57th Street Galleries and the New Museum, Manhattan Essay

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57th Street Galleries

The Mary Boone Gallery is respected for its contemporary art exhibitions. It is located in Manhattan and maintains an urban style that appeals to the contemporary art audience. The exhibition by Tomoo Gokita was presented through several interconnected halls. The paintings were placed on the walls with direct lighting and several feet of white space around them. This allowed for each painting to stand out to the viewer nearby.

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The gallery has a unique taste guided by its owner Mary Boone, featuring many innovative and intrinsic contemporary artists. The artwork that I enjoyed was the Fake Cezanne #4 from the Gokita exhibition. It took a classic Cezanne nature morte and presented it through a filter using acrylic paint. It is in black and white, using lush halftones. There are blurred edges and grainy texture, creating a sense of looking at a photograph. The artist is well-established and continues to maintain his vintage style across many pieces of art.

The Edwynn Houk Gallery specializes in photo exhibitions, including vintage and modern artworks. Despite being in downtown New York, it has a very simplistic feel, creating a museum-like atmosphere. Photographs are placed on white walls with direct lighting above. There is an extensive collection of famous 20th-century photographers in the gallery. A recent exhibition featured the works of Pablo Ventura, who is a globally renowned photographer and artist.

He is known for taking photographs and then painting over them to create unique effects. The artwork Il Consiglio d’Egitto #2 is appealing with its creative use of layers and distance. It is a variation of the surrealist style of art. The photograph creates a historic urban feel utilizing modern media. However, I dislike the fact that it seems to be split up into several squares, creating a pixel-like effect in the background. The artist used various tones of grey which makes it seem disjointed from the foreground.

The Howard Greenberg Gallery is a photo exposition located in Midtown, New York. It is very small in size, creating an intimate urban atmosphere filled with emotion and the history of various photographs. Photograph prints are located on the wall very close to each other, allowing the viewer to traverse from one image to the next easily. There is soft lighting typical for a photo gallery. This gallery may appeal to photography enthusiasts as it has a range of historical or modern images and focuses solely on the art of photography. The gallery features an exhibition by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a renowned 20th-century humanist known for his candid photography.

A unique photograph India, 1948 captured my attention. It seems to portray some sort of temporary shelter made from tents. The people are engaged in doing their chores. I think it is interesting because it captured daily life in action for these people who are most likely displaced, a sentiment that transcends all time periods. The only thing I dislike about the photograph is the angle from which it was taken. It creates a slanted feel and leaves the sky to take up a significant portion of the photo, taking the focus away from people.

The Pace Gallery is prominent for its modern and contemporary art. It is located in Manhattan and has a very urban modern atmosphere, utilizing open spaces and creative ways of presentation. There are more than just paintings on exhibition. There are various pieces of physical art and statues. The artwork is placed on the walls or some sort of platform. There is soft illumination inside the halls allowing a natural flow of light. The gallery is inherently interesting and has a wide variety of modern art that may appeal to a younger audience. A recent exhibition of Elizabeth Murray’s artwork from the 1980s was presented at the gallery.

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Elizabeth Murray is a well-known painter that creates modern abstract art, defying traditional conventions and using a variety of dimensions and mediums. The work Her Story is an oil on canvas painting. It creates a 3-dimension effect with its layers and jagged geometric shapes as if attempting to show someone’s feelings. The artwork consists of 3 canvases, but the painting is not anyhow interrupted. While the rustic effect created using color looks interesting, I think the author should have used more defined and brighter colors to correlate with the use of shapes.

The New Museum

The New Museum is a contemporary art gallery and museum located in Manhattan. Its unique features begin with the exterior, with the building’s architecture reflecting a contemporary art style. It looks like several blocks are stacked unevenly on top of each other. The design is supposed to symbolize the flexibility and ever-changing nature of modern art. The museum attempts to appeal to a younger, more liberal audience by presenting a wide range of art.

There is a broad utilization of media, lighting to create an atmosphere that would match the exhibit. There is often a sense that the museum is a live studio, in line with its mission to support the fluidity of contemporary art and innovative ideas.

The exhibits are spread out thematically, and each seeks to immerse the audience as artwork can be found all around you. The museum seeks to take a unique approach of attempting to convey the psychological and emotional messages behind contemporary art. Therefore, it becomes a lot like a performance rather than a stroll in the gallery, attempting to break common conventions about art exhibitions. However, it is often unclear what the theme of an exhibition is until one reads the vivid descriptions next to most pieces of art. The museum’s attempt to create a unique experience creates confusion and a lack of enjoyment in its visitors.

The exhibition Trigger is a radically innovative approach to presenting contemporary art. It is spread throughout several floors of the museum and features a collaboration of over 40 artists and in various mediums, combined together to explore the issue of gender, in light of political, social, and personal exploration. Some parts of the exhibit are pure works of art that hang on the wall like any regular gallery. Meanwhile, others create whole sets that invigorate the viewer. Lighting and sound vary in accordance with the artistic style of the specific medium. The exhibit creates an atmosphere of confusion and disorder which is representative of the provocative social discussions around some of the themes.

There is no correct way to view this exhibition as it does not seek to introduce any sort of logical path the visitor can take to its exploration. The artwork that really stood out to me is Beautiful Morning by Christina Quarles. It utilizes intricate forms to portray raw human emotion. The painting has a unique use of layers, intertwining them in a way that creates an illusion of liquidity. Although the artwork is meant to be abstract, I think it would have given it more depth if more detail was included and there was a background behind the primary focus of the painting.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "57th Street Galleries and the New Museum, Manhattan." April 12, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/57th-street-galleries-and-the-new-museum-manhattan/.

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