Marlene Dietrich simmers with irritation in a photo by Irvin Penn, the face of Georg Baselitz’s mother is both frightful and beautiful with purple, red and yellow color, and Piet Mondrian breaks his own profile down into a robot-like assemblage of flat planes in 125 Newbury’s absorbing group exhibition ‘Face Values’ in Tribeca. From mechanical to emotive, around twenty visages from the 20th – 21st century employ a variety of techniques – from Zhang Huan’s ash on linen to Julian Schnabel’s broken crockery – to explore the expressive quality of the human face. Here, Elizabeth Peyton’s portrait of John Lydon portrays the 70’s Sex Pistol’s singer in a thoughtful pose at odds with the punk’s public persona. (On view in Tribeca through July 28th).
Elizabeth Peyton, John Lydon, oil on canvas, 1994.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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