Tag: guggenheim

Cecilia Vicuna at the Guggenheim Museum

Killed for objecting to mining and dam projects, Indigenous women activists Berta Caceres (top) and Maria Taant (right) are honored in Cecilia Vicuna’s ‘Liderezas (Indigenous Women Leaders)’ painting, now on view in Vicunas’ retrospective at the Guggenheim.  Made in 2022 for this exhibition, the painting also pictures Nemonte Nenquimo at center, who has successfully led her community in resisting the destructive advances of oil companies in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chilean activist Elisa Loncon and Peruvian activist Maxima Acuna. Together, the museum explains, their arrangement forms the Southern Cross constellation, metaphorically guiding humans to exist harmoniously with each other and nature.  (On view through Sept 5th).

Cecilia Vicuna, Liderezas (Indigenous Women Leaders), oil on canvas, 2022.

Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks at the Guggenheim Museum

Known for bringing private lives into the public realm through projects like her iconic 1992-3 ‘Signs,’ for which strangers posed with signs sharing their personal thoughts, British conceptual artist Gillian Wearing continues to probe beyond the surface in recent work on view in her career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum.  Based on mid-to late 19th century French artist Henri Fantin-Latour’s ‘La Lecture (The Reading),’ Wearing’s update includes herself on the left, not just listening to the reading, but gazing intently upon the reader.  Fantin-Latour’s characters famously exist in their private worlds, not always connecting with each other. Wearing, on the other hand, is absorbed by the world inhabited by her companion.  (On view on the Upper East Side through April, ’22).

Gillian Wearing, Me in History – A Conversation with the Work of Fantin-Latour, oil on canvas, 2021.

Rudolf Bauer in ‘The Museum of Non-Objective Painting’ at Leila Heller Gallery

Leila Heller Gallery compliments the Guggenheim’s current ‘Visionaries’ exhibition with a show featuring artworks by early 20th century ‘non-objective’ painters, including mature works by German avant-gardist Rudolf Bauer. Though this painting from the ‘30s brings to mind a planet on the left and the built environment to the right, Bauer’s focus was art as expression of the spirit. (In Chelsea through March 4th).

Rudolf Bauer, Green Form, oil on canvas, 51 ¼ x 66 7/8 inches, 1936.
Rudolf Bauer, Green Form, oil on canvas, 51 ¼ x 66 7/8 inches, 1936.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Guggenheim

Hungarian avant-garde artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy used camera-less photography to create experimental pictures like this one, for which he put his own face and glasses against light-sensitive paper in the darkroom and made multiple exposures to create this ghostly image. (At the Guggenheim in ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’ through Sept 7th).

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Photogram (Moonface), (Self-Portrait in Profile), gelatin silver print (enlarged from a photogram), 1926, printed 1935.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Photogram (Moonface), (Self-Portrait in Profile), gelatin silver print (enlarged from a photogram), 1926, printed 1935.

Rokni Haerizadeh in ‘A Storm is Blowing From Paradise’ at the Guggenheim Museum

Painting over You Tube video stills, Iranian artist Rokni Haerizadeh morphs familiar imagery into a setting for mythological creatures inspired by Persian tradition. Here, a building echoes the Guggenheim’s spiraling form but is surrounded by emergency vehicles, one of which has partially changed into a fish. (At the Guggenheim, in ‘A Storm is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa’ through Oct 5th).

Rokni Haerizadeh, one piece from the 24-part work ‘But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise,’ gesso, watercolor and ink on inkjet prints, 2014.
Rokni Haerizadeh, one piece from the 24-part work ‘But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise,’ gesso, watercolor and ink on inkjet prints, 2014.