily textured works in which thick black surfaces, frequently very large in scale, emphasize his interest in process, weight, and gravity. Black, in Serra's understanding, is not a color but rather a material; it therefore has weight and responds to the laws of gravity.
In the mid-1970s, Serra made his first Installation Drawings—monumental works on canvas or linen pinned directly to the wall and thickly covered with black paintstick, such as Abstract Slavery, Taraval Beach, Pacific Judson Murphy, and Blank.
The drawings Serra has executed since the 1980s continue the experiments with innovative techniques and explore further surface effects, primarily on paper, and while very large and monumental in expression, they are less monumental physically. The process of creation remains an essential aspect of their expressive power. Generally made in series, such as Rounds (1997), out-of-rounds (1999), and Solids (2007–2008), they highlight dense paintstick, frequently pressed through a window-like screen, which allows a heavily textured surface of viscous pigment to develop.
The exhibition culminates in site-specific, large-scale works, completed specifically for this presentation. The selection of sketchbooks from different decades and places completes the understanding of the artist's use of drawing as a system of thinking.

Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe



Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe
May 17, 2011–August 14, 2011
Drawings, Prints, and Photographs Galleries, 2nd floor

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Read a related article by conservator Marjorie Shelley.
Read a related essay on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
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By 1750, almost 2,500 professional artists and amateurs were working in pastel in Paris alone. Portraits in pastel were commissioned by all ranks of society, but most enthusiastically by the royal family, members of the court, and the wealthy middle classes. Eighteenth-century pastels are brightly colored, highly finished, often of large dimensions, and elaborately framed, evoking oil painting, the medium to which they were invariably compared. The powdery texture of pastel and its diffuse, velvety quality were particularly suited to capturing the fleeting expressions that characterize the most life-like portraits. Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe includes some forty pastels, belonging to the Metropolitan Museum and, with important exceptions, to museums and private collections in the New York area. It presents Italian, French, and English works, supplemented by several German, Swiss, and American examples.
Accompanied by a publication.
The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund.
The publication was made possible through the generosity of the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, established by the cofounder of Reader's Digest.
Additional support has been provided by Karen B. Cohen.

Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents



Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents
March 8, 2011–August 21, 2011
Gallery between Michael C. Rockefeller and Lila Acheson Wallace wings, 1st floor

Learn more about this exhibition.
View images from this exhibition.
Installation co-curator Yaëlle Biro discusses with artist Willie Cole the African mask as a source of inspiration for his works featured in the exhibition.
Download the audio file. MP3 (11.88 MB)
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Works featured in this installation are highly creative re-imaginings of the iconic form of the African mask. Among them are sculptural assemblages made of incongruous combinations of discarded materials by two contemporary artists from the Republic of Benin, Romuald Hazoumé (b. 1962) and Calixte Dakpogan (b. 1958). These ironic tributes to the mask as the African form of expression most renowned in the West are considered within a wider art historical context through their juxtapositions with works in a variety of media by modern and contemporary American artists. The celebrated photograph by Man Ray (1890–1976), Noire et Blanche, recent interpretations in glass by influential sculptor Lynda Benglis (b. 1941), and composite creations by Willie Cole (b. 1955) are among these.
The installation is a collaboration between the Museum's departments of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art and Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.