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by BWW News Desk
Zarina: Paper Like Skin
January 25-April 21, 2013
This retrospective of Indian-born American artist Zarina Hashmi is the first major exploration of the master printmaker's career, charting a developmental arc from her work in the 1960s to the present and including many seminal works from the late 1960s and early 1970s, woodblock prints, etchings and lithographs, and a small selection of related sculptures in bronze and cast paper. The Guggenheim's recent acquisition of 20 works from a major series of pin drawings from 1975 to 1977 serves as a fulcrum for the presentation, which is conceived in close collaboration with the artist. The exhibition has been curated by Allegra Pesenti, Curator, Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum, where it opened in September 2012. The Guggenheim presentation is organized by Sandhini Poddar, former Associate Curator of Asian Art, with Helen Hsu, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Zarina: Paper Like Skinwas organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. The presentation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is supported in part by the Leadership Committee for Zarina: Paper Like Skin, with special thanks to Luhring Augustine, New York.
Gutai: Splendid Playground
February 15-May 8, 2013
Gutai: Splendid Playground is the first North American museum exhibition devoted to Gutai, the most influential artists' collective and artistic movement in postwar Japan and one of the most important international avant-garde movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Organized thematically and chronologically to explore Gutai's inventive approach to materials, process, and performativity, the exhibition explores the group's radical experimentation across a range of media and styles and demonstrates how individual artists pushed the limits of what art could be in a postatomic age. The spectrum of works includes painting, performance, installation art, sound art, experimental film, kinetic art, light art, and environment art. The exhibition comprises some 145 objects by 25 artists on loan from museum and private collections in Japan, the United States, and Europe, and offers new scholarship, especially on so-called late Gutai works that date from 1965 to 1972. Gutai: Splendid Playground is organized by Ming Tiampo, Associate Professor of Art History, Carleton University, Ottawa, and Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Gutai: Splendid Playground is supported in part by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Japan Foundation, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas), the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, Tokio Marine Holdings, the United States-Japan Foundation, and the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. The Leadership Committee for Gutai: Splendid Playground is gratefully acknowledged for its support: Hauser & Wirth, Yoko Ono Lennon, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Tina Kim and Jae Woong Chung, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Richard Roth, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative
No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia
February 22-May 22, 2013
No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia is the inaugural exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative-a multiyear project that explores contemporary art in South and Southeast Asia; Latin America; and the Middle East and North Africa. No Country features work by 22 artists and collectives representing some of the most compelling and innovative voices in South and Southeast Asia today. Focusing on the region's shifting spectrum of creative practices, the exhibition traces networks of intellectual exchange and influence, and considers the various impacts of ethno-nationalism, colonization, and globalization on national identity. The exhibition presents works by artists from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, and features painting, sculpture, photography, video, works on paper, and installation, the majority of which will be on view in the United States for the first time. All works have been newly acquired for the Guggenheim's collection under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund. Following its presentation in New York, No Country is expected to travel to venues in Hong Kong and Singapore. A Cultural Engagement of UBS.
THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2012: Danh Vo
March 15-May 27, 2013
This exhibition, organized in honor of Danh Vo's receipt of the Hugo Boss Prize, will be on view at the Guggenheim Museum from March 15 through May 27, 2013. The ninth artist to receive the biannual award, Vo, who lives and works in Berlin, was selected by an international jury of curators in recognition of his significant influence on contemporary art. His installations express a number of urgent concerns related to cultural identity, politics, and history, and deftly intermingle autobiography with larger cultural narratives, allowing poetic new connotations to emerge through the staging of meticulously selected images, objects, and documents. The Hugo Boss Prize 2012: Danh Vo is made possible by HUGO BOSS.
A Year with Children 2013
May 3-June 19, 2013
Learning Through Art (LTA), the pioneering arts-education program of the Guggenheim Museum, presents A Year with Children 2013, an exhibition that showcases selected artworks by New York City public-school students in 2nd through 6th grade. These students participated in a year-long artist residency, which partners professional teaching artists with classroom teachers in each of the city's five boroughs to design collaborative projects that explore art and ideas related to the classroom curriculum. Approximately 100 creative and imaginative works will be on display during this five-week installation, including drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, paintings, and assemblage pieces. For a complete list of funders, visit guggenheim.org/learningthroughart.
June 21-September 25, 2013
James Turrell's first exhibition in a New York museum since 1980 focuses on the artist's groundbreaking explorations of perception, light, color, and space, with a special focus on the role of site-specificity in his practice. At its core is a major new project that recasts the Guggenheim rotunda as an enormous volume filled with shifting artificial and natural light. One of the most dramatic transformations of the museum ever conceived, the installation reimagines Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic architecture-its openness to nature, graceful curves, and magnificent sense of space-as one of Turrell's Skyspaces, referencing in particular his magnum opus Roden Crater (1976-). Reorienting visitors' experiences of the rotunda from above to below, the exhibition gives form to the air and light occupying the museum's central void, proposing an entirely new experience of the building. Other works from throughout the artist's career will be displayed in the museum's Annex Level galleries, offering a complement and counterpoint to the new work in the rotunda. Organized in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, James Turrellcomprises one-third of a major retrospective exhibition spanning the United States during summer 2013. This exhibition is curated by Carmen Giménez, Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of 20th-Century Art, and Nat Trotman, Associate Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The Leadership Committee forJames Turrell is gratefully acknowledged for its support.
Robert Motherwell: Early Collages
September 27, 2013-January 5, 2014
Robert Motherwell: Early Collages is devoted exclusively to Motherwell's papier collés and related works on paper from the 1940s and early 1950s and is the first focused examination of the American artist's achievements in collage in nearly 40 years. By re-examining Motherwell's origins and his engagement with this technique, which he described in 1944 as "the greatest of our [art] discoveries," the exhibition will investigate the artist's work during a pivotal decade in his career. Featuring approximately 50 artworks, the exhibition also honors Peggy Guggenheim's early patronage. At her urging, and under the tutelage of émigré Surrealist artist Matta (Roberto Sebastián Matta Echuarren), Motherwell first experimented with the papier collé technique. As he recalled years later "I might never have done it otherwise, and it was here that I found . . . my identity." The exhibition will open at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, in June 2013, and travel to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in September 2013. This exhibition is curated by Susan Davidson, Senior Curator, Collections and Exhibitions, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. This exhibition is supported in part by the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. The Leadership Committee for Robert Motherwell: Early Collages is gratefully acknowledged for its support.
October 25, 2013-January 22, 2014
At the heart of Christopher Wool's creative project, which spans three decades of highly focused practice, is the question of how a picture can be conceived, realized, and experienced today. Engaging the complexities of painting as a medium, as well as the anxious rhythms of the urban environment and a wide range of cultural references, his agile, largely monochrome works propose an open-ended series of responses to these central problems. This retrospectivewill fill the museum's rotunda and an adjacent gallery with a selection of paintings, photographs, and works on paper, forming the most comprehensive examination to date of Wool's career. The exhibition is organized by Katherine Brinson, Associate Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. This exhibition is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation. The Leadership Committee for Christopher Wool is gratefully acknowledged for its support.
Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video
January 24-April 23, 2014
Carrie Mae Weems is a socially motivated artist whose works invite contemplation on issues surrounding race, gender and class. Increasingly, she has broadened her view to include global struggles for equality and justice. Comprehensive in scope, this retrospective will primarily feature photographs, including the groundbreaking Kitchen Table Series (1990), but also written texts, audio recordings and videos. The exhibition will provide an opportunity to trace the evolution of Weems's career over the last 30 years from her early documentary and autobiographical photographic series to the more conceptual and philosophically complex works that have placed her at the forefront of contemporary art. Although she employs a variety of means and addresses an array of issues, an overarching commitment to better understanding the present by closely examining history and identity is found throughout her work. A notion of universality is also present: while African-Americans are typically her primary subjects, Weems wants "people of color to stand for the human multitudes" and for her art to resonate with all audiences. Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville. The Leadership Committee for Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video is gratefully acknowledged for its support.
Italian Futurism, 1909-44
February 21-May 14, 2014
With this major exhibition, the Guggenheim organizes the first comprehensive overview of Italian Futurism to be presented in the United States or Spain. This multidisciplinary exhibition will examine the historical sweep of the movement, from its inception with F. T. Marinetti's Futurist manifesto in 1909 through its demise at the end of World War II. With over 300 works executed between 1909 and 1944, the exhibition encompasses not only painting and sculpture, but also architecture, design, ceramics, fashion, film, photography, advertising, free-form poetry, publications, music, theater, and performance. To convey the myriad artistic languages employed by the Futurists as they evolved over a 35-year period, this chronological exhibition will integrate multiple disciplines in each section. This exhibition is organized by Vivien Greene, Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In addition, an eminent international advisory committee has been assembled to provide expertise and guidance. The Leadership Committee for Italian Futurism, 1909-44 is gratefully acknowledged for its support.
More than any other 20th-century painter, Vasily Kandinsky has been closely linked to the history of the Guggenheim Museum. Hilla Rebay-artist, art advisor, and the museum's first director-promoted nonobjective painting above all other forms of abstraction. She was particularly inspired by the work and writing of Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstraction, who believed that the task of the painter was to convey his own inner world, rather than imitate the natural world. The museum's holdings have grown to include more than 150 works by Kandinsky, and focused exhibitions of his works are presented in Annex Level 3. The current installation, Kandinsky 1911-1913, highlights paintings completed at the moment the artist made great strides toward complete abstraction and published his aesthetic treatise, On the Spiritual in Art (1911, though dated 1912). Also featured are paintings by Robert Delaunay and Franz Marc that were exhibited alongside the work of Kandinsky and others in the landmark 1912 Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) exhibition held at the Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich. The exhibition is organized by Tracey Bashkoff, Curator, Collections and Exhibitions, and Megan Fontanella, Assistant Curator, Collections and Provenance, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
A Long-Awaited Tribute: Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian House and Pavilion
On October 22, 1953, the exhibition Sixty Years of Living Architecture: The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright opened in New York on the site where the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum would be built. Constructed specifically for the exhibition were two Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings: a temporary pavilion made of glass, fiberboard, and pipe columns, and a 1,700-square-foot, fully furnished two-bedroom Usonian exhibition house representing Wright's organic solution for modest, middle-class dwellings. This presentation on view in the Sackler Center for Arts Education pays tribute to these two structures, which, as Wright himself noted, represented a long-awaited tribute as the first Wright buildings to be erected in New York. This exhibition is organized by Francine Snyder, Director of Library and Archives, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
The Thannhauser Collection
Bequeathed to the museum by art dealer and collector Justin K. Thannhauser, the Thannhauser Collection includes a selection of canvases, works on paper, and sculpture that represents the earliest works in the museum's collection. The Thannhauser holdings include significant works by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, and Vincent van Gogh. Thannhauser's commitment to supporting the early careers of such artists as Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc, and to educating the public about modern art, paralleled the vision of the Guggenheim Foundation's originator, Solomon R. Guggenheim. Among the works Thannhauser gave are such incomparable masterpieces as Van Gogh'sMountains at Saint-Rémy (Montagnes à Saint-Rémy, July 1889), Manet's Before the Mirror (Devant la glace, 1876), and close to 30 paintings and drawings by Picasso, including his seminal works Le Moulin de la Galette (autumn 1900) andWoman Ironing (La Repasseuse, spring 1904).
Admission: Adults $22, students/seniors (65+) $18, members and children under 12 free. Admission includes an audio tour with highlights of the Guggenheim's Permanent Collection and building available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Museum Hours: Sun-Wed, 10 am-5:45 pm; Fri, 10 am-5:45 pm; Sat, 10 am-7:45 pm; closed Thurs. On Saturdays, beginning at 5:45 pm, the museum hosts Pay What You Wish. Extended hours from 10 am-7:45 pm will be offered on Sun, June 24 and Mon, June 25. For general information call 212 423 3500 or visit the museum online at: