Tag: metmuseum

Alvar Aalto in “Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

International style architecture and Bauhaus design strongly influenced late Finnish architect Alvar Aalto’s influential bent plywood furniture, sourced from his country’s birch and pine forests.  His famous ‘Paimio chair,’ designed for a tuberculosis hospital in Paimio, Finland, and now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fascinating group exhibition, “Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains,” was angled to allow patients to better breathe and cough.  Material choices along with color and other considerations were essential elements in Aalto’s and his wife Aino’s designs, aimed at meeting the needs of individuals.  (Ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side).

Alvar Aalto, ‘Model No. 41’ Lounge Chair for the Paimio Sanatorium, laminated birch, 1931-32.

Cecily Brown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cecily Brown’s energetic brushwork comes to a boil at the center of her 2006-08 painting, Memento Mori I, a highlight of her current retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.   The museum identifies the roiling mass of white, blue and pinkish tones in the foreground as a tablecloth and place settings being yanked from the table, a reference to an English poem meant to instruct young people not to tip their chairs back.  Elsewhere, a female nude dances with death (inspired by an Edvard Munch print), a tabletop still life proffers an enormous, blood red lobster claw and the heads of two children are positioned to form a skull.  Such reminders of mortality and offers of moral instruction recall highlights from the Met’s historic European painting collections, suggesting the themes’ the continued resonance.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Dec 3rd).

Cecily Brown, Memento Mori I, oil on linen, 2006-08.

Simone Leigh in ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina’

Simone Leigh’s monumental ‘Large Jug’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina’ draws on the historic and influential pottery produced by enslaved Africans in Old Edgefield prior to the Civil War.  The Met’s current show includes vessels used for food preparation and storage as well as a selection of face jugs, pottery vessels bearing human likenesses and having ritual significance.  In Leigh’s version, facial features have been replaced by large cowrie shells that hint at eyes or mouths but also point to the past use of the shells as currency.  (On view through Feb 5th, 2023).

Simone Leigh, Large Jug, glazed stoneware, 62 1/2 × 40 3/4 × 45 ¾,’21 – 22.

‘Chroma’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

See Greek and Roman sculpture like never before in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new show ‘Chroma,’ which presents reconstructions of ancient sculpture in vivid tones based on traces of original pigment.  Using tools like multispectral photography, German professor Dr V. Brinkmann and Dr U. Koch-Brinkmann of the Liebieghaus sculpture collection in Frankfurt, Germany reveal how ancient Mediterranean cultures favored vibrant color.  Join me on a Met Museum highlights tour to see these works and more.  (On view through March 26th, 2023).

Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann, Reconstruction of a marble statue of a woman wrapping herself in a mantle (so-called Small Herculaneum Woman). Marble stucco on plaster cast, natural pigments in egg tempera, gold foil, 2019.

Carrie Moyer’s ‘Pirate Jenny’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is switching up its contemporary galleries regularly these days in an exciting change from past years.  For the last month, this lush, abstract painting by Brooklyn-based painter, writer and activist Carrie Moyer has enticed mezzanine visitors, celebrating Pride Month and offering up pure visual pleasure.  Titled ‘Pirate Jenny,’ the piece refers to a song in Bertoldt Brecht and Kurt Will’s ‘Three Penny Opera’ about a hotel maid who triumphs over her scornful fellow townspeople, sailing away to happiness.

Carrie Moyer, Pirate Jenny, acrylic, glitter, and graphite on canvas, 2012.