Members Galendar
tuTmWSSS# May Gontents Exhibitions
John Heartfield: Photomontages ThroughJuly 6. WestWing galleries, second floor. John Heartfield(1891-1968) created works that re- main among the most powerful examplesof political art of the modern era.A significantfigure of twenti- eth-centuryGerman art and a member of the Berlin Dadaists,Heartfield pioneered the use of mass media techniquesto probe and revealharsh politicalreali- ties. He is known as one of the inventorsof the pho- tomontage; his works in this medium presentex- ceptionallyvivid and passionatesatirical images of politicalconditions in Germany in the 1920sand 1930s.Heartfield's achievement is particularlyrele- vant today, when many artists in Europe and North America similarlydraw upon visualelements of pop- Philip Lorca diCorcia.Brent Booth,27 yearsold, Colorado,$30. 1990-1992. ular cultureto producehighly politicizedart. Chromogeniccolor print (Ektacolor).15x2231+". Courtesy the artist.In the This exhibitionfeatures approximately 120 works, exhibition Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Strangers. includingover sixty photomontages,as well as a num- ber of the book coversand imagesfrom the left-wing pu bl ication Arbeiter II I u stri efte Ze itu ng (Wo rkers' Exhibitions lllustrated Newspaperl for which the photomontages John Heartfield:Photomontages 3 servedas originaldesigns. These works were selected from the 1991touring retrospectiveassembled by the Max Ernst: Dada Akademie der Kiinstezu Berlin,the Landesregierung and the Dawn of Surrealism 3 Nordrhein-Westfa len, and the Landschaftsverband Thinking is Form: Rheinland.John Heartfield:Photomontages was or- The Drawings of Joseph Beuys 4 ganized by Magdalena Dabrowski,Curator, Depart- ment of Drawings.The showing at The Museum of William Wegman's Cinderella 4 Modern Art has been made possible by a generous Philip-LorcadiCorcia: Strangers 5 grant from RobertLehman Foundation,lnc. Projects:Readymade ldentities 5 Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism Th resholds/SantiagoCalatrava: ThroughMay 2. Structure and Expression 6 InternationalCouncil Galleries, ground floor. Collection Exhibitions 7 This comprehensivesurvey exploresthe work of Max Ernst (1891-1976)as he radicallytransformed his Film and Video Programs 8 earlystyle of painting into a uniqueform of Dadaand Calendar of Films and Events 12 early Surrealism.lt focuseson the works created during the extraordinaryand germinal years of 1912 Membership Programs 25 through 1927, a crucial period of the artist'spioneer- Public Programs 27 ing achievementswhich also signaledthe emergence of themes that continuedthroughout his life. Family Programs 29 Consistingof approximately 180works, the exhibi- The Party in the Garden 29 tion includespaintings, relief sculptures, collages, drawings,and prints,as well as documents relating At the Museum Stores 30 to Ernst and Dada.Ernst's artistic developments are General lnformation 31 consideredwithin the context of his time, and his interactionswith diverseindividuals and groups in the avant-gardecultures of Cologne and Parisare examined. Gometo--. Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism was The Party in the Garden, June 2 organizedby Walter Hopps.Consulting Curator, and See page 29 for details. Susan Davidson,Associate Curator, Twentieth Cen- tury Art, The Menil Collection;it was coordinatedfor 2 3 The Museum of Modern An by Kynaston McShine, Philip-LorcadiCorcia: Strangers Senior Curator,Department of Paintingand Sculp- ThroughJuly 6. ture. The exhibitionis made possiblewith the gener- TheEdward Steichen Photography Center, second floor. ous suppoft of LufthansaGerman Airlines.Additional American photographerPhilip-Lorca diCorcia was funding has been provided by the NationalEndow- born in 1953and lives in New York City. Hiswork ment for the Arts; Association Franqaised'Action since the late 1970shas explored still photography's Artistique, Ministdre des Affaires Etrangdres;the capacityto suggest narrativefiction. His lush color Foreign Office of the FederalRepublic of Germany; prints are likeframes from unforgettablemovies that and Daimler-BenzNorth America Corporation.An were never made-arrested dramas in which people indemnity for the exhibition has been granted by the play their more mysterious selves. FederalCouncil on the Arts and the Humanities. This exhibition presentssome twenty-five pictures from a recentseries, begun in 1990,for which Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys diCorciahired young men, whom he found on Santa ThroughMay 4. Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, to pose in settings Ren6d'Harnoncourt Galleries, lower level. he arrangedforthem in motel rooms, in parking lots, Joseph Beuys(1921-1986) is the centralfigure of post- or on the street.Each work is titled with the name of war German art.While his best-knownwork may be the man, his age and placeof birth, and the sum his later sculpture and performance pieces,it was diCorciapaid him to pose.The picturesare neither his drawing that carried Beuysfrom his early days as oortraits nor documents of a streetculture in Cali- an isolatedoutsider to his later positionsas a pivotal fornia. The seriesis an invention-diCorcia's moving teacher,an avant-gardeperformer, and ultimately a poem of lost lives-but it has the unmistakablybitter "social sculptor" intent on worldwide reform. This taste of our time and no other. exhibitiontraces his expanding concept of drawing Philip-LorcadiGorcia: Strangers was organizedby over five decades,and includes 180works in a vari- PeterGalassi, Director, Department of Photography. ety of traditional and lessconventional materials. Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys was co-organizedby BerniceRose, Senior Curator, Sonia Balassanian. Departmentof Drawings,The Museum of Modern The Other Side, Art, and Ann Temkin, Muriel and Philip Berman // (detail).1993. Curator of Twentieth Century Art, The Philadelphia Mannequins, Museum of Art. The exhibition is made possibleby fabric,mirrors, and floodlights. generousgrants from the Ministry of ForeignAffairs Installationspace of the FederalRepublic of Germany, DeutscheBank, 11' 4" x15'x23'. The Pew CharitableTrusts, LufthansaGerman Air- Collectionthe lines,The Andy Warhol Foundationfor the Visua artist"Photo: Marty Heitner.In Arts. Inc.,The Bohen Foundation,and the National the exhibition Endowment for the Arts. An indemnity has been Proiects:Ready- granted by the FederalCouncil on the Arts and the made ldentities. Humanities.The New York showing has been sup- ported generously by Mr. and Mrs. RonaldS. Lauder, Projects: Readymade ldentities with additional assistancefrom The Solow Founda- ThroughMay 18. tion. The publicationis supported in part by grants GardenHall Gallery, ground floor. from Mr. and Mrs. RonaldS. Lauder,New York, and Over the past decade,artists have often turned to Mr. and Mrs. Josef Froehlich,Stuttgart. clothing as a medium for expression;this exhibition brings together works by six artists who use garments William Wegman's Cinderella in a variety of ways. The materialsused in the work May13-July 6. of John Armleder, Sonia Balassanian,Suzan Etkin, TheEdward Steichen Photography Center, second floor. Ann Hamilton,Maurizio Pellegrin,and FredWilson run the gamut from ready-to-wearto handmade For more than a decade,William Wegman has been clothing as each artist comments on stereotypingin making inventive photographs of his Weimaraner his or her own very personalmanner. From Fred dogs in improbable costumes and poses. Now, in a Wilson's uniformed guards to Sonia Balassanian's seriesof photographs by turns affectingand hilari- installationof veiled women, the exhibition presents ous, Wegman and his dogs have retold the story of different readingsof collectiveidentities, moving Cinderella,for adults as well as for children.William from sociallyconstructed images to psychological Wegman's Cinderella, organized by Peter Galassi, perceptionsof the self. Director,Department of Photography,is the first in an Projects: Readymade ldentities was organized by ongoing seriesof small exhibitionsof recentbodies FereshtehDaft ari, Curatoria I Assistant, Department of photographicwork. 4 5 of Paintingand Sculpture.The Projectsseries is made ported by a generous grant from the Government of possibleby generous grants from the Lannan Foun- Valencia.Spain. The installationin the Abby Aldrich dation,The Bohen Foundation,and The Contempo- RockefellerSculpture Garden is made possibleby rary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Thomas Schmidheiny,Switzerland.
Gollection Exhibitions
Reading Prints ThroughJuly 6. PaulJ. Sachsand Tatvana Grosman Galleries, third floor. The use of languageas a pictorial element in twenti- eth-centuryprinted art is the focus of this exhibition of approximatelyone hundred works, which begins with the Cubist drypoints of Georges Braque and Pablo Picassoand concludeswith the work of con- temporary artists. While Braque and Picassobegan to introducefrag- ments of labelsand newspapersto reinforcethe SantiagoCalatrava. surfaceof their work in the early paft of this century, Interiordetail, Kuwait the Futuristswere revolutionizingthe pictorialnature Pavillion,1992 World's of typography by separatinglanguage from meaning. Fair,Expo'92, Seville. The avant-gardein post-WorldWar I Germany, most Photo:John Edward Linden. notably Kurt Schwitters and George Grosz,often in- corporatedtext into their Dada-inspiredcomposi- tions. After World War ll, Cobra artistssuch as Pierre Thresholds/ SantiagoCalatrava: Alechinskyscrawled words in evocativegestures, Structureand Expression while the Lettristmovement in Francefocused on the ThroughMay 18. design of the alphabetto reinvest meaning into art. Architectureand Design Galleries, fourth floor. Jasper Johns's perceptualword games, Pop Art's Spanish architectand engineer Santiago Calatrava banal signage,and ConceptualArt's descriptivenar- has practicedfor little more than ten years; during rativesof plans and events evidencethe ever-in- this brief period, he has constructedan impressive creasing role that languagehas played in modern art number of structures.Resisting a traditional engi- in general,and in the print mediums in particular. neering approach that merely solves technical prob- Throughout the twentieth century, sociallyand po- lems, his expressiveuse of technology and inventive liticallyconscious art has always resultedin an out- forms producesstructural works of art. pouring of creativeapproaches to text and image. This exhibition focuses on ideas of transformation Artists who have explored printmaking's ability to and movement in nine projects.For example,clearly integrate pointed statementsinto the visual whole inspired by the tree form, Calatravatransforms it, are featured in this installation;among them are using it as a structural expression for such projects as BarbaraKruger, Bruce Nauman, and Nancy Spero. his designfor Berlin'sSpandau RailwayStation and ReadingPrints was organizedby Wendy Weitman, his winning scheme for the completion of the Cathe- AssociateCurator, Department of Prints and lllustrated dral of St. John the Divine. New York. Books. Includedin the exhibition are models,drawings, sketchbooks,and photo panels. In addition,special Selections from the Collection installationsare located in the EdwardJohn Noble Throughmid-May (third floor) and July 1 (secondfioor). EducationCenter, in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Paintingand Sculpture galleries, second floor, and East SculptureGarden, and at the entranceto the Philip Wing Paintingand Sculpture galleries, third floor. Johnson Gallery.This is the first exhibition in the While most of the galleriesnormally devotedto the Museum's newly-createdThreshold series, which is Museum's collectionof paintingand sculptureare devoted to thematic explorationsof contemporary being remodeled,selected works are on view on the issuesin architectureand design. second and third floors.Thesecond-floor installation Santiago Calatrava: Structure and Expression was presentsworks from the end ofthe nineteenthto the organizedby Matilda McOuaid,Assistant Curator, middle of the twentieth centuries,featuring such Department of Architectureand Design,and is sup- masterpiecesas Vincent van Gogh's Poftrait of Joseph
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