Over the winter break whilst back in Boston, I took a quick trip to the North Shore and to NYC to see some art…
…the highlights were 100% the Hans Hoffman show at The Peabody Essex Museum ( which I hadn’t been back to since childhood) and the Rachel Harrison show at The Whitney Museum ( which I almost skipped, and am super glad I didn’t). I loved the shows for different reasons, and had problems with each show for the opposite. Where the Rachel Harrison show had a virtuosic installation, a true attestment that artworks are never truly ‘finished’ and have the potential to take on new lives contingent on where, when, and how you show them…. the Hans Hoffman Installation was rather funny, and set up like a bit of a kids museum with ‘how to do displays’ and wall text that seemingly championed a champion. It was a little too busy for my taste, but his paintings are so strong that it muffled all of that unnecessary noise ( even the sound of the recorded sea gulls playing on speakers to make you think you were on Provincetown). Each of Hoffmans paintings are experimental, confident, weird, and somehow perfect even when they aren’t, I believe the show was great and a gift to see… even if they hadn’t left the walls white or the installation more simple. He was a true virtuoso!
… even if they hadn’t left the walls white or the installation more simple. He was a true virtuoso!
The Harrison show was super inspiring as well… but for different reasons. She re-exhibited a lot of old work (i.e. a retrospective)
but did it in a way that felt fresh and new, bringing the old work together to almost make new work from it. Whether it was the large installation surrounded by chairs ( questioning the participation with the audience, and barriers usually placed between a viewer and an artwork, or the reinstallation of a piece she did in an apartment gallery in the 90’s printing images of the space and placing it in The Whitney, sort of as a trompe l’oeil of the old space. The makes her art feel active, and not passive… as if it will always have a new way to be seen!
