Postcard from New York, 2: MoMA

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907

 As far as I am concerned, the main event of a visit to MoMA was always going to be seeing Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - I wasn't disappointed. It is an extraordinary painting: although  more than a century old it is still fresh. Familiarity has obviously blunted the shock that it provoked in 1907 but it is still startling and puzzling.

I was also delighted to find a small but focused exhibition devoted to Warhol: Campbell's Soup Cans and Other Works, 1953–1967. The 32 Soup Can canvases, first shown in 1962, are displayed in a single line around the gallery - arranged chronologically according to the date each variety was put on the market, from Tomato in 1897 to... unfortunately, I have forgotten what the last one was - possibly Beef Noodle? Some research needed!
Also included in the exhibition is Double Elvis (1963), Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962) and a full suite of Marilyn screenprints (1967) as well as a range of early commercial drawings. Great stuff.

Andy Warhol, installation view of  Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962

Andy Warhol, Double Elvis, 1963

Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe 1967 - portfolio of 10 screenprints

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe 1967 - portfolio of 10 screenprints - detail

The collection is wonderful - visiting was, in a way, like meeting old friends: so many artworks that I am familiar with in reproduction seen, at last, in the 'flesh'. There were a couple of disappointments - a thunder storm during my visit meant that the sculpture garden was closed ('health and safety'); but more seriously a significant chunk of the collection - principally Minimalism and Conceptual Art (my favourite bits) -  appeared not to be available to view; never mind, I got my fix elsewhere.
Below is my top ten - (apart from the Warhols and Picasso already mentioned above) - arranged alphabetically by artist:

André Derain, Bathers, 1907

George Grosz, The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse, 1927

Alfredo Jaar, Lament of the Images, 2002 (NB this doesn't work as a reproduction - the blinding light has to be experienced.)

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-5

Sherrie Levine, Large Check, 1987 (detail)

Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916

Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51

Pablo Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), Spring 1910

Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955

Andy Warhol, Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, 1963

(See also: Postcard from New York, 1: Whitney Museum of American Art (+ The High Line); Postcard from New York, 3: The Guggenheim; Postcard from New York, 4: Dia: Beacon; click on the index label below to see all Postcards from New York) 

Postcard from New York, 1: Whitney Museum of American Art (+ The High Line)

Renzo Piano Building Workshop, The Whitney Museum, 2007-15

The Whitney Museum of American Art opened in its current location at 99 Gansevoort Street on 1 May 2015 so it was a thrill to visit it while it is still so fresh. The building, by Renzo Piano, is impressive (although quite hard to 'see' from the ground) and the galleries with their external sculpture terraces and 'lounges' offering spectacular views across the city and across the Hudson to New Jersey are wonderful. (I was glad to learn that the, also wonderful, old Whitney building by Marcel Breuer is, apparently, to become an outpost of the Metropolitan Museum.)

Marcel Breuer, Whitney Museum, 1966

We approached the Whitney via the High Line walking from 23rd Street to Gansevoort Street. This was a delight: a relaxed stroll along a plant-lined, elevated former railway track offering great views down into, and over, the streets and punctuated with artworks. I was disappointed that Edward Ruscha's mural had been replaced but enjoyed Ryan Gander's 'kissing' fountain and Damián Ortega's three-dimensional graffiti amongst others.

View along the High Line

Ryan Gander, To employ the mistress... It's a French toff thing

Damián Ortega, Physical Graffiti

The inaugural exhibition at the Whitney, America is Hard to See, is drawn entirely from the museum's collection and is arranged chronologically in a series of 'chapters' from the eighth floor down. We began by ascending in the lift to the top floor then worked downwards via the external staircases which take in the sculpture terraces. The exhibition is fabulous - below is my top ten selection  (in alphabetical order of artist):

Margaret Bourke-White, George Washington Bridge, c1934

Vija Celmins, Heater, 1964

Willem de Kooning, Door to the River, 1960

Charles Demuth, My Egypt, 1927

Arshile Gorky,  the Artist and His Mother, 1926-c1936

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930

John McCracken, Violet Block in Two Parts, 1966 (floor) and Brice Marden, Summer Table, 1972-3 (wall)

Frank Stella, Die Fahne hoch!, 1959

Wayne Thiebaud, Pie Counter, 1963

And a couple of views of, and from, the museum:

Looking down to the sculpture terrace on floor 7 with work by David Smith

Looking down to the sculpture terrace on floor 6 with work by Robert Morris and Tony Smith

Mary Heilmann, Sunset (detail) on north wall of Museum above terrace on floor 5

View west from one of the museum's windows

Read: 

Jonathan Massey (2015) "High Line Your Museum", Art in America, May 2015, pp110-117

Timothy M. Rohan (2015) "The Breuer Effect", Art in America, May 2015 

(See also: Postcard from New York, 2: MoMA; Postcard from New York, 3: The Guggenheim; Postcard from New York, 4: Dia: Beacon; click on the index label below to see all Postcards from New York)

Stockwell Depot - University of Greenwich Galleries

[Unidentified work on roof of Stockwell Depot]

Stockwell Depot 1967-79 is at University of Greenwich Galleries until 12 September 2015.
This exhibition and associated publication by Sam Cornish celebrate a fascinating moment in British art: the Stockwell Depot studios flourished in a period of notable social, political and aesthetic turbulence. As John A. Walker records in Left Shift: Radical Art in 1970s Britain: "During the 1960s, the formalist ideas of the American critic Clement Greenberg... had dominated art theory in Britain and there were some British artists - mostly abstract painters and sculptors associated with St. Martin's School of Art...and the Stockwell Depot studios in South London - who continued to be influenced by the Greenbergians during the 1970s." (p5)  The emergence of Conceptual Art and the subsequent fashionable fascination with French theory that gave rise to Postmodernism effectively marginalised formalist abstraction - yet many artists such as those associated with the Stockwell Depot stubbornly persisted in their aesthetic convictions. Hopefully, Sam Cornish's book will throw some much needed light on a neglected patch of British art history - it was surprisingly difficult to track down relevant information just to write this blog entry. I look forward to learning more.

Peter Hide, Beryl

Fred Pollock, Honeydripper, 1977

David Evison

John Foster, Full Face, 1978 (left) and Katherine Gili, Vertical IV, 1975

Roland Brenner, Deep Space,

Roland Brener, Sculpture with Single Arch, 1968

[Unidentified artists/work on the roof of Stockwell Depot]

Stockwell Depot: Sculpture Exhibition (1968) with Peter Hide, Sculpture No.2

View of Stockwell Depot

Postscript. For a brief, delirious moment, back in the day, I imagined that the artists of Stockwell Depot worked in the spectacular Modernist concrete architectural masterpiece that is Stockwell bus garage - a sculpture in its own right. 

Stockwell Bus Garage; architects: Adie, Button and Partners, 1952

Albert Irvin - Gimpel Fils

Albert Irvin, Untitled, 1973

Albert Irvin RA OBE: Painting the Human Spirit is at Gimpel Fils until 28 August 2015.
I was very sorry to learn of Albert Irvin's death earlier this year (26 March 2015) and wrote a brief memorial note on this blog (see below); so, I am delighted to see that Gimpel Fils have mounted this memorial exhibition.

Albert Irvin, Moving Through, 1960

Albert Irvin, Pegasus, 1982

Albert Irvin, Merlin, 1987

Albert Irvin, Mansfield, 1993

Albert Irvin, Florian, 1999