CultureGrrl

An ebullient Anne Hawley, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, speaking at the press preview for the expansion

By sheer good luck, my drive back home from my visit to Salem, MA (where I reviewed for the Wall Street Journal the Shapeshifting show at the Peabody Essex Museum) coincided with the press preview for Renzo Piano's expansion of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

As it happened, that press preview also coincided with the Jan. 11 court date in the case against Whitey Bulger, an alleged former Boston crime boss who some believe might have something to say about the unsolved 1990 theft of 13 works (including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer) from the Gardner.

In my just-posted Huffington Post appraisal---Gardner Wander: The New, the Old, the Glass Bottleneck in Between---I take you on a tour of the new and old building in words, images and a 13-minute video. This is my first HuffPost piece to be accorded a big photo banner and byline at the top of the Huffington Post Arts page.

You'll hear director Anne Hawley and architect Piano speak in the new concert hall near the beginning of my video. At the end, you'll hear the Gardner's resident chamber orchestra rehearsing there. In between, you'll see the "glass bottleneck" that I refer to in the headline, and hear an extended riff on the Gardner's tapestries by Oliver Tostmann, curator of the collection.

Although I've been critical about several of Piano's past museum expansions (High Museum, Morgan Library and Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, Art Institute of Chicago), I deemed this one to be "an appropriate solution to a pressing problem---the need to preserve Isabella's unique creation while providing the space and services that modern museum visitors expect and museum staffers need."

Reasonable people will disagree. It's always controversial to attach a spiffy modern addition to a beloved historic building. Take a look and judge for yourself.

One thing seemed clear. These key players apparently really enjoyed working together.


Left to right, in the new concert hall: Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics; Scott Nickrenz, the Gardner's music director; architect Renzo Piano

Donor Intent Champion: Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper Jr.

Okay, so I'm violating my no-blogging rule twice in one day (one hour, actually). I break promises for important news.

This just in from the Tennessee Attorney General's Office---a request for permission from the State Supreme Court to appeal the Tennessee Court of Appeals decision that would allow Fisk University to sell a half-share in its Stieglitz Colleciton to Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, contrary to the written no-sale stipulation of donor Georgia O'Keeffe.

I haven't read the whole 52-page brief yet, but the money quote is right at the beginning:

The Attorney General urges this Court to...reaffirm the State's commitment to respect and follow a donor's intent and to confirm that any relief...must as closely as possible adhere to donor intent. This Court's guidance is needed not only to clarify this important question of law, upon which the ultimate disposition of the invaluable art collection at issue hinges, but also to convey a clear and unambiguous message to potential donors of gifts for the public benefit that Tennessee courts will not substitute their judgment in contravention of a donor's explicit instructions.

Such a statement from this State's highest Court is necessary to avoid the chilling effect on future donor gifts created by the Court of Appeals' decision to ignore the donor's express intent in this case. Future donors of gifts for the public benefit must be assured that restrictive covenants they place on their gifts will be enforced; otherwise the public will be forever deprived of the benefit of many gifts.

I couldn't have said it better myself. You go, Super Cooper!

Name That Curator (and name that museum)!
Photo taken Jan. 27 by Lee Rosenbaum

I've been to DC and West Palm Beach, among other venues. But if you're not following me on Twitter, you're not up to speed on some of what I've done lately and who I saw. (However, I haven't tweeted about my wide-ranging discussion with the person pictured above).

You also don't know what I think about the Association of Art Museum Director's belated, just released report about its Jan. 15-18 mid-winter meeting: Don B. was admitted to the club (notwithstanding this). Michael Taylor got in, just as fast as you can say, "Fabulous Former Philly Curator."

But wait a minute! Where's Jeffrey?

You can now read online my piece that will be on tomorrow's "Leisure & Arts" page of the Wall Street Journal. Artifacts to Artworks is my take on the Peabody Essex Museum's Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art.

Let me supplement this article with my own photographs illustrating the works that I discuss. Here's the "may not be suitable for children" piece that opens the show (and my article). It sure looks kid-friendly, until you step inside. Good luck trying to restrain your kids from entering this alluring "tipi":


Kent Monkman, "Théâtre de Cristal," 2007, Glenbow Museum, Alberta

Projected on a fake buckskin rug beneath the tipi's chandelier is a savage silent-movie parody of old Hollywood Westerns. This homoerotic, full-frontal film fantasy bears a title that apparently was not fit for a family newspaper---"Group of Seven Inches." It begins with this romantic encounter between the artist's drag-queen alter ego (in stiletto heels) and two loin-clothed white men, one of whom is pictured below:



But now let's move on. Here's the other "bookend" to the show, which alone occupies the final gallery:


Brian Jungen, "Cetology," 2002, Vancouver Art Gallery

Here's a close-up of the plastic chairs of which this "whale skeleton" is composed:



This is the deerskin pouch that I described as "ravishing":


Northeastern artist, Pouch, late 1600s to mid-1700s, Peabody Essex Museum

The PEM loses points, though, for displaying this masterpiece in such a way that you cannot see the equally beautiful (and conceptually important) decoration on the other side. I managed to slip my camera between the case and the wall, to bring you this blurry shot of the porcupine-quill embroidery that the catalogue illustrates and describes as "double-curves [that] manifest the desire and necessity for balance in one's life":



At the press preview, Karen Kramer Russell, the PEM's curator of Native American art and culture, described this Chilkat blanket from her own museum's collection as the oldest known example in the world:


Chilkat Blanket, c. 1832, Peabody Essex Museum

But wait a minute! Yesterday I saw this one at the Metropolitan Museum, which claims to be older!


Chilkat Blanket, British Columbia, c. 1825, private collection (displayed at Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Here's one of the strangest objects in the PEM's show, which, as I noted in my article, was one of many demonstrating the effect of cross-cultural influences on Native American artists. It has an Egyptian-inspired headdress and forelegs, and a Haida face:


Simeon Stilthda, "Sphinx," c. 1875, British Museum

Speaking of cross-cultural influences, Tlingit/Aleut artist Nicholas Galanin's engrossing two-part dance video, "Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan" ("We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care"), 2006, combines a traditional Tlingit song with modern dance in one clip, and contemporary electronic music with tribal dance in the other.

Here's my conversation with Nicholas, as we viewed his piece together:

Karen Kramer Russell, Peabody Essex Museum's curator of Native American art and culture, discussing a painted hide shield cover, Upper Missouri River, c. 1820, National Museum of Natural History, on display at the PEM's new "Shapeshifting" exhibition

I'm still here, art-lings. And I do miss you (and the blog)!

Your many notes of appreciation for CultureGrrl that I've received since deserting you have greatly moved me (sometimes almost to tears). I knew that some of you cared, but didn't know how many or how much! Only one donor took me up on my offer to refund contributions to my recent fund drive that fell short of its goal (causing me to delete my "Donate" button and shift professional focus).

Speaking of professional changes, I've now slightly fleshed out my Linked In profile, which you can access by clicking the logo in the middle column. My entry into this everyone-is-connected world has been reluctant and slow: I'm one of the least social individuals ever to (sort of) participate in social media. But I did experience the power of that world firsthand, when other Tweeters encouraged their followers to contribute to my fund drive. Thanks to all!

Although I come from the old school of "writers are loners and are not entrepreneurs," I'm slowly learning new tricks. One of these days, I'll even get a smartphone. (But the NY Philharmonic marimba incident did give me pause!)

In any event, there's still some life in the old CultureGrrl: As I previously mentioned, I'm going to link here to my mainstream-media work, and even flesh it out a bit upon occasion. And I encourage all of you to follow my tasty news-and-views tidbits on Twitter (@CultureGrrl).

Here's my first opportunity to reconnect with you on the blog: If all goes according to plan, the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page tomorrow will run my review of the just-opened Shapeshifting show at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. My piece should be online later today.

I'll soon provide you with the link to that piece (with a raunchy beginning), and I'll post on CultureGrrl some photos of the works I discuss. As a bonus, I'll include my video interview with one of the artists, Nicholas Galanin, who attended the press preview.

I fear that these two posts may cause me to backslide into blogoholism. Luckly I'll be, of necessity, away from my home computer for much of the next two weeks. (Should I leave the laptop home?)

Photo © by Jill Krementz

"Thanks from CultureGrrl" has been the subject-line in my recent e-mailed acknowledgements to some 44 supporters (both Repeat Donors and new ones) from 16 states, the District of Columbia and one foreign country (Finland). Individual generosity during my recent three-week fund drive ranged from $5 to $500. In all, I raised $1,945---just shy of my $2,000 goal. More than for the contributions, I am very grateful for the many notes of appreciation that accompanied them.

I love you, art-lings, and will miss you. I cherish the bonds I've forged over the past five and a half years with my classy, savvy audience. But as you well know, I'm a stickler. I'm going to stick to my word and, effective today, take a break (possibly a permanent one) from blogging.

In introducing my now concluded Last-Gasp Fund Drive, I wrote:

If 100 readers are willing to donate $20 each within the next three weeks to express appreciation for last year's edition of CultureGrrl (or if a different combination of readers and benefactions achieves the same monetary goal), I'll continue....

If I don't get this vote of confidence, I'm going to take off at least a month, beginning Jan. 9, to undergo blogging-addiction withdrawal and seek other opportunities. I don't know yet whether I'll relapse in February. But my month's hiatus isn't an empty threat; it's a promise.

My month's sabbatical may become a permanent one. I just don't know yet whether I can do without the instant gratification of telling stories that need to be told and expressing views that I feel need to be aired.

But I've become a slave to the blog, and I'm eager to see what else may be out there for me---something I couldn't do while blogging, because I'm too much of a perfectionist. I labored much too long and hard every day, researching my posts and crafting my prose. If I'm going to continue doing this kind of work, I really should get paid.

As one of my most generous repeat donors just wrote to me:

I am a firm believer that artists, and arts journalists, should get paid for what they do.  My least favorite phrase is "psychic compensation," which is the way artists have been exploited for years into doing work for free.

But no one "exploited" me. I freely (perhaps foolishly) chose to do this, and it did bring me a some speaking gigs and broadcast exposure that I would not otherwise have enjoyed. It raised my profile and made me semi-famous to a niche group of art aficionados. What's more, for the most part, I enoyed doing it. I thank Doug McLennan and his ArtsJournal for providing me a distinguished platform, in the company of some of the best arts bloggers in the "business."

[Wait a minute! AJ's Real Clear Arts just lifted my original Tobias Meyer/Richter photo! Is this "appropriation art"? (By the time you read this, it may have been de-appropriated.) RCA credits the photo to Bui Gallery, but it's definitely one that I took and published Nov. 10 on CultureGrrl. (Did Bui "appropriate" it first?)]

There are a number of balls that I'll be dropping this month---things on my blog's to-do list that won't get done. It's going to be hard going back to being mild-mannered mortal Lee Rosenbaum, writing about a few things, after being caped crusader CultureGrrl, opinionating on everything.

Looking forward, I'm ready, willing and able to take on paid journalistic projects (including paid blogging gigs), speaking engagements and teaching stints. You can contact me through the blog. I will continue to link on CultureGrrl to my mainstream-media work and perhaps I'll even provide on this site a little extra commentary and/or multimedia related to those articles or broadcasts.

If I can't resist indulging my passion for online commentary, you may find me occasionally on Huffington Post. And I'll likely continue to tweet now and then, to let CultureGrrl followers know what I'm thinking and doing.

Finally, for those of you who participated in the fund drive in anticipation of future posts (rather than in appreciation of past ones), here's my money-back offer: Just reply to my "Thanks from CultureGrrl" e-mail with one word---REFUND---and I'll click the "Issue refund" button on PayPal. I don't want anyone to feel cheated.

Thanks, art-lings, for your intelligence, insights and appreciation, and for all our time together!

Entrance to Boston Museum of Fine Arts' current hit show

[Part I is here; Part II is here.]

Degas and the Nude at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (to Feb. 5) is one of the most perfectly realized art-museum explorations of a complex subject that I've ever encountered. The initiator of this ambitious undertaking---curator George T.M. Shackelford---gets extra points for focusing on a theme that's an obvious choice for a major scholarly crowd-pleaser but that, unaccountably, no one (as far as George could determine) had tackled till now.

This show is thoroughly multimedia, not only in its handheld audio and video enhancements, but, more importantly, in the old-fashioned sense---extensive representation of all the media in which the artist worked: drawings, monotypes, sculpture (including a large array of bronzes cast from his wax models of dancers), paintings and, of course, the ravishing pastels for which he is perhaps most celebrated.

Much richer than a conventional chronological retrospective, "Degas" makes telling comparisons within the artist's own oeuvre, including, perhaps for the first time, juxtapositions of monotypes with their corresponding pastels.

Here is one of the pastels for which the corresponding monotype is displayed:


"Nude Combing Her Hair," c. 1877-80, pastel over monotype in black ink on paper, private collection, Chicago, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The show goes beyond typical retrospectives with its sampling of astutely selected works by artists who influenced Degas---Ingres, Delacroix, Goya, Puvis de Chavannes---and by later admirers whom he influenced---Bonnard, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse:


Matisse, "Carmelina," 1903, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
© 2011 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In this context, I can now more fully appreciate why Shackelford felt irresistibly tempted to deaccession eight works from the BMFA's collection (including three with significant exhibition histories) to purchase this one---a prominently installed non-Degas, which is one of the exhibition's showstoppers:


Gustave Caillebotte, "Man at His Bath," 1884, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

It's a luminous tour de force, not as much for the candid but (to me) disappointing depiction of male flesh as for the alluring sheen of the tub and the luxuriant, lovingly detailed renderings of crumpled fabrics and well-worn boots (the latter on the left, below the chair). None of this is adequately conveyed in the above photo. The painting, in apparently pristine condition, is (like everything else in the show) perfectly lit, so its glistening brushstrokes appear still wet.

The Caillebotte is also a reminder that the only male nudes we've seen from Degas came as something of a surprise, at the very beginning of the show. His early academic studies of male nudes from live models or other artists' works (including a study of Michelangelo's "Bound Slave") are classically sensual, in sharp contrast to the mature Degas' awkwardly posed females, caught unawares from behind (as is Caillebotte's spread-eagled "Man").

We could make some Freudian guesses here about Degas' famously ambiguous sexuality, but Boston's exhibition (unlike two other Degas shows I've seen, curated by Richard Kendall, who discusses Degas' possible impotence and/or celibacy) doesn't really go there.

The importance to the show of Caillebotte (who bequeathed his own collection of his friend's nudes-in-pastel to the French State---its first acquisitions of Degas) is underscored by the curators' suggestion that the "unabashed realism" of works like "Man at His Bath" may have helped inspire Degas to begin a monumental (but unfinished) painting of a similar subject (toweling off after a bath), installed beside the Caillebotte:


"Nude Woman Drying Herself," 1884-92, Brooklyn Museum, Courtesy Brooklyn Museum and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In their reviews of Boston's show, some critics have come across as direct descendants of the scandalized scribes from Degas' own day---describing his nudes as cruel (Karen Rosenberg, NY Times), or misogynistic (Peter Schjeldahl, New Yorker). His female nudes are often awkward, caught in private, ungainly movements. In other words, they're real women, not rarefied beauties flattered in fetching poses. Degas' best works are astonishing for their unsparingly candid, very modern realism. His gaze was intensely voyeuristic, but not misogynistic.

The critic who best appreciated these nuances was Sebastian Smee of the Boston Globe. He stated:

If you come to the show with an image of Degas as the painter of pretty ballerinas and horse track scenes, be prepared to find something tougher. If, on the other hand, you come with your defenses up---convinced that Degas, along with being an anti-Semite, was also a misogynist---prepare to have these defenses weakened.

The artist's voyeurism is laid bare in his early brothel monotypes, whose frankness still shocks. This is one of the tamer examples:


"The Serious Client," 1876-77, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Photo © National Gallery of Canada, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Also featured in the Clark Art Institute's 2010 "Picasso Looks at Degas" exhibition (co-curated by Kendall), these tawdry morsels weren't intended for public consumption and were "largely unknown until after [Degas'] death," according to Boston's wall text for "The Body Exploited."

But Degas' oeuvre is not only about overturning conventional notions of female beauty. By the time we get to the 1880s, we're swooning in aesthetic ecstasy amidst the jewel-like, dazzlingly dappled, highly finished pastels of bathers that "constitute one of his highest achievements as an artist," as the curators tell us:


"La Toilette," 1884-86, private collection, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


"The Tub," 1886, Musée d'Orsay
© Photo Musée d'Orsay/rmn, Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

All credit goes to the curators, especially George Shackelford, now moving on to the senior deputy directorship of the Kimbell Art Museum from his BMFA posts as chair of European art and curator of modern art. (As part of the Fort Worth museum's musical chairs, Malcolm Warner, after 10 years at the Kimbell as senior curator, deputy director and acting director, has also moved on, effective this week, to the executive directorship of the Laguna Art Museum.)

Shackelford conceived "Degas" more than three years ago, enlisting the ideal co-conspirator (and co-curator)---Xavier Rey, curator of paintings, Musée d'Orsay. The Paris museum (to which the show will travel, Mar. 12-July 1) is the largest single lender, with more than 60 of the 160 works culled from 50 international sources.

As one who has long argued that curators should get a "byline" in an exhibition's wall text, I was pleasantly surprised by the well-earned acknowledgement of Shackelford's authorship in the introductory panel. May he extend the same courtesy to curators at the Kimbell, and long live this laudable practice at the BMFA!


Curatorial Star Turn: George Shackelford's signed introductory wall text (with photograph) for "Degas and the Nude"

For the exhibition's online slideshow, go here. For its catalogue, go here.

And now, art-lings, a personal note: Shackelford's swansong at the BMFA is, as it happens, CultureGrrl's swansong too. My three-week Last-Gasp Fund Drive has concluded. As promised, I'll be announcing here on Monday the results of my fundraising appeal and my future plans.

Suffering damage: "1957-J-No. 2," Clyfford Still Museum

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by the many commentators who seem to be finding cause for merriment in the sad damage done last Friday to a painting at the new Clyfford Still Museum, Denver.

But AAMD?!?

First, the backstory. Joey Bunch of the Denver Post reported this yesterday:

A 36-year-old Denver woman, apparently drunk, leaned against an iconic Clyfford Still painting worth more than $30 million last week, punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself, according to a criminal case against Carmen Lucette Tisch.

Here's what someone representing the Association of Art Museum Directors tweeted today:

There's nothing wrong with Art in America's straightforward headline. But to answer AAMD's question: Yes, I'd say it's wrong for the nation's preeminent professional organization for art museums to "love it."

Not "loving it" is the Clyfford Still Museum. Here's its statement, issued today:

On Dec.29, 2011, an incident of criminal mischief took place at the Clyfford Still  Museum. The police were summoned and the offender was arrested and is currently in police custody. Museum officials are cooperating with the authorities regarding the situation and are in the process of further assessing the incident.

The Clyfford Still Museum maintains the highest standard of security; our security officers acted swiftly and appropriately; the police were summoned immediately and the offender was taken into custody within minutes of the incident. We regularly evaluate our security procedures in order to protect both the Still collection and our visitors.

The painting involved in the incident is still being assessed, and our initial evaluations indicate that it can be treated and returned to public exhibition. Early estimated treatment cost is in the range of $10,000. Since opening in November, the Clyfford Still Museum has welcomed thousands of visitors who have enjoyed the collection and acted respectfully and appropriately.

This extremely rare and random act of criminal mischief is highly deplorable; however, it will not deter us from performing our mission and continuing to provide a world-class art experience to our visitors.

De Kooning Devotee: John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art

[Part I is here.]

Just when I was feeling the old art-exhibition ennui, 2011's two standout U.S. blockbusters---John Elderfield's de Kooning: A Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (to Jan. 9), and George Shackelford's and (from the Musée d'Orsay, Paris) Xavier Rey's Degas and the Nude at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (to Feb. 5)---gave me a welcome rush. They epitomized for me the spontaneous combustion that occurs when great material is ignited by a brilliant curatorial spark.

At "de Kooning," once I got past the exploratory early works, I gazed around each new segment in this chronological agglomeration thinking, "This is my favorite period"..."No, THIS is my favorite period..."

I came upon each painting that had been loaned by a New York museum as a dear, intimately known old friend, making me realize just how much time I had spent spellbound by Willem de Kooning's works in previous encounters.

Careening through the fast-moving periods of de Kooning's fluidly morphing oeuvre, the show ricochets from one climax...


"Excavation," 1950, Art Institute of Chicago

to another...


"Merritt Parkway," 1959, Detroit Institute of Arts

...to another:


"...Whose Name Was Writ in Water," 1975, Guggenheim Museum

But like most great exhibitions, "de Kooning" boasts a drop-dead "power wall"---a lineup of masterworks that pack a transcendent visual and visceral wallop. This array of five iconic de Kooning women, with MoMA's own Mama ("Woman I," 1950-52) anchoring the middle, is everyone's idea of a surefire showstopper:



The Guggenheim picture in the photograph just above this buxom bevy is part of another "power wall"---lusciously painted gestural abstractions from the '70s---whose sum is more than its considerable parts. (The Guggenheim's "...Water" is second from the left.)



But then, there's the controversial late work, where de Kooning's gloriously dense, audaciously hued, aggressively messy paintings abruptly become spare and stripped down:



When asked at the show's Sept.13 press preview about what he describes in the catalogue as the "White Paintings," Elderfield declared that Gary Garrels' traveling survey of Willem de Kooning: The Late Paintings (which had opened in 1995 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveled to MoMA in 1997, coordinated by Robert Storr) had decisively put to rest any doubts about the authorship of these wispy candy-colored confections, said to have been executed by the declining de Kooning. In the wall text, Elderfield goes so far as to hype these '80s works as "the grand finale of his artistic career."

Pesky skeptics have suggested that the "late de Kooning" may have owed more to obliging studio assistants than to the artist himself---a theory that MoMA seems to want to put to rest, yet again, through an online feature, posted Monday on the museum's website, by artist Tom Ferrara, de Kooning's assistant in East Hampton from 1979-87. But the four photos that Ferrara posts---even the one titled, "Willem de Kooning working"---never show him actually applying paint to canvas.

Nevertheless, in their definitive, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, de Kooning: An American Master (which features on its back cover a detail from the same Arnold Newman photograph that appears on the back cover of Elderfield's catalogue), Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan note that a 1984 movie made by Conrad Fried (the younger brother of de Kooning's wife, Elaine) showed the artist "drawing on the fresh canvas" and applying "one of his whiplash lines to the canvas."

The authors, who noted that Elaine had "an obvious incentive to establish a strong market" for the late work, assert that "what seemed to have happened with de Kooning...was that his ability to transcend short-term memory loss by drawing upon something deeper and more instinctual carried him until the mid-eighties. It helped that, in his final paintings, he moved toward drawing, his most instinctive gift."

Maybe so. But even Stevens and Swan note that when Fried returned in 1986 to shoot another film of the artist at work, de Kooning's "concentration was obviously slipping" and "as the year 1986 progressed, ...that dance was over: the brushstroke had lost its partners. His canvases no longer seemed to breath in the same way. He was filling the space between lines, rather than animating the entire surface."

When I viewed the late-paintings show at MoMA in 1997, I had been totally convinced and deeply moved by what seemed to me as the ethereal other-worldliness of de Kooning's final paintings. But seeing them again, in the context of Elderfield's exhaustive retrospective, un-convinced me.

One thing you notice when going through MoMA's majesterial installation (which I did three times) is how one period leads to the next. You can see the less successful transitional works that mark a leave-taking of one played-out period and a tentative approach towards something excitingly new:


"Woman VI," 1953, Carnegie Museum of Art (close to, but not part of, the "power wall")

Elderfield tried to make the case for a similar progression leading up to the late oeuvre, with a few supposedly transitional works preceding the final gallery. But their connection to the new phase seemed slight and strained. The curator also echoed the biographers' argument (based on the writings of the keenly perceptive neurologist, Oliver Sacks) that people with dementia sometimes still perform surprisingly well in their areas of greatest proficiency.

From my own personal knowledge of people with dementia (including an accomplished pianist who continued to play complex jazz arrangements, but without his former interpretive and improvisational flair), I found it hard to believe that a notoriously, gloriously messy artist suddenly shifted gears to paint crisply defined shapes, modeled with delicate shading and tapered to fine points. I also doubted that someone in his condition would possess the fine-motor skills for such finesse.

I especially admired one work in the final gallery, until I closely examined the improbable delicacy of the wispy lines, the elegant tapering, and the subtle shading of the orange and yellow volumes. Could the diminished de Kooning really have done this? It became harder and harder to suspend disbelief:


"Untitled XIX," 1983, Doris and Donald Fisher Collection

The show's final, very late de Kooning seemed chosen as much for the validation imparted by its renowned Pop artist-owner as for its possibly tenuous connection to the lionized Abstract Expressionist:


"The Cat's Meow," 1987, Jasper Johns Collection

None of my misgivings at the exit, however, detracted from the overall sense of joy and gratitude conferred by experiencing this brilliantly orchestrated, incisively explicated (soon to close) retrospective---one of the great highlights of a lifetime spent savoring superlative museum shows.

[I hope to discuss the BMFA's "Degas" in a future post.]

Photographs by Lee Rosenbaum