Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Best art blockbuster shows I have seen

I have not updated this blog as much as I would like.  I have written a piece of my next sestina, but the paper I wrote it on appears to be in another bag.  I may write about some very bold panhandler I encountered yesterday, but I will probably let it pass.  I could write about an exciting job opportunity, but will hold off on that.  Now I do plan to write about this ridiculously pompous (yet youngish) academic I ran into at my panel at the Urban Affairs Association meeting, but perhaps that can wait for tomorrow.

I let my membership at the Art Institute of Chicago expire (as I don't expect I will be able to use it enough to justify the cost).  So I did go over on Thurs. and then took my son on Sunday to soak the whole thing in, as I will certainly be going less in the future. 

They had a nice special exhibit on early French art, though this isn't really that much too my taste, aside from a really beautiful alterpiece (didn't like it enough to buy the $35 catalogue, however).  So I thought I would try to cast my mind back to the best of the "blockbuster" art exhibits I've seen over the years.  This will definitely change with time, as I remember more I attended.  I'll be sorting them roughly with my top favorites at the top (natch).  Probably worth noting that I was simply too young and not in New York at the time for the first blockbuster Picasso show at the MoMA in 1980 (that kind of started this trend along with the King Tut exhibit in 1977 -- to which I was definitely too young to be brought) and not yet in the region for MoMA's High/Low show (in 1990).

Matisse show at MoMA (1992) -- only art exhibit I've been to where there were scalpers involved
Matisse Picasso -- MoMA Queens (2002)
Max Beckmann - MoMA Queens (2003) -- I actually scheduled a worktrip to NYC to make this show -- it was definitely worth it
Cezanne and Beyond - Philadelphia (2009) -- I honestly can't remember how I got away for this show, but I did.
Abstract Expressionism show at MoMA (2011)
Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde -- Art Institute Chicago (2006)
Monet to Matisse: Painting the Modern Garden -- Cleveland Museum of Art (2015) -- I managed to sneak away to this show before all the tickets sold out in the final weeks.
Cézanne in Provence - Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence (2006) -- actually a smallish exhibit but seeing it in Aix made it special indeed
Highlights from Barnes Collection seen in Toronto and the National Gallery, DC (1993-4)
Caillebotte exhibit - Art Institute Chicago (1995)
Jeff Wall saw at Tate Modern and Art Institute Chicago (2007)
Picasso and American Art - Whitney (2007)
Picasso and British Art -National Gallery of Scotland,  Edinburgh (2012) Honestly, the British artists in the show did not compare that well to Picasso and generally seemed kind of second-rate.  I don't recall feeling that way at the Whitney show, but it was  still very cool to be checking out a show in Edinburgh.
Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction - Tate Modern (2006) -- certainly an impressive exhibition
Kandinsky: Compositions - MoMA (1995) -- a more focused show but quite nice
James Rosenquist: A Retrospective - Guggenheim (2004) the best show I've seen at the Guggenheim, though Picasso in Black and White (2012) was also a good show.
James Rosenquist: Time Dust, Complete Graphics: 1962-1992 (1995) an impressive show in a small museum in Madison, WI. One of those things I just stumbled across, making it a bit more special.
Robert Rauschenberg: Combines - Metropolitan Museum (2006) -- seeing these all in one place and in person definitely gave them extra "presence" and made them more interesting
Edward Hopper - Whitney (2006) -- set off a series of current Hopper retrospectives
Frida Kahlo - Tate Modern (2005)
Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago (2004) -- kind of special since it was such a surprisingly good exhibit at a very obscure museum about a subject (Mexican modernism) I knew nothing about.  Really liked a number of the Gerzso pieces.
Georgia O'Keeffe: Arts and Letters - Art Institute of Chicago (1988) -- My family traveled to Chicago for this, mostly because my mom wanted to see it.  Even though it was only a few years before the Matisse show, my memories of it are definitely more vague, though I certainly recall enjoying it and doubling back to see the paintings a second time.

I suppose I am getting ahead of myself a little, but I am planning on heading to New York in the summer of 2016 to see a Stuart Davis exhibit, which I'm confident will make this list.

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