First off, this is my first post of 2025, and I'm worried that all you'll notice is the fact that this is also not the follow-up to the Presidential Dick Joke post of last fall. Sorry. It's just been too hard to face the depth of our collective national misogyny while the trappings of American democracy are being stripped away in a thousand different ways, every day.
So, not that post (yet). I'll get back to it.
This time, I'll share some of the artwork that informed my eye last year. I'm a believer in the power of art to get us through difficult times, so this a kind of offering. I hope you are touched by human-made art today.
I saw three major exhibitions in 2024:
Note: When I go to art shows, I like to take photographs, but only after looking deeply at the piece. First, I want to find the visual cues, the unifying features, and of course, the signs of the artist's hand at work. I usually feel pressed for time - I spend too long on one piece or get caught up in one area, and as a result, I rarely stop to make a note of what I've been looking at and who made it. So, before we begin, my apologies for the lack of documentation regarding the artwork and artists.
The Shah Garg show featured the work of something close to 100 women artists in a wide-ranging group show. I enjoyed seeing the kinds of conversations women are having through their artmaking. The work was personal and political, domestic and defiant, formal and raw and the entire show spoke to the unique nature of the artists' experiences, and the unity of their concerns. The gallery below features some of the photos I took at the show. The last painting shown, Ice 11, is by Lorna Simpson and it is my favorite painting of the entire year.
In May, I went to Montreal (love that city!) and saw Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore - Giants of Modern art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and just about lost my cool. What a great show built on absolutely brilliant curation. For this gallery, I've created a few collage groupings in the spirit of blending the work of the featured artists - and a few groupings to reflect the aspects of O'Keeffe's paintings that fascinated my eye.
I found myself back in Montreal in July and caught a huge show of Flemish art spanning 300 years, and almost as many artists. There was so much creamy white flesh on display, I could have just reached out and pinched a couple of the baby Jesus paintings.
There's your inside look at my eye circa '24. I believe that artists are the great problem-solvers of our age. I'm convinced that art can change the world. I'm going to see more art in 2025. I hope to catch you in the galleries!
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