I saw four exhibitions at the Met today, July 20, and really enjoyed two of them.
Lorna Simpson: Source Notes
Love, love, love this photographic, painterly, print-maker-ly, Rauschenberg-inspired work!
"This presentation of work by New York–based artist Lorna Simpson is the first exhibition to consider the entirety of her painting practice to date. Simpson came to prominence in the early 1990s with her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. Since then, she has produced works in multiple media that continue to probe the nature of images and how they construct meaning. focuses on a significant new development in her work of the last 10 years: paintings that advance her incisive explorations of gender, race, identity, representation, and history. Through more than 30 works, this focused exhibition presents a selection of Simpson’s major paintings, including examples from her acclaimed Venice Biennale debut in 2015 and her celebrated series Special Characters, along with a recent sculpture and related collages."
Jesse Krimes: Corrections
This art and exhibition are really moving, really smart. "Krimes’ image-based installations, made over the course of his six-year incarceration, reflect the ingenuity of an artist working without access to traditional materials. Employing prison-issued soap, hair gel, playing cards, and newspaper he created works of art that seek to disrupt and recontextualize the circulation of photographs in the media."
NOTE: I saw but enjoyed less the Sargent and Paris show. I have never been a huge fan as I prefer more bad-ass painting. I deem Sargent's overly commercial. It "...explores the early career of American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), from his arrival in Paris in 1874 as a precocious 18-year-old art student through the mid-1880s, when his infamous portrait Madame X was a scandalous success at the Paris Salon. Over the course of one extraordinary decade, Sargent achieved recognition by creating boldly ambitious portraits and figure paintings that pushed the boundaries of conventionality."
