Lynne Cooke is senior curator for special projects at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. She is currently at work on “Braided Histories,” a planned 2023 exhibition that will explore affiliations and interchanges between abstract artists and textile designers and producers.
1
HANNAH RYGGEN (SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT; CURATED BY MARIT PAASCHE AND ESTHER SCHLICHT)
Little known beyond Scandinavian shores since her death in 1970, Ryggen was finally given her due in this fascinating exhibition. A self-identified painter who considered her loom her brush, she wove monumental tapestries while eking out a living on a farm in remote northern Norway. The subjects of these extraordinary “history paintings,” intended strictly for display in public places, encompass the rise of fascism in the interwar years, postwar nuclear armament, endemic sexism, and more local political and social ills.
2
“ULRIKE MÜLLER AND AMY ZION: THE CONFERENCE OF THE ANIMALS” (QUEENS MUSEUM, NEW YORK; ORGANIZED BY LARISSA HARRIS AND SOPHIA MARISA LUCAS)
In this project, Müller yokes an exhibition of children’s drawings, selected by independent curator Amy Zion, together with her playful, pastel-hued mural to telling effect. Commissioned for the wall that encircles the Panorama of the City of New York, Müller’s vast painting subtly addresses the iconic site, broaching questions of proportion in formal and conceptual terms. By interweaving allusions drawn from the micro and macro—including children’s book illustrations, design vocabularies familiar from public-housing projects, and the friendly creatures on the loose in the nearby park—it ensnares young and old alike.
On view through January 17, 2021.
3
“FAST FASHION/SLOW ART” (GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MUSEUM AND THE TEXTILE MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, DC; CURATED BY BIBIANA OBLER AND PHYLLIS ROSENZWEIG)
Modest in scale but ambitious in scope, this timely show of video work probed the costs of the rabid expansion of the global apparel industry over the past several decades through a keenly politicized feminist lens. Prerequisites to fashion’s unprecedented consumption and wastage are race- and gender-based exploitation, low wages, oppressive labor conditions, and environmental depredation. The ascendance of handicrafts, much touted as a viable counterforce to extractive economies in recent decades, was revealed in this savvy ensemble of works to be at best whimsical, nostalgic, and romantic.
Organized by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, in cooperation with the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, Washington, DC, and the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum.
4
LENORE TAWNEY (JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER, SHEBOYGAN, WI; CURATED BY KAREN PATTERSON WITH LAURA BICKFORD, SHANNON R. STRATTON, AND DR. MARY SAVIG)
Financially and philosophically independent, this middle-aged latecomer to “fiber art” moved at will between fine arts and craft practices over some five decades. Wayward in every respect, Tawney forswore the critical success craved by textile careerists of her day. The Kohler’s opportune retrospective, which should have assured her reputation in an art world now better tailored to her pioneering vision, did not, unfortunately, travel. Though its excellent catalogue will spread the word, more is needed.
5
“INDIRA ALLEGRA: BURKE PRIZE 2019” (MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN, NEW YORK; CURATED BY SAMANTHA DE TILLIO AND ANGELIK VIZCARRONDO-LABOY WITH ALIDA JEKABSON)
Winner of MAD’s annual contemporary craft award, Allegra was also a standout in the section of the Tawney retrospective devoted to the new generation considered part of the pioneering cross-disciplinary artist’s wide-ranging legacy. Comprising video and sculpture, the exhibited works—drawn from the 2017 “BODYWARP” series—were conceived as a memorial to Pamela Djerassi, who died by suicide on Ohlone Ramaytush territory land in Northern California. Deploying looms and other tools integral to weaving, Allegra vividly conjures lingering memories of place, and the tensions inherent to this intimate medium.
6
MINÄ PERHONEN/MINAGAWA AKIRA (MUSEUM OF CONTEM-PORARY ART TOKYO)
Today widely acclaimed, Minagawa moved the needle in the 1990s Japanese fashion industry by marketing a product to be worn and cherished over time. In place of a signature look, Minagawa’s label, Minä Perhonen, prioritizes the timeless: simple yet stylish designs, skilled finishing, and beautiful, luxurious fabrics. Priced slightly high for the cross-generational mass market Minagawa aims to attract, his work takes longevity as its hallmark. As each garment accumulates signs of age and repair, it becomes charged with memories—of the momentous purchase, of a significant outing. Patina is welcomed in this singular vision.
7
“JEFFREY GIBSON: WHEN FIRE IS APPLIED TO A STONE IT CRACKS” (BROOKLYN MUSEUM, NEW YORK; CURATED BY JEFFREY GIBSON AND CHRISTIAN AYNE CROUCH WITH EUGENIE TSAI AND ERIKA UMALI)
The exhibition typology is familiar, not to say stale: The museum commissions an artist to revivify and make relevant a collection otherwise neglected or sidelined. But Gibson set this model on fire. He extended his invitation to include a historian, Christian Ayne Crouch, and together the cocurators took aim at the museum’s archive, cracking open the ideological biases—the ignorant and often racist beliefs and values—on which its collecting was premised. White academic sculptors in the early twentieth century savored the narrative of dying Indigenous cultures, as is evinced by their regular veneration of that sentimental avatar the expiring warrior. In a deft twist, Gibson reshod a paradigmatic example of that genre—a monumental equestrian bronze he salvaged from the museum’s parking lot and displayed center stage in the show’s opening gallery—thereby resurrecting it.
On view through January 10, 2021.
8
DONALD JUDD (MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK; CURATED BY ANN TEMKIN WITH YASMIL RAYMOND, TAMAR MARGALIT, AND ERICA COOKE)
This brilliant show, astutely calibrated and scaled to its institutional context, set aside multiple aspects of its subject’s complex, protean mind in favor of a focused deep dive. In short, it homed in on sculptural works made for gallery and museum presentation. Tracing the evolution of Judd’s highly restricted vocabulary of formal typologies over three decades, the elegant installation foregrounded his assured inventiveness, singular gifts as a colorist, and refined understanding of materials.
On view through January 9, 2021.
9
“IT’S JUST A MATTER OF TIME” (ARCOMADRID 2020; CURATED BY ALEJANDRO CESARCO, MASON LEAVER-YAP, AND MANUEL SEGADE)
As their intergenerational roster of participants indicated, the curators consider influence—an art-historical watchword—to be a continuous form of dispersion, moving both in and against time. Their arresting show, centered on the multifarious practice of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, confirmed this smart, if quirky, insight: Influence has the potential to resignify past practices as well as enable new ones.
10
“JACOB LAWRENCE: THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE” (METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK; CURATED BY ELIZABETH HUTTON TURNER AND AUSTEN BARRON BAILLY WITH LYDIA GORDON, RANDALL GRIFFEY, AND SYLVIA YOUNT)
In the early 1950s, Lawrence tellingly revised his original conception for the series that gave the exhibition its name from an African American–centered history to a history of all Americans. Ultimately truncated to the years of the American Revolution, the thirty-panel cycle images the nation’s formation freshly, in lyric as opposed to epic terms. And while it speaks eloquently to the time in which it was made—the dawn of the civil rights movement—“Struggle: From the History of the American People,” 1954–56, also engages our own charged era. Importantly, it reminds us that discord is required for the achievement of a more perfect union.
Organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. On view at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, through February 7, 2021; travels to Seattle Art Museum February 25–May 23, 2021; Phillips Collection June 26–September 19, 2021.
11
“ROSIE LEE TOMPKINS: A RETROSPECTIVE” (BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE, CALIFORNIA)
But wait, there’s more––
In the #11 video series, Artforum invites contributors to add one more thing to their 2020 Top 10 list. Below, Lynne Cooke discusses “Rosie Lee Tompkins: A Retrospective,” on view at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California through July 18, 2021.