After the Venice Biennale, you cannot miss visiting the one that has been held since 1932 in New York. We talk about the Whitney Biennial – one of the most anticipated contemporary art exhibitions at an international level.
The theme chosen for this 2024 edition is Even better than the real thing – Much better than reality – and he understands well 71 protagonists, between individual and collective artists. As can be understood from the title, the focus of the artistic research proposed in the works on display is what can go beyond the edges of reality, expanding and potentially improving what already exists on this world. New technologies and artificial intelligence are in the spotlight, alongside profound reflections on the body and identity: queerness, blackness, and the meaning of being a mother. These and many others are the topics covered: seminal works that lay the basis for future readings of contemporary society, and the impacts that new scientific and social trends can generate on it.
Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art
Until August 11, 2024
For the first time ever, MOMA dedicates a large exhibition event to the investigation of Latin American design developed after the Second World War. A large-scale exhibition, which includes more than 100 objects and furnishings. All made in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.
The aim of the project is to offer the public the opportunity to discover a little explored theme – that of South American design – as well as emblematic in its role as a social mirror. Through the proposed pieces it is in fact possible to retrace the historical events and the transformations that characterized Latin America in those years. From the interruption of imports of furniture from Europe, which occurred during the War, to the support for local production demonstrated by the new Governments in the following period.
Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940-1980
MOMA
Until September 22, 2024
Very normal objects – the ones we all use in everyday life – which become works of art thanks to the power of photography. This is the theme of the major exhibition underway in recent months at Met new Yorker. Cans, hats, even toothpaste tubes. Nothingbanal and without economic value, and yet very precious to the eyes of the visitor (and even more so of the consumer). It is the paradox that lies at the basis of advertising photography which took hold between the two Wars in the last century. A magic trick made of saturated colours, carefully studied backgrounds and lights, capable of making any kind of product attractive to the average consumer.
The works that are part of the second major exhibition at the MET date back to the same era, in which Post-World War I American society is immortalized by African-American painters. An interesting reading of the reality of the time, which illustrates the development of the New York neighborhood of Harlem and the other cities that welcomed all the newly freed ex-slaves coming from the plantations of the South.
The exhibition frames the production of that period – between the 1920s and 1940s – as a true artistic movement: the Harlem Renaissance. It was a fundamental contribution to the development of international modern art, as can be seen from the works of other famous European painters – Matisse for example – contrasted with African-American artists throughout the exhibition.
The Real Thing
MET
Until August 4, 2024
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism
MET
Until July 28th
And we remain at the Met, with this equally curious exhibition, which invites us to discover – literally – i hidden sides of portraits. It is a collection of more than sixty works dating back to the full Italian and European Renaissance. Masterpieces of the time, such as those of Hans Memling you hate Lorenzo Lottoeach with a particularity: that of having a second portrait on the backor a cover painting that originally hid the main subject from view. Both are very widespread customs among sixteenth-century high society clients, who required painters to enrich their effigy with a further work with an enigmatic meaning. Visitors to the exhibition are in fact encouraged to sharpen their wits, trying to trace the subject portrayed starting from the symbols and clues contained in the lids or hidden sides with which they are equipped.
The last unmissable event of the Museum concerns i fabrics: always fertile ground for the creativity of artists and artisans. Another exhibition proposed by the Met concerns weaving, seen from a dual point of view. Ancient on one side, and modern on the other. More than 500 years of history separate the two bodies of work on display: a journey of discovery that starts from the craftsmanship of the Andes and reaches up to the masters of the 20th century. Fifty works from new museum acquisitions and temporary loans, which delve into the abstract textile art of yesterday and today.
Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance
MET
Until July 7th
Weaving abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art
MET
Until June 16, 2024
Who, as a child, was not enchanted at least once by the illustrations in the books of Peter Rabbit? The fairy-tale world populated by little animals born from the pen of Beatrix Potter It has a timeless and ageless charm. These days, at Morgan Library it is possible to visit a rich exhibition which collects drawings, books, manuscripts and even objects, all linked to the figure of the great English author. A journey into the imagination, set in the Scottish countryside, where Potter spent his childhood in contact with nature and animals. And not only that: as we discover along the exhibition itinerary, her life was also characterized by scientific studies of biology and mycology, and then ended in the important role of conservator of over four thousand acres of woodland on behalf of the National Trust. His passion for nature goes far beyond children’s storybooks.
Beatrix Potter: Drawn to nature
The Morgan Library
Until June 9, 2024
We talk about contemporary fabrics in the first exhibition proposed by MOMA PS1, which presents an artist Native American of the fourth generation of Navajo weavers: Melissa Cody. Thirty masterpieces that summarize his production of the last ten years, with some unpublished works created for the occasion. Thirty artefacts that blend history and modernity, tradition and innovation. In fact, the artist originally from Arizona resumes ancient knowledge passed down from generation to generation. He makes it his own and reworks it, combining technology and digital. Here the textures and motifs typical of Navajo fabrics take on unexpected nuances and variations, with a contemporary flavour.
We continue with textiles in the second exhibition, but moving to the Philippines. Pacita Abad lives on in fifty of his works – many of which have never been seen before in the United States – which illustrate his career which ended in 2004.
A woman with a strong social commitment, eternally convinced that her task as an artist was to give voice to the injustices and oppressions suffered by her people. Her textile works served this purpose – and continue to do so today as her legacy. The so-called quilts: embroidered artifacts that tell the story and ideals of Abad, who arrived in the USA in 1970, fleeing the political persecution of her country.
Melissa Cody, Webbed Skys
MOMA PS1
Until September 9, 2024
Pacita Abad
MOMA PS1
Until September 2, 2024
The Giants. This is the title of the exhibition currently underway at the Brooklyn Museum. But who are these Giants? On the one hand, they are certainly the two collectors who loaned the works on display. These are the giants of the musical panorama Alicia Keys and Swiss Beatz (Kaseem Dean), famous for their successes, as well as for the support they have offered for years to their fellow artists, of whom they act as patrons. Extremely extensive it is also the proposed exhibition, which occupies a large part of the New York museum. And then, there are the protagonists: 98 works by great African and African-American artists of the contemporary scene. Jean-Michel Basquiat – just to name one.
Giants: art from the Dean Collection
Brooklyn Museum
Until July 7, 2024
The American metropolis of the last hundred years is told to Museum of the City of New York. A story that brings to life the events and transformations of the last century through the lens of art and pop culture. Paintings, television, music, cinema, and even theatre, literature and fashion. Each facet of the creative industries offers its own vision of the city in this major exhibition celebrating the centennial of the Museum located in the heart of Manhattan.
From 1923 to today: a succession of epochal historical events, social contradictions and fashions that have also spread overseas. This is the New York that the exhibition intends to tell.
This is New York
Museum of the City of New York
Until July 21, 2024
And to conclude, we are celebrating a second centenary (or almost) – the one from the birth of Toshiko Takaezu (Hawaii, 1922 – 2011). The Garden Museum, in collaboration with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, has organized a major retrospective exhibition that traces the history and work of this great Hawaiian artist.
More than two hundred works, coming from American public and private collections, which after this first stop in New York will continue the tour in numerous other cultural institutions in the United States. A unique opportunity to admire the works of master Takaezu, known for his ceramic productions… but not only. As you may discover along the way, he was also a painter and weaver. A mystical and fascinating character who is worth exploring further.
Toshiko Takaezu
Nogouchi Museum
From 20 March to 24 July 2024
