There are always wonderful exhibits in Washington (and up and down the East Coast). On Exhibit will highlight some of these shows, and their respective catalogs.
In 1967, Richard Diebenkorn started the first of his Ocean Park paintings. He would continue working on this series of luminous abstracts for the next twenty years.
A wonderful show of many of these paintings has arrived at the Corcoran, and it is the perfect summer show (and one of the best exhibits in many years). Dozens and dozens of Richard Diebenkorn’s large (roughly 8 x 6 ft) paintings are in sky-lit, sun-filled spaces. His smaller, jewel-like works on paper and cigar-box lids, as well as prints, are interspersed in smaller rooms in the exhibit.
The paintings invite long observation: up-close, from across the room, and from two rooms away. Diebenkorn’s fine-tuned adjustments are all visible on the canvases. He redrew charcoal lines, added and scraped down thin, glowing layers of paint, making large and tiny changes until each painting was a satisfying, luminous whole.
Displayed chronologically, the Ocean Park series (named after a beachfront neighborhood in Santa Monica where his studio was) start with a few paintings with hints of abstracted Matisse-like shapes; you can then see Diebenkorn play with his palimpsest of grids and sunny color to make the series an ever changing theme and variation.
There are three essays in the catalog: exhibit curator Sarah Bancroft on Diebenkorn’s painting history before, during and after Ocean Park; curator Susan Landauer on his echoes with other California painters, Matisse, and Cézanne; and poet (and Ocean Park neighbor) Peter Levitt’s rhapsody on Diebenkorn’s sea and sky-inspired colors.
Go immerse yourself and revel in Diebenkorn’s abstract masterworks.
RICHARD AVEDON AT GAGOSIAN GALLERY
The exhibit: May 4 through July 27, 2012, at 522 West 21 Street, New York
The catalog: Avedon: Murals & Portraits (Gagosian/Abrams, $100)
An Avedon portrait is instantly recognizable; and as a fashion photographer and as a chronicler of political and cultural figures, he had few peers. Between 1969 and 1971, Avedon created four gigantic photo murals (between 20 and 35 feet wide), each of a charged subject: The Chicago Seven; the members of the Mission Council in Saigon—“the eleven men who ran the Vietnam War”; Andy Warhol and the film stars of his Factory; and the extended Allen Ginsberg family (including his father, poet Louis Ginsberg). These murals are the centerpiece of the exhibit, and are surrounded by related portraits from the era, such as the iconic Dorothy Day. The beautifully printed catalog includes working prints, magazine layouts, contact prints, and four-paneled foldouts of the murals. Very informative essays by historian Louis Menand (on the Chicago 7); journalist William Shawcross (on Vietnam), Corcoran curator Paul Roth, and Ginsberg authority Bob Rubin are vital contextual contributions, and photo historian Mary Panzer’s essay, “State of Emergency,” immerses you in Avedon’s work in the 1960s and 1970s.
GEORGE BELLOWS AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
The exhibit: through October 8.
The catalog: George Bellows (National Gallery of Art/Prestel, $60)
As you walk from room to room in the George Bellows retrospective at the National Gallery, you experience the many worlds that Bellows depicted (beyond his famous boxing paintings), all done with some of the most virtuoso brushwork in American art. Bellows’s brushstrokes anticipated the free-form vibrancy of de Kooning, but he combined it with observation skills and visual reportage worthy of Daumier and Goya.
You will see Bellows work that you’ve never seen: leisurely promenaders in winter; tenement kids playing; tender portraits of his wife and daughters; roiling seascapes; and powerful anti-war and anti-lynching prints. His paintings of the Pennsylvania Station excavations have the haunted look of the World Trade Center site. Look closely again at his confident pencil and brush-marks. Bellows died young at age forty-two.
The catalog has twelve prominent essays by curators and historians, each of whom address one of Bellows’s subjects: boxing, working, tenement life, political illustrations, “War, 1918,” “life of leisure,” “life by the river,” “life at sea.” There is a visual diary, as well as 270 illustrations.
There is a fantastic Miró retrospective at the National Gallery of Art through August 12. Titled Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape, it covers the entirety of the artist’s career—from his folk-inspired Catalan farm scenes to the outburst of his symbolic shapes—and his artistic reaction to the tumultuous and horrific decades of dictatorship and war in Spain and in Europe. Paintings, prints, collages, posters, murals and sculptures abound—Miró’s creative energy never flagged, whether at home or in exile.
The Constellations CD
My favorite part of the Miró exhibit is the wall crowded with 10 of the 23 “Constellation” paintings Miro created in 1940 and 1941. It’s a rare opportunity to see so many of these paintings, aflutter with animated creatures.
In 2002, percussionist Bobby Previte released the wonderful CD, The 23 Constellations of Joan Miró (Tzadik, $16.98), a perfect complement to the catalog and the exhibit.
It is a suite—one song inspired by each of the Constellations—played by an outstanding group of players. Previte’s huge array of tuned percussion—vibes, marimbas, orchestral chimes—suffuse the songs in shimmering tones. Soprano sax, bass clarinet, flute, trumpet, flugelhorn, celeste, organ, and harp add beautiful tonal colors.
The CD comes with a 36-page, full-color booklet which reproduces all 23 Constellations.
