Hildreth Meiere, Rediscovering an Art Deco Powerhouse

On June 15, 1976, in the midst of summer celebrations of the Bicentennial in Philadelphia, Hannah Wilke performed Hannah Wilke Through the Large Glass at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). Wilke’s performance was site-specific, as she positioned her body behind Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-23, to subversively enact a deconstructed striptease. The permanent installation of Duchamp’s Large Glass at the PMA was the result of Anne d’Harnoncourt’s – the Curator of Twentieth Century Art at the PMA from 1972-82 and Director from 1982-2008 – redesign of the Twentieth Century Galleries in the early 1970s. In this paper, I argue for the importance of d’Harnoncourt’s, and by extension the PMA’s, role in creating a progressive museum space to both encourage a dialogue between American and transnational artists of the early and later twentieth-century, and to foster the development of contemporary American artists. By promoting a body/object-based interaction between Wilke and Duchamp (a French avant-garde artist who became a United States citizen in 1955), d’Harnoncourt dually pushed for recognition of the pivotal role of transnationalism in the development of twentieth-century American art and the importance of activating the space of the museum for contemporary artists and audiences. d’Harnoncourt’s role as an innovative curator and scholar is still understudied; it is my intention with this paper to highlight her contribution to contemporary American art, specifically read through the lens of her experimental curatorial practices at the PMA and full-fledged support of Wilke’s transgressive performance Hannah Wilke Through the Large Glass.

OCTOBER, 2007

1998

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden is pleased to present Sheldon Solo: Carol Haerer, The White Paintings, an exhibition featuring Carol Haerer's white paintings of the mid to late 1960s. This exhibition is the most recent installment of the "Sheldon Solo" exhibition series, a series established in 1988 to feature the work of important American artists within the context of the Sheldon Gallery's nationally recognized collection of 20th-century American Art. A midwestern native who attended Doane College and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Carol Haerer studied in Paris on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1955, and after receiving an M.F.A. from the University of California-Berkeley, she moved to New York. It was in New York where she began to paint intensely subtle white paintings which received considerable critical attention in the late sixties, in part because they seemed to offer a way out of what was perceived by many in the artworld to be the straightjacket of Minimalism. But the critical attention they received in the sixties has rarely been noted by art historians, who have tended to evaluate painting or sculpture from this period by the theoretical standards of Minimalism. But as "minimal" as Haerer's paintings appear at first blush, they are images, even atmospheres, but not "objects." This exhibition offers an opportunity for our audience actually "to experience" these paintings as they were intended to be viewed, as an aesthetic environment.

Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, 2018

More often identified with his images of landscapes, marine scenes, and gardens, the diverse roles which buildings and manmade structures played in Claude Monet's art have received considerably less critical attention and hence, the impetus behind The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Monet and Architecture at the National Gallery. Confidently proclaimed in the press release materials as a "rare thing" and a "landmark show," the exhibition admirably lived up to the marketing hyperbole for the most part. As the first monographic exhibition of the Impressionist's paintings to be staged in London for more than two decades, it justifiably merited the publicity and the unanimous praise in the British press, but the extent of its "unique and surprising" angle might not have been fully appreciated by audiences familiar with the artist's iconic images of Rouen Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster, and the vast iron-clad roof of the Gare St. Lazare. However, as the organizing curator Professor Richard Thomson (University of Edinburgh) explained in an interview, the "new" which Monet and Architecture brings to the scholarship and the attention of visitors, is a reappraisal of Monet's pictorial practice through the investigation of the "different aspects and uses of architecture" in his work. [1] To that end, representations of motifs ranging from rustic Dutch windmills to majestic palazzi were thematically categorized under Thomson's conceptual framework of "The Village & the Picturesque," "The City & the Modern," and "The Monument & the Mysterious." These thematic essays addressed Monet's responses to a society that was rapidly undergoing transformative political, cultural, and technological changes during his lifetime. Spread across seven rooms in the Sainsbury Wing galleries, the panoramic scope of the exhibition encompassed over seventy-seven canvases spanning Monet's prolific career from his early beginnings in his hometown by the Normandy coast in the 1860s-70s to the labyrinthine canals of Venice in 1908. Set against an industrial grey ground, the modern typeface and minimalist title on the curvilinear entrance wall boldly announced the exhibition's overarching theme (fig. 1). The introductory précis on the text panel highlighted the pictorial, picturesque, and psychological facets of architecture in Monet's oeuvre. Nearby, a stand containing booklets in multiple languages replaced traditional wall labels. These were content rich and included both a chronology and maps pinpointing where Monet worked throughout Europe, but in light of his practice of returning to the same motifs years apart, labels with dates would have offered visitors a clearer chronological sense. "The Village and The Picturesque I" was the first of three rooms that illuminated the affinities between Monet's landscapes and the picturesque: an aesthetic tradition originating in eighteenth-century England which extolled the beauty

More often identified with his images of landscapes, marine scenes, and gardens, the diverse roles which buildings and manmade structures played in Claude Monet's art have received considerably less critical attention and hence, the impetus behind The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Monet and Architecture at the National Gallery. Confidently proclaimed in the press release materials as a "rare thing" and a "landmark show," the exhibition admirably lived up to the marketing hyperbole for the most part. As the first monographic exhibition of the Impressionist's paintings to be staged in London for more than two decades, it justifiably merited the publicity and the unanimous praise in the British press, but the extent of its "unique and surprising" angle might not have been fully appreciated by audiences familiar with the artist's iconic images of Rouen Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster, and the vast iron-clad roof of the Gare St. Lazare. However, as the organizing curator Professor Richard Thomson (University of Edinburgh) explained in an interview, the "new" which Monet and Architecture brings to the scholarship and the attention of visitors, is a reappraisal of Monet's pictorial practice through the investigation of the "different aspects and uses of architecture" in his work. [1] To that end, representations of motifs ranging from rustic Dutch windmills to majestic palazzi were thematically categorized under Thomson's conceptual framework of "The Village & the Picturesque," "The City & the Modern," and "The Monument & the Mysterious." These thematic essays addressed Monet's responses to a society that was rapidly undergoing transformative political, cultural, and technological changes during his lifetime. Spread across seven rooms in the Sainsbury Wing galleries, the panoramic scope of the exhibition encompassed over seventy-seven canvases spanning Monet's prolific career from his early beginnings in his hometown by the Normandy coast in the 1860s-70s to the labyrinthine canals of Venice in 1908. Set against an industrial grey ground, the modern typeface and minimalist title on the curvilinear entrance wall boldly announced the exhibition's overarching theme (fig. 1). The introductory précis on the text panel highlighted the pictorial, picturesque, and psychological facets of architecture in Monet's oeuvre. Nearby, a stand containing booklets in multiple languages replaced traditional wall labels. These were content rich and included both a chronology and maps pinpointing where Monet worked throughout Europe, but in light of his practice of returning to the same motifs years apart, labels with dates would have offered visitors a clearer chronological sense. "The Village and The Picturesque I" was the first of three rooms that illuminated the affinities between Monet's landscapes and the picturesque: an aesthetic tradition originating in eighteenth-century England which extolled the beauty

In April 2016, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened architect Marcel Breuer's iconic ziggurat building on Madison Avenue, leased for eight years from its former occupant, the Whitney Museum of American Art. Rebranded the Met Breuer, the building has undergone a $15 million renovation restoring it as close as possible to Breuer's original design, and repositioning the iconic building as both an interface for, and object within, the Met's collection. The Whitney Museum meanwhile has relocated to a purpose-built museum designed by architect Renzo Piano in New York's Meatpacking District, after decades of mostly unrealised plans by Michael Graves, Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano to extend the original. In what appears to be a high-stakes game of musical chairs, the Met Breuer presents a very different kind of museum expansion and raises questions around the practice of collecting modernist architecture and its place in the curatorial strategies and approaches of encyclopaedic museums. Built in 1966, Breuer's monumental design for the Whitney Museum asserted the dominance of American modern art to the world and at the same time, took on qualities of minimalist sculpture. The architect himself acknowledged this relationship when publicly presenting the designs in 1963: " … all this is to form the building itself as a sculpture. However a sculpture with rather serious functional requirements… ". The Met's treatment of the former Whitney Museum building not only elevates the historical significance of the building, but also amplifies the place of twentieth century American architecture within the Met's encyclopaedic collection. As such, this paper will investigate the changing status of Breuer's building, from Whitney Museum to Met Breuer, as part of a broader trend of museums collecting modernist architecture, and the effect this has on architecture's historical and cultural value.

MODERN ART BY JEWS WAS NEITHER A REBELLION NOR A REVOLUTION: A COMPARISON STUDY OF ARTISTS MARC CHAGALL AND REUVEN RUBIN, 2013

Modern art by Jews was neither defiant nor rebellious. Instead, I believe that modern art for European Jewish artists was a natural outgrowth of strong oral and written Jewish traditions that encourage self-exploration and personal spirituality and provide for individual and collective survival. Therefore, that an unprecedented trend of influential modern Jewish artists and other central figures contributed to the avant-garde is unsurprising. Looking at modern art by Jews from this time would be remiss without considering Marc Chagall and Reuven Rubin. Much of Chagall’s art pays homage to his Jewish roots and his connection to them. In contrast, Rubin’s art represents the new contemporary Jewish culture—one that is deeply connected to the land of Israel. Comparing their experiences and philosophies and how they are depicted in their art can help give us a deeper appreciation of the contributions made by Jewish artists to modern art.