The new MoMA opens. Cherished works return to the walls of the galleries in brand new frames, while curators and artists watch the completion of the reinstallation. After being closed for four months, MoMA reopens its doors to the public.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:13 – Associate sculpture conservator Roger Griffith and sculpture conservation fellow Joy Bloser clean Arthur Young’s Bell-47D1 Helicopter.
0:52 – Senior curator of Painting and Sculpture Anne Umland and chief curator of Painting and Sculpture Ann Temkin oversee the hanging of Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”
1:20 – Peter Perez, frame shop foreman, discusses “The Starry Night’s” new, black frame.
2:53 – Artist Amy Sillman explains how she curated and arranged “The Shape of Shape,” part of the long-running Artist’s Choice exhibition series in which artists selects works to show from the Museum’s collection
4:17 – Photography curator Sarah Meister and conservator Lee Ann Daffner adjust the lighting on Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s “Rome. Arch of Septimus Severus and Capitoline Lion.”
5:02 – Senior deputy director of exhibitions and collections Ramona Bronkar Bannayan and director of exhibition design and production Lana Hum make a final checklist of things to accomplish before the opening.
5:32 – Artist Betye Saar sees her exhibition for the first time.
7:11 – Manager of enterprise applications Rik Vanmechelen and developer Ryan Sprott check the new ticket machines.
8:04 – Chief facilities and safety officer Tunji Adeniji welcomes the public to the new MoMA on opening day.
8:30 – Silent film accompanist Ben Model improvises a live piano soundtrack for Frank Powell’s 1915 film “A Fool There Was.”
9:12 – Security supervisor Chet Gold greets volunteer Fred Liberman. Gold returns to his favorite room in the new MoMA.
The mind of Leonardo
While all of the works on exhibit hold special interest, Aurisch identifies several gems. For example, Van Gogh fans will enjoy his spectacular perspectival rooftop view from the window of his room in The Hague in 1882. Maurice de Vlaminc’s 1906 Dancer at the “Rat Mort” (La danseuse du “Rat Mort”) is a delight with his Fauve treatment of the figure; through color and gestural line, it’s as though we are witnessing a shift into the 20th century. And Henri Matisse’s 1943 still life titled Lemons against a Fleur-de-lis Background (Citrons sur fond rose fleurdelisé) vibrates with lively pink patterned wallpaper and a stacked brick platform, charged with Japonisme energy.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Since opening its doors on October 21, 1959, the architectural icon has inspired countless visitors and is widely seen as Wright’s masterpiece.
Born in Bologna in 1552, Lavinia Fontana is often considered to be the first professional woman painter; she was the first to be accepted into the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and supported her family throughout her life by gaining prestigious commissions for portraits in the city. This self-portrait has been interpreted as a wedding painting; it was completed in the year of Fontana’s marriage to Giovan Paolo Zappi, a fellow artist who became her agent and manager.
Sofonisba Anguissola was born into an aristocratic family from Cremona in around 1532; she travelled to Rome as a young woman, where her talent was recognised by Michelangelo, and in 1559 became lady-in-waiting to Elisabeth de Valois, Queen of Spain (and a keen amateur painter). She became a court painter to Philip II, and remained at court for some 15 years – at least until her marriage to a Sicilian nobleman after Elisabeth’s death in 1568, for which Philip II provided the dowry. Here she portrays Anna of Austria, who became Queen of Spain after Philip remarried in 1570.
Part of the Prado’s bicentenary celebrations, this exhibition looks at two of the most significant women artists of the Renaissance. Though born into very different social classes, both Lavinia Fontana and Sofonisba Anguissola rose to heights of prestige that had not previously been scaled by women painters – Fontana at the Vatican, and Anguissola at the Spanish court.
Warhol, with obvious self-deprecation, described his philosophy as spanning from A to B. As this exhibition decidedly proves, his thinking and artistic production ranged well beyond that, but his true genius lies in his ability to identify cultural patterns and to use repetition, distortion, and recycled images in a way that challenges our faith in images and questions the meaning of our cultural icons.
The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I examines the profound significance of European armor at the dawn of the Renaissance, through the lens of Emperor Maximilian I’s (1459–1519) remarkable life. On view only at The Met, The Last Knight coincides with the five-hundredth anniversary of Maximilian’s death, and is the most ambitious North American loan exhibition of European arms and armor in decades. Including 180 objects selected from some thirty public and private collections in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, The Last Knight will explore how Maximilian’s unparalleled passion for the trappings and ideals of knighthood served his boundless worldly ambitions, imaginative stratagems, and resolute efforts to forge a lasting personal and family legacy.
The plans for the venue were previously
Rediscovered in the late 19th century, celebrated by authors, acknowledged and embraced by the 20th century avant-garde, the artist has enjoyed the dual prestige of tradition and modernity, linking Titian to the Fauvists and Mannerism to Cubism, Expressionism, Vorticism and Abstraction up to the Action painting.