In our ongoing series of reviews of exhibitions around the world that we personally visit, we move from the retrospective of the abstract works of Agnes Martin at LACMA in California last year to a century earlier and a retrospective in Spain of Pierre Auguste Renoir.  You may recall that the presence of such artist’s works in acclaimed museum collections such as the Norton Simon, BFA and the Met were the subject of protests in the U.S. in 2015 with organizers calling his work “aesthetic terrorism” (See FB Oct 17, 2015 post).

Despite such objections, it appears that the artist’s reputation and popularity remain alive and well as evidenced by the success of the first retrospective exhibition held in Spain of his work, entitled Renoir: Intimacy that just closed at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and has moved on to the Museu de Bellas Artes de Bilbao from Feb 7 to May 15 2017.

While most of us associate Renoir with outdoor group scenes of frolicking Parisians, this survey exhibition of 78 works from public and private collections around the world presents a wide range of genres ranging from portraits, nudes, still life to landscape.

As indicated by the theme and title, the retrospective emphasizes the artist’s compelling sense of intimacy produced not only via subject, setting and technique (emphasis on physical proximity with close-ups of the model), but notably through Renoir’s focus on the tactile sensation created by his use of volume, material and texture.

And while Renoir’s fleshy nudes of his later period continue to be the subject of controversy amongst critics, and others have disparaged his many portraits of women as saccharine, even the doubters have to admire the serious tenor, dignified beauty and impressive technique of the exhibit’s lesser known realist portraits of his earlier periods such as the Portrait of Marie-Zelie LaPorte seen here.

Interestingly, there are also a number of portraits of Renoir’s family members and domestic servants that provide intimate insights into the painter’s personal life and influences.

Perhaps, the most surprising and refreshing body of works were the small landscapes of France and Italy painted by Renoir as a means of escaping the stresses of executing figurative works that were the overwhelming mainstay of his oeuvre. With landscapes, Renoir could experiment freely with color and his creative techniques.

More importantly, consistent with the intent of the exhibit curators and organizers, the retrospective invites the viewer to not only appreciate the visual elements of Renoir’s work, but to savor the sensory delights presented by room after room of works that bombard all of the senses from sight to touch to sound. Indeed, the exhibit culminates in an installation that includes a sound track coupled with a reproduction in relief of a landscape (Woman with a Parasol in a Garden) that beckons the viewer to touch the painting and experience its textures and smell the array of flowers depicted there in the garden (fragrances are contained in various containers) while listening to the breeze and buzzing of bees and children’s voices contained in the audio guide.

Although there is no substitute for seeing the exhibition in person which I was thrilled to do during my recent trip to Spain, take a few minutes and enjoy the museum’s virtual tour or consider taking that trip to Barcelona that you have been contemplating!

Shannon Robinson is the curator and chairperson of the biannual exhibition Windows to the Divine and the annual symposia by Collectors for Connoisseurship (Oct 13-15, 2017 in NYC).

More about Shannon…

With the approach of our 2016 symposium and exhibition Abstraction & Representation: Finding Common Ground (Nov 17-Dec 3) at Space Gallery, we wanted to encourage our artists and collectors to learn more about Agnes Martin (1912-2004), one of the pioneers of abstraction.  Martin’s legacy is explored in a wide ranging retrospective organized by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf and Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York.  The Agnes Martin Exhibition is the first retrospective of Martin’s work in the U.S. since 1992 and was presented at LACMA this year from April to September.  For those who missed this extraordinary exhibition, it can be seen at the Guggenheim in NYC from Oct 7-Jan 11, 2017.

From her earlier biomorphic abstraction to the grids and striped canvases that made her famous, in room after room the viewer experiences her strong yet delicate and restrained works in which she sought to instill “beauty, innocence and happiness.” LACMA Exhibition Advisory. In the 1960’s, her groundbreaking grid paintings employing gently inscribed pencil grid lines onto monochromatic surfaces became a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism.

Martin withdrew from the art world from 1967-1973 settling in a remote mesa of New Mexico, but returned to painting in 1974. Influenced by the desert landscape, for the next 30 years, Martin would refine her aesthetic employing “six-foot square canvases marked by bands or stripes of acrylic wash finely outlined in graphite.” LACMA Exhibition Advisory.

Indeed, Martin’s works are so fine and subtle that they simply must be viewed in person so if you are headed to NYC in the coming months, be sure to stop in at the Guggenheim.

Shannon Robinson is the curator and chairperson of the national biennial exhibition Windows to the Divine (Nov 17-Dec 3, 2016) and the annual symposia sponsored by Collectors for Connoisseurship (2015 Denver Art Museum; 2016 Space Gallery; 2017 NYC).

More about Shannon…

When the Whitney Museum of American Art moved to its new location downtown in 2015, the Metropolitan Museum expanded from its iconic 5^th Avenue location to include the vacated 1966 building designed by Marcel Breuer located at E. 75^th and Madison.  Opened on March 18, 2016, the intent of the newly leased space is to expand the Met’s modern and contemporary visual and performing arts program through monographic and thematic exhibitions and performances such as the current solo exhibition of the works of deceased abstract artist Nasreen Mohamedi.  But, in a twist that distinguishes these endeavors from its competitors such as MoMA, the Breuer also draws upon many of its own important pre-20^th century historical works and loaned works to present new comparative viewer experiences that underscore the relevance and appreciation of art history.

In the inaugural exhibition “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible” the Met Breuer does what only a museum with the depth of the Met can do and that is to hang 550 years of art history from the Renaissance to the present in a way that unites old and new in more than just a chronological timeline.  In this exhibition, visitors are faced with 197 “unfinished” works by masters ranging from Titian, Michelangelo, Rubens and Rembrandt to Monet, Degas and Cezanne to Picasso, Freud, Pollock and Neel, to name but a few.

With each work, the viewer is asked to consider whether the work is unfinished or finished and in so doing to focus both on technical execution of the work and the intent of the artist.  And while some works are clearly “unfinished” such as the work above by Albrecht  Dürer, others appear to adopt an intentioned lack of finish such as Ferdinand Hodler’s 1915 watercolor of his deceased mistresss where the unfinished purposely conveys the finish of a life.

Exploring the age old debate about whether certain historical works were finished or not, the Met Breuer showcases select works for multiple purposes.  First, many of the unfinished works invite the viewer to investigate the artist’s process such as this Self-Portrait (2002) by Lucian Freud in which the artist’s layering and build-up of paint to produce realistic flesh-like colors and facial features is evident.

Similarly, in the work below by Gustav Klimt, with its underdrawing and contrast between its completed and uncompleted sections, the viewer is provided insight into the stages of his portraits for which Klimt became famous.  Second, this work and many others give the curators the opportunity to tell the viewer why the painting remained unfinished.  Here, the viewer learns that the subject (Ria Munk) was a young woman who committed suicide before the commission and that the artist died before he could complete the work.  A wide range of stories are told, perhaps for the first time, enriching the viewer’s experience.

Finally, “unfinished” works are used by the curators to show how artists throughout the centuries intentionally chose the unfinished to experiment and adopt important aesthetic alternatives to the traditional view of finish.  By using seemingly unfinished approaches, artists could be more expressive and convey spontaneity and even challenge the viewer to use his/her own imagination to complete the concept.  In this work by Picasso, the artist has purposely painted the focal point with great detail while leaving the margins “unfinished” and yet he considered the work finished as evidenced by his signature.

So, on your next foray to the Big Apple, be sure to take in this new Met experience!

Shannon Robinson is the curator and chairperson of the national biennial exhibition Windows to the Divine (Nov. 17-Dec. 13, 2016) and the national symposia sponsored by Collectors for Connoisseurship (Nov. 2015 at Denver Art Museum and Oct. NYC 2017).  More about Shannon…