MUSEUM GUIDE by Artmuse Selects

GRAND OPENING: FRICK MADISON

Coming soon to Madison Avenue, The Frick Collection will open the doors to Frick Madison in the iconic building that was formerly home to the Met Breuer and the Whitney. The Frick Collection will temporarily operate within the Madison Avenue space as its historic 70th Street location undergoes renovations.

Visit the Frick Madison to see treasures from its collection installed throughout three floors. Well-known works by Bellini, Clodion, Gainsborough, Goya, Holbein, Houdon, Ingres, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Velázquez, Verrocchio, Vermeer, Whistler will be displayed alongside rarely-seen works that include seventeenth-century Mughal carpets and canvases from the famed series The Progress of Love by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Opens March 18 

945 Madison Avenue

Pictured: Jean -Honoré Fragonard, Detail of The Progress of Love- Love Letters, 1771 –72 (above); 945 Madison Avenue exterior shot (below) | Courtesy of The Frick and The New York Times

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MUSEUM MUST-SEES

Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America at New Museum

Conceived of by Okwui Enwezor, the groundbreaking curator who passed away last year, Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America sheds light upon various discussions of race, discrimination and violence in America beginning in the 1960s through the current moment. Although explorations of Black grief and grievances have been topics Enwezor has long been interested in, the curator found Trump’s presidency to be a symbol of racist politics that warrant an exploration of America’s history and present.

Artists include: Terry Adkins, Jean-Michel Basquia, Kevin Beasley, Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Garrett Bradley, Melvin Edwards, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Theaster Gates, Arthur Jafa, Daniel LaRue Johnson,  Rashid Johnson, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Julie Mehretu, Okwui Okpokwasili, Adam Pendleton, Julia Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Cameron Rowland, Lorna Simpson, Sable Elyse Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Diamond Stingily, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, Carrie Mae Weems, and Jack Whitten.

Through  June 6

235 Bowery

Pictured: Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (policeman), 2015 (above); Ellen Gallagher, Dew Breaker, 2015; Kerry James Marshall, Memento #5, 2003 (bottom) | Courtesy of The Washington Post, the artist/ Hauser & Wirth, and The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

Julie Mehretu at The Whitney

In March, the Whitney will present a major mid-career retrospective on Julie Mehretu (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Mehretu is known for her incredible large-scale abstract landscapes that feature built-up, layered surfaces representing the compression of time, space and history. This exhibition will feature seventy works in a variety of media and will not be one to miss!

Julie Mehretu will be the subject of Artmuse’s virtual art presentation in April.

March 25 - August 8

99 Gansevoort Street

Pictured: Retopistics: A Renegade Evacuation, 2001 (above); Black City, 2007 (below) | courtesy of the Whitney

David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968-1979 at The Drawing Center

David Hammons Body Prints are historic, process-driven works that center the Black Body as both a mark-making artistic device as well as a means to critique racial oppression and interpretations of the Black body. Hammons first conceived of these works in 1968 and returns to this same process again and again, often integrating flag motifs to meditate upon the experience of being African American. Hammons’ process is amazing: he creates these prints by greasing his own body with substances like baby oil or margarine and then pressing his body against his paper and then sprinkling the surface with powdered pigment. The resulting works are evocative, precious and arresting.

Through May 23

35 Wooster Street

Pictured: Untitled (Man with Flag), n.d. (above); Untitled, 1975 (below) | courtesy of The Drawing Center

Naima Green: Brief & Drenching at Fotografiska

With a must-see show at Fotografiska, the Brooklyn-based talent Naima Green presents beautiful and intimate portraits of queer, trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people. Green is remarkable as a photographer in her ability to create an environment that evolves for both her sitter as and viewer. For the series “Pur suit” for example, Green invited over 100 subjects to be photographed over the span of nine days to create a deck of 54 playing cards, which is both an object of play and documentation. The result is absolutely beautiful and quite amazing, and Green’s fabulous show at Fotografiska—which also happens to be the artist’s first solo museum exhibition—is one you will want to spend lots of time at. 

Through April 18

281 Park Avenue South

Pictured: Jenna from Pur·suit 2018 (above); Pur·suit (detail), 2018 (below) | courtesy the artist & Fotografiska

KAWS: WHAT PARTY at Brooklyn Museum

The world-renowned Brooklyn-based artist KAWS is the subject of a historic survey show that will open this week at Brooklyn Museum! KAWS is known for his practice that adopts the means of mass production to then critique the intense consumer culture of the 21st century. With his figures that reference graffiti and cartoons, KAWS has created a visual iconography that pushes the idea of mass consumption to capture universal experiences of childhood, love, friendship, loneliness and alienation. The massive survey will feature KAWS’s most important work as well as new pieces created just for the exhibition. 

200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

February 26 - September 5

Pictured: COMPANION (EXPANDED), 2020, augmented reality | courtesy of KAWS

Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start at MoMA

Alexander Calder, one of the most famous and beloved figures of American sculptures, is known for his dynamic works that upend notions that sculpture should be still. Instead, Calder’s work commands the attention of his viewers and are ever-changing. This exhibition explores the long career of Calder through the lens of the MoMA, a collection Calder has been a mainstay of since he was first exhibited at the museum in 1930—which happened to be just after the museum opened its doors! Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start celebrates Calder as well as the museum’s own history.

Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start will be the subject of Artmuse’s virtual art presentation in March.

March 14 - August 7

11 West 53rd Street

Pictured: Historic image of Calder before his 1943 show “Alexander Calder” at MoMA (above); Calder’s “Black Widow” in MoMA’s sculpture garden (below | courtesy of MoMA and @theartofjumping

But Still, It Turns at ICP

Human beings and the natural world are resilient. Celebrating life here on earth, But Still, It Turns: Recent Photography from the World features works by an assemblage of photographers that capture the human condition and the natural world during the twenty-first century.

But Still, It Turns includes the work of Vanessa Winship, Curran Hatleberg, Richard Choi, RaMell Ross, Gregory Halpern, Piergiorgio Casotti, Emanuele Brutti, Kristine Potter, and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa. 

Through May 9

79 Essex Street

Pictured: Gregory Halpern, Untitled, 2016 | Courtesy of ICP

Goya’s Graphic Imagination at the Met

One of the most important Spanish painters of the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Francisco Goya is known for his intensely expressive works that defined the romantic movement of art. Known as chronicler of his time, Goya’s drawing and print practice was an incredible means by which the artist expressed his political liberalism, critiqued superstitious thought that prevailed during his time, and pushed against intellectual oppression.

In addition to his painting practice, Goya was a prolific draftsman and printmaker and produced around 900 drawings and 300 prints throughout his lifetime. The exhibition at the Met explores Goya’s “graphic imagination” and dives into the ideas explored through his many drawings and prints. 

Through May 2

1000 5th Avenue

Pictured: original ink drawing for The sleep of reason produces monsters, 1797 | Courtesy of the Met