Tag Archives: whitney museum

Modern Art Monday Presents: Trade By Jaune Quick-To-See Smith

trade by jaune quick to see smith photo by gail worley
Photos By Gail

Trade (Gifts For Trading Land With White People) (1992) is the first painting, in which Native American artist Jaune Quick-To-See Smith depicted a trade canoe, a subject she frequently returns to. Here, Smith uses the painted canoe as a vehicle for examining the history of exploitation in this country, which she underscores with collaged photocopies of old photographs, zoological illustrations, and clippings from newspapers and magazines – many from the publication of her reservation, Char-Koosta News.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Trade By Jaune Quick-To-See Smith

Modern Art Monday Presents: The Death of American Spiritualty by David Wojnarowicz

death of american spiritualty photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

The Death of American Spiritualty (1987) by David Wojnarowicz (19541992) contains a number of the artist’s recurring symbols and imagery densely layered in a single composition. With its radically juxtaposed motifs that suggest different temporalities — from geological landforms to emblems of the American West and the Industrial Revolution — the mythical tableau depicts destruction proliferating alongside technological advancement and geographic conquest.

Photographed in The Whitney Museum in NYC.

Modern Art Monday Presents: Julie Mehretu, Hineni (E. 3:4)

julie mehretu hineni photo by gail worley
Photos By Gail

In many of her recent works, Julie Mehretu confronts extreme global events and their impact on our senses of time, space, and belonging. She based Hineni (2018)on images of the 2017 northern California wildfires, and the burning of Rohingya homes in Myanmar, as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Julie Mehretu, Hineni (E. 3:4)

Modern Art Monday Presents: Lynda Benglis, Contraband

lynda benglis contraband photo by gail worley
All Photos By Gail

Lynda Benglis‘ work of poured latex takes painting to an extreme. Despite employing a medium, that is not itself paint, Benglis nonetheless draws attention to paint’s essential, primary properties: color and liquidity. To make Contraband (1969), the artist created, mixtures of powdered pigment and latex in 5-gallon cans that she then poured and let run on the floor with minimal intervention. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Lynda Benglis, Contraband

Modern Art Monday Presents: Edward Hopper, New York Movie

edward hopper ny movie photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

The only painting in which Edward Hopper depicts a cinema screen, New York Movie (1939) is one of the artist’s most compelling and spatially complex theater pictures. This work depicts three distinct features within the movie house: the screen, the moviegoers watching it, and the usher tasked with watching them. The space itself is an amalgam of hoppers on-site research from four New York theaters: the Globe, Palace, Republic, and Strand. Hopper’s wife, Jo, who posed for both the usher and the audience members, noted Edward’s struggle in bringing this painting together: “it is such a difficult subject…Not to be there as he looks – not even taken from any one theater – bits from all of them.” Examples from the 53 extant sketches show both the design flourishes characteristic to each theater, as well as certain architectural typologies common to all.

Photographed as part of the Exhibit Hopper’s New York on View at  the Whitney Museum, New York City, Through March 5th, 2023.