Last art exhibition you visited?

[Leeway]

Thanks for the suggestions. When I go back for Winter Jazz Fest, I might be able to squeeze in some museum-going. We had actually intended to go to the MOMA on this last trip, but the logistics defeated us. Maybe this next trip.

You should definitely try to see the Matisse cut-outs. It will probably be the only chance to ever see them together in one exhibit. FYI - get there early, because it's VERY popular.

Good advice. I might go up a couple of days in advance so I can do the museums on a weekday. BTW, I picked up a folio edition of the cut-outs some years ago at a library sale!

[ArtSalt]

I went to the Rothko exhibition here in the Hague last weekend:

http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/en/exhibitions/mark-rothko

Sadly, I wasn't sucked into his spiritual world and despite signs informing the visitor to remain in silence to ensure we all had a wonderful spiritual experience, I was left feeling quite empty, with the exception of one or two canvases. The two grey charcoal coloured ones left particularly cold and vacuous impression.

[BFrank]

Thanks for the suggestions. When I go back for Winter Jazz Fest, I might be able to squeeze in some museum-going. We had actually intended to go to the MOMA on this last trip, but the logistics defeated us. Maybe this next trip.

You should definitely try to see the Matisse cut-outs. It will probably be the only chance to ever see them together in one exhibit. FYI - get there early, because it's VERY popular.

Good advice. I might go up a couple of days in advance so I can do the museums on a weekday. BTW, I picked up a folio edition of the cut-outs some years ago at a library sale!

Sounds like a plan.........and good "get" on the folio!

[mjazzg]

If the Matisse show is the one that was at Tate Modern earlier this year (as I suspect) then do try and see it - it is sensational. Busy? absolutely. But well worth some artistic jostling

[BFrank]

It's the same as the Tate, but I think MoMA might have a few more pieces.

[ejp626]

It doesn't look like I will be able to make this show, but I am fairly sure that all the cut-outs were at the MOMA Matisse blockbuster show in 1992. They even constructed this smallish room with the proper dimensions to display them. Pretty amazing.

If anyone is coming to Toronto in the winter or early spring, there is a decent Art Spiegelman retrospective at the AGO. It's pretty much the same show that was in New York and later Vancouver. In Feb., AGO also opens up a Basquiat exhibit, which I am quite interested in. Obviously I haven't seen this yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what is coming.

What is more surprising is that the Douglas Coupland exhibit is going to be coming to Toronto in Feb-April, but it is being split up between ROM and MOCCA. I'm still trying to figure out which pieces will be going where. Here is my blog post covering the Vancouver version of the exhibition: http://erics-hangout.blogspot.ca/2014/08/douglas-coupland-exhibit-in-vancouver.html

It's actually pretty thought-provoking, so I'll certainly swing by MOCCA at least to see what they have up.

Edited December 24, 2014 by ejp626

[sidewinder]

The McMichael is always worth a visit if you like the Group of Seven, and this is a decent but hardly life-changing exhibit.

Really enjoyed the visits there years ago - in particular the Lawren Harris's. Nice location too..

[ejp626]

The McMichael is always worth a visit if you like the Group of Seven, and this is a decent but hardly life-changing exhibit.

Really enjoyed the visits there years ago - in particular the Lawren Harris's. Nice location too..

Actually, I saw a show dedicated to Lawren Harris in Vancouver last year. He's my favorite of the Group of 7, so it was nice to see, though the really great paintings from AGO and the McMichael didn't make it out there. What was quite interesting is that in the last 1/3 or so of his career Harris started moving into abstraction. He also did an awful lot to promote younger artists in BC. Sounds like a really great guy, in addition to being a good artist.

In addition to the other Toronto shows I listed, there is a pretty interesting show at a brand new museum of Islamic Art here in Toronto. The show is called The Lost Dhow and features many artifacts brought up from a recently discovered ship that was wrecked roughly 1000 years ago off the coast of Indonesia. It was pretty good, as these shows go. More info here: https://www.agakhanmuseum.org/exhibitions/lost-dhow-discovery-maritime-silk-route

[medjuck]

If anyone is coming to Toronto in the winter or early spring, there is a decent Art Spiegelman retrospective at the AGO. It's pretty much the same show that was in New York and later Vancouver. In Feb., AGO also opens up a Basquiat exhibit, which I am quite interested in. Obviously I haven't seen this yet, but I have a pretty good idea of what is coming.

Saw the Spiegleman show at the AGO today. I was very interested after having seen his great lecture with music entitled "Wordless" in Santa Barbara. Problem was that I went to the Alex Colville show at the AGO first and that knocked me out so much it was hard to look at anything else after. (I skipped a Michelangelo exhibit they had in favour of the Colville and the

Spiegleman.)

[ejp626]

I saw a compact but quite nice exhibit of 19 still lifes by Cezanne at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (Ontario). It was on display in Philadelphia at the Barnes Foundation last year. There are three weeks left. It's probably worth trying to see if you are in Toronto, Buffalo or Detroit. Not sure how much beyond that I'd travel to see it.

I have blogged about the exhibit and have images of a few of the pieces and some that probably should have been in the show (had insurance and such not been prohibitive): http://erics-hangout.blogspot.ca/2015/01/cezanne-in-hamilton.html

[BillF]

Cézanne still lives? Wonderful!

[ejp626]

Cézanne still lives? Wonderful!

(still-life-with-red-onions-1898)

That was not there either but it is pretty incredible. I think I'll add it to my blog post.

It was a nice show, though if I am being honest only 5 of the 19 blew me away (the later ones), but absolutely worth checking out, since I am figuratively down the street.

[Leeway]

I managed to squeeze in the Matisse Cut-Outs show at MOMA while I was up in NYC for the Winter Jazz Fest. I absolutely loved it. It's amazing how far Matisse was able to exploit that vein of creation. One contemporary critic of Matisse called them, dismissively, "amusements," but what's wrong with that? Bringing art and play together is no easy thing (Robert Frost talked about this), but quite wonderful when it occurs. The cut-outs became ever more ambitious and refined. Remarkable.

While I was waiting with my timed ticket to get in to the Matisse rooms, I took in a small exhibition in a nearby room, "The Forever Now." Found some quite interesting paintings.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1498#media_player/34/1

I particularly liked the Mary Weatherford, Julie Mehretu, and Richard Aldrich works. Ars long, vita brevis.

[BillF]

Cézanne still lives? Wonderful!

(still-life-with-red-onions-1898)

That was not there either but it is pretty incredible. I think I'll add it to my blog post.

I saw it in Paris in my youth. They used to have impressionists and post-impressionists in the Jeu de Paume. Don't know where they are now. It was very controversial with the art students to whom I taught art history and who were being taught to draw "correctly" :-)

[ejp626]

Cézanne still lives? Wonderful!

(still-life-with-red-onions-1898)

That was not there either but it is pretty incredible. I think I'll add it to my blog post.

I saw it in Paris in my youth. They used to have impressionists and post-impressionists in the Jeu de Paume. Don't know where they are now. It was very controversial with the art students to whom I taught art history and who were being taught to draw "correctly" :-)

If I recall a very small handful of French impressionists or really proto-impressionists are at the Louvre. Almost everything impressionist to say 1930s or early 40s is in Musee d'Orsay (which is where red onions is now) and then after that moves to the Pompidieu Centre with some exceptions. I believe cubists are mostly grouped with the contemporary art. And of course there are a bunch of other museums that break up this flow -- Ongeries, Museum of the city of Paris, etc. Never enough time when visiting Paris...

[ejp626]

I am back from the Basquiat exhibit at AGO. It was still really crowded. I guess crowds will thin out in another couple of weeks, and I'll go back then. It's basically a no-brainer to try to go if you are a big fan of Basquiat. I wouldn't say I am a fan, but it was interesting. I'd say they have 3 or 4 pieces that are really quite fine, and the rest I can pretty much take or leave. Many of the pieces have an epic scale that give them more presence than if they are just reproduced in a book, for example.

I may have already mentioned this, but Toronto also has the Spiegelman exhibit at the AGO, and split between the ROM and MOCCA, the Douglas Coupland exhibit has traveled here from Vancouver. So quite a bit of contemporary art on view.

[mjazzg]

Diebenkorn at the RA in London. Sumptuous

Not often I come away wishing the show was larger. Just three rooms. I'd been waiting nearly 20 years since the Whitechapel exhibition that introduced me to his work - it was great to be in a room with his work again

[BillF]

Diebenkorn at the RA in London. Sumptuous

Not often I come away wishing the show was larger. Just three rooms. I'd been waiting nearly 20 years since the Whitechapel exhibition that introduced me to his work - it was great to be in a room with his work again

Really like the work of Diebenkorn.

[mjazzg]

Diebenkorn at the RA in London. Sumptuous

Not often I come away wishing the show was larger. Just three rooms. I'd been waiting nearly 20 years since the Whitechapel exhibition that introduced me to his work - it was great to be in a room with his work again

Really like the work of Diebenkorn.

that's there. Oddly that repro makes a greater three dimensional impact than the original did on the wall. Also I've just realised, by checking the catalogue, that it's 24 years since the Whitechapel....how time flies when you're having fun

[paul secor]

Last week, we visited the latest exhibit at the Loeb Art Center at Vassar College - a collection of large scale paintings by Avery, Rothko, Joan Mitchell, Hedda Sterne, Poons, Nancy Graves, Christopher Winter, and others. A small exhibition, but well worth seeing.

[page]

Blikvangers - a photo exhibit in The Hague (Eye Catchers) - National Archive

The Nationale Archive wanted to show some of their treasures by known and unknown photographers among their collection of 15 million photos.

This is just one example: a woman at the "smiling-school" in Budapest, Hungary.

http://nos.nl/data/image/2015/02/17/133309/xxl.jpg
unknown photographer 1937, source: The National Archive, The Hague

[BillF]

Here's one I'd like to see:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/27/sonia-delaunay-avant-garde-queen-art-fashion-vibrant-tate-modern

[mjazzg]

Here's one I'd like to see:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/27/sonia-delaunay-avant-garde-queen-art-fashion-vibrant-tate-modern

Absolutely. On my list, near the top

[alankin]

^^^ If I was across the pond, I'd try to see it (Sonia Delaunay).

Saw two gallery shows in Philadelphia yesterday.

Christine Lafaunte's painterly still lifes and landscapes at Gross McLeaf:

And Martha Groomes's geometric abstracts at Larry Becker. This one has an intriguing sense of space when seen in person:

[ejp626]

There's a nice but not life-changing exhibit of Emily Carr on at the AGO. I've seen a lot of Carr in my time, mostly out in Victoria and Vancouver, and it was nice that not every single painting in the exhibit was from collections out west. On the other hand, it all looks exactly the same -- tree forms and occasional totem poles.

A much more varied exhibit on American Modernism, drawn from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, is on at the Joslyn Museum, but you have to be in Omaha to see it. Probably not worth it for most of us...