October 1, 2012
NYC Fall Exhibition Highlights – Upper East Side
By Lacy Davisson Doyle
James Rosenquist, “Multiverse You Are, I Am” at Acquavella Galleries, 18 E 79 St through October 13, followed by Wayne Thiebaud, “A Retrospective”, Oct 23 to Nov 30, acquavellagalleries.com
The Rosenquist exhibition features eleven paintings – two of which are monumental in scale – that reflect the artist’s continued interest in time and outer space.
James Rosenquist is one of the most celebrated artists of our time. Known for his leadership in the American Pop Art movement, James Rosenquist began his career as a billboard painter in New York City. This experience inspired him to work on a large scale. With bright Day-Glo colors and a sleek aesthetic, Rosenquist’s early work juxtaposed fragmented images derived from advertising to create enigmatic, thought- provoking narratives that foster a dialogue about consumer culture.
Alexander Liberman, “After Image : Paintings and Sculpture from the1950’s” at Mitchell Inness and Nash, 1018 Madison Ave, through Oct 26, miandn.com
The 1950’s are considered to be Liberman’s most significant period, as he continued to refine the signature hard-edged, geometric style that he had developed in the previous decade. Liberman was keenly interested in exploring negation of traditional composition and the subject, eschewing any reference to images in his painting. He sought to make art that was clear, legible and direct.
Andrew Wyeth at Gerald Peters Gallery, 24 East 78 St, gpgallery.com
The work of Andrew Wyeth (1917 – 2009), one of the best know US artists of the mid 20th century, will be presented at Gerald Peters Gallery.
Dividing his time between Pennsylvania and Maine, his favorite subject matter was the landscape and people around him.
Wyeth maintained an iconic realist style for over 50 years.
Picasso Black and White, at the Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Ave, Oct 5 to Jan 23, Guggenheim.org
Surveying the Spanish master’s oeuvre from 1904 to 1971, Picasso Black and White examines the artist’s lifelong exploration of a black-and-white palette through 118 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Picasso’s deceptively simple use of isolated black, white, and gray hues belies the extraordinary complexity and power of these expressive works, which purge color in order to highlight their formal structure. The exhibition traces the artist’s unique vision thematically throughout his whole body of work, including early monochromatic blue and rose paintings, gray-toned Cubist canvases, elegant and austere neoclassical portraits and nudes, Surrealist-inspired figures, forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, allegorical still lives, vivid interpretations of art-historical masterpieces, and the electric, highly sexualized canvases of Picasso’s last years.
“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years”, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, through Dec 31, metmuseum.org
For decades, critics have observed that Andy Warhol exerted an enormous impact on contemporary art, but no exhibition has yet explored the full nature or extent of that influence. Through approximately forty-five works by Warhol alongside one hundred works by some sixty other artists, Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years juxtaposes prime examples of Warhol’s paintings, sculpture, and films with those by other artists who in key ways reinterpret, respond, or react to his groundbreaking work. What emerges is a fascinating dialogue between works of art and artists across generations.
Richard Artschwager at the Whitney Museum, 945 Madison Ave, Oct 25 to Feb 3, whitney.org
Richard Artschwager’s first solo exhibition was in 1965 at the age of forty-two at Leo Castelli Gallery. Since then his work has been shown throughout the world, and his enigmatic and diverse oeuvre has been influential, yet not thoroughly understood. This exhibition is a comprehensive review of Artschwager’s remarkable creative exploration of the mediums of sculpture, painting, and drawing and the first retrospective exhibition of Artschwager’s work since one organized at the Whitney in 1988.