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The groundbreaking exhibition, The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, explores the far-reaching and everyday ways in which Black artists portrayed modern life. Through some 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography, film, and ephemera, the new Black culture was taking shape.
This is the most wickedly playful of the three panels—a group tableau created at Warhol’s Factory over a period of months, with several outtakes on display over the span. A careful study on the left reveals filmmaker Paul Morrissey possessively placing his hand on the shoulder of the naked Joe Dellesandro and to the far right, Warhol positioned with his now clothed protegee behind him.
Dressing for Carnival,(1877) features a Black man being sewn into his Harlequin costume by family members for a traditional African celebration. Is this a promise of better times for these former slaves, which the wall notes suggest? Perhaps. A helpful hint to visitors would be to let the magnitude of the art speak for itself first, then use the history lesson as needed. A good example is The Cotton Pickers (1876). A pair of hardy muscle-bound women fills the canvas. Their dark forms cut into the foreground, contrasted by the clusters of snowy cotton in their shoulder bags. The image needs no explanation.
Every movement of consequence, however far-reaching, has a beginning. Surrealism’s birth was full-blown from the mind of French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who in 1917 was quoted about this new spirit in the air thusly: “When a man wanted to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. Without knowing it, he was a Surrealist.” But it was Andre Breton who appropriated the word in his Manifesto and set himself up for over 50 years as its leading proponent.
Alice Neel's long overdue retrospective, People Come First, is currently drawing hordes of visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s no surprise, considering she based her entire life and career around the intimates and strangers that surrounded her. Every class, race, and gender came under her razor-sharp gaze. And no human being encountering her subjects comes away unscathed.
The Oxbow, The Connecticut River near Northampton (1836) is one of the central masterpieces of this exhibit, once again addressing nature untamed with the inevitable advent of civilization. A darkly vulnerable landscape is played out against the order of agriculture, with crops growing in the calm of a sun-stroked sky. It’s a gorgeous composition, the eye traversing the snaking river throughout.
Unquestionably, this is one exhibition that gives the viewer plenty to look at. As a walk along history’s treadmill, it divvies up a rich array of humanity—replete with all its smiles and snarls. Samuel G. Szabo (1854-61) was an early bird who snagged shoplifters, wife beaters, pickpockets, burglars and highwaymen in his lens, then meticulously placed them in an album with oval cutout frames and descriptions in the finest calligraphy.
Nestled next to the expansive, multi-floor exhibit, however, is the Japanese wing housing a long-term show dedicated to the process by which the Met was able to collect art and artifacts from Japan since the 19th century. Being acquainted with the Japanese wing of the museum might instill some disappointment as there are not a whole lot of new additions to see or information to know – however, if you go without the expectation of seeing a new take on their collection, you can have a pleasurable and familiar experience while engaging with a bit of back story.