CURATOR'S CHOICE SM
Museums and Exhibitions in New York City and Vicinity
| Home | | Museum Guide | | International | | Architecture & Design | | Theater |

GLENN LONEY'S MUSEUM NOTES

Where Else But at the Whitney?

UNDER THREE FLAGS--Jasper Johns iconic trio of American Flags on display for "The American Century" at the Whitney.

The American Century:
Art & Culture 1900-2000

[Closing August 22] At the close of this turbulent and transforming century, it is time to take stock of what has been achieved, mastered, and learned. As well as what has failed, lost, and been destroyed.

Henry Luce, founder of Time/Life, was convinced that the 20th was "The American Century." For Luce, this may have been mere chauvinist boasting—or hype to move his magazines across the counter.

With the ubiquity of American entertainments, images, styles, tastes, values, and products spread around the world, however, this century may be only the prelude to the American 21st Century.

If so, that is all the more reason for Americans from all walks of life to come to the Whitney Museum of American Art this summer. The first half of our momentous century is being surveyed in both breadth and depth.

The ingeniously designed and amazingly inclusive show salutes the American Achievement in many forms of art and many kinds of media.

It will be followed in autumn by an equally arresting examination of the second half of Mr. Luce's—and our—Century.

For those New Yorkers—and visitors from out of town or abroad—who really are not interested in painting and sculpture, American or otherwise, the current exhibition is still one absolutely Not To Be Missed!

Long lines are already forming outside the museum—well before opening-hours—thanks to a media-blitz of justly admiring reviews. Even the press-preview was one of the most crowded in recent months.

A century-end summary of American Art is most appropriate at the Whitney.

The museum was founded only because the American painter, patron, and collector, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, could not get any major American museum to accept the gift of her own collection—with an endowment to match.

European-oriented curators of painting and sculpture scoffed at her American artworks and the native artists she championed.

Looking at so many now famous—and extremely valuable—works from Gertrude Whitney's early collection, it is difficult to imagine any lover of art refusing such a magnificent gift.

The current exhibition includes many of these American Icons, long favorites with Whitney regulars over the years.

Other major modern American paintings—especially avant-garde works which have clearly inspired European imitators—are also on view. They are drawn not only from the Whitney's own considerable collections, but from the holdings of other major museums and private collectors.

But there is nothing snobbish about the choices for this wide-ranging show.

MORE FAMOUS THAN ADAM & EVE?--Grant Wood's 1930 "American Gothic" is one of the best-known icons of rural & small-town WASPS.
Grant Wood's "American Gothic" may have become a comic greeting-card favorite—even a cultural cliché bordering on Kitsch, thanks to its wide over-exposure. But it is still an Icon of Popular American Art, and all the more worthy therefore of inclusion.

ANOTHER "AMERICAN GOTHIC"--Photographer Gordon Parks recycles Grant Wood's image to show an African-American reality in Washington, DC, in 1942.
To see Wood's "The Ride of Paul Revere," or an American scene painted by Rockwell Kent or Norman Rockwell—who have only one name in common—will surely make those who are intimidated by Frank Stella, depressed by Edward Hopper, or mystified by Georgia O'Keeffe feel more at home at the Whitney.

Who would ever have expected to find a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover on display in a highbrow art museum? That should delight those whom broadcaster Walter Winchell used to call "Mr. & Mrs. North America."

CHEAP FLIX--Reginald Marsh's vibrant 1936 social satire, "Twenty Cent Movie."
And they can certainly relate to the bawdy Reginald Marsh images of Saturday Night fun at the flicks. Or memories of a vaudeville or burlesque stage-show.

This show neglects none of the most challenging experiments in the arts—even some that proved dead-ends.

But it also celebrates American Popular Culture in a way that's almost as much fun as a trip to Coney Island was long ago.

With five floors of the Whitney redesigned to present this show with imagination and panache, the plastic and graphic arts are complemented on all levels with outstanding and emblematic examples of American innovation in architecture, industrial design, furniture, decoration, dance, theatre, music & song, and literature.

Important political and social movements are chronicled in posters, polemics, poems, and novels. Prized First-Editions—some in their original dust-jackets—of major fiction and reportage are on view.

The development of Popular Entertainment is charted with photos, recordings, films, and fan-magazines.

GIRL IN THE RED-VELVET SWING--Showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt in Gertrude Käsebier's 1902 black-and-white photo portrait.
In an intimate walk-through cinema-space, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dazzle on three screens.

African-Americans' impressive contribution to music, dance, theatre, and the arts of painting, sculpture, and design are rousingly, colorfully celebrated.

The American Century is divided into four main periods. They are: "America in the Age of Confidence: 1900-1919," "Jazz Age America: 1920-1929," "America in Crisis: 1900-1939," and "War and Its Aftermath: 1940-1949."

DEPRESSION DESPAIR--Dorothea Lange's 1936 portrait of "Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California."
Having grown up in the Age of the Great Depression, I found the third section most moving. Especially Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's photographs of rural misery.

Also appealing is the WPA regional-historical Art Deco mural art—some of which is presented in models of the actual rooms for which the murals were designed.

This is one major show in which the major objects aren't all just hanging on the walls or sitting on the floors. But even those that aren't in motion invite visual, intellectual, and emotional interaction.

Thanks to INTEL—the generous sponsor of this gargantuan exhibition—an online extension of both parts of the show will be available. Currently, there is a special computer-terminal room where museum visitors can create their own personalized tours of the exhibition.

This is attractively designed, even for younger eyes and curiosities. It is possible—if one has called up the image of a major painting—to click on points which will put the work in a wider American social and cultural context.

BEFORE PEARL HARBOR--Paul Cadmus caricatures a pre-war Shore-Leave in his 1938 "Sailors and Floozies."
When Part II [1950-2000] of the exhibition opens in Autumn, the online program will have a special area for teachers. After all, school and college classes are sure to flood both parts of the show.

When this online program is fully operative, it can be accessed through the Whitney's website:

This in turn links to , produced by INTEL, which is in effect an Internet Museum-Gallery. It will showcase online versions of major art exhibitions like The American Century.

For those who are computer-shy—or online-illiterate—there is an excellent research resource which doesn't have to be plugged-in or debugged by Virex.

What's more, it is a physically beautiful permanent record of the entire exhibition—with the usual insightful essays by experts in the relevant areas on display.

This is Curator Barbara Haskell's The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-1950. Published by Norton & the Whitney Museum, it offers 554 full-color and 167 duotone illustrations of major exhibition artworks and related materials.

That's a lot of arts imagery in only 400 pages. So $60 [hardcover] and $40 [paper] aren't outrageous prices.

But this is more than a record or a reference for this comprehensive show. It is also a Social and Cultural History of the first half of Our Century. [Loney]

For editorial and commercial uses of the Glenn Loney INFOTOGRAPHY/ArtsArchive of international photo-images, contact THE EVERETT COLLECTION, 104 West 27th Street, NYC 10010. Phone: 212-255-8610/FAX: 212-255-8612.

For a collection of Glenn Loney's previous columns, click here.

Copyright © Glenn Loney 1999. No re-publication or broadcast use without proper credit of authorship. Suggested credit line: "Glenn Loney, Curator's Choice." Reproduction rights please contact: jslaff@nymuseums.com.

Return to Curator's Choice Table of Contents