> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Pursuit of Art, 2015 - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-pursuit-of-art-2015/ - Published: 2015-12-26T12:00:20.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T15:33:55.000Z - Description: 2015 was the Year of the Whitney. - Author: Thomas Micchelli - Tags: Art, Alexander Gray Associates, Alison Hall, Anoka Faruqee, Anselm Kiefer, Brenda Goodman, Canada Gallery, Cheim & Read, Clarity Haynes, Denny Gallery, Edith Schloss, Elana Herzog, Eleven Rivington, Essays, Frank Stella, Frosch&Portmann, Gabriele Evertz, Garis & Hahn, Hauser & Wirth, Hunterdon Art Museum, Jack Tworkov, Jackie Saccoccio, James Prez, Jason Karolak, John Brill, Judith Bernstein, Kara Rooney, Kent Fine Art, Marino Marini, Mark Bradford, Mary Boone gallery, Mass MoCA, McKenzie Fine Art, Michael Scoggins, Minus Space, MoMA, Morgan Library & Museum, New Museum, Steel Stillman., Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, Studio 10, Todd Bienvenu, Van Doren Waxter, Vatican Museums, Walid Raad, Weekend, Whitney Museum of American Art, William Buchina, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:13 (2014, 2015, part 3) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/stella-zeltweg-2.jpg) Frank Stella, “Zeltweg (V), 4.75X” (1982), mixed media on etched magnesium, 114 x 128 x 20 inches. Private collection (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic) (click to enlarge) 2015 was the Year of the Whitney. Within a swift, seven-month span since the Mayday opening of its new headquarters on Gansevoort Street — a light-filled, magically flexible space designed by Renzo Piano — the museum has dominated the New York art world’s conversation with a rapid-fire succession of major exhibitions, including its sumptuous inaugural show, [*America is Hard to See*](https://hyperallergic.com/the-triumph-of-revisionism-the-whitneys-american-century/), followed by [Frank Stella’s](https://hyperallergic.com/something-worth-arguing-about-frank-stella-fills-the-whitney/) eye-filling retrospective, and an overview of a promised gift of art from the last four decades from [Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner](https://hyperallergic.com/an-early-thanksgiving-the-wagner-gift-to-the-whitney/). The cross-disciplinary approach taken by *America is Hard to See* and *Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner*, as the gift exhibition is called, is becoming the model for a new generation of curators. As [reported](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/arts/design/moma-rethinks-hierarchies-for-a-multidisciplinary-approach-to-art.html?ref=design&%5Fr=0) by Robin Pogrebin in a recent *New York Times* article, the Museum of Modern Art is planning a move that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: reinstalling its permanent collection outside of the museum’s traditional hierarchy, which placed painting and sculpture at the top of the pyramid, with drawing, prints, photographs, and illustrated books playing supporting roles, and film, performance, digital media, architecture, and design as outliers of varying importance. Pogrebin cites MoMA’s [*Soldier, Spectre, Shaman: The Figure and the Second World War*](https://hyperallergic.com/bodies-at-war-soldier-spectre-shaman-at-moma/), an exhibition examining postwar representational art from the former Allies and Axis nations, as a harbinger of interdepartmental cooperation. Another example would be MoMA’s retrospective of [Walid Raad](https://hyperallergic.com/unreliable-informants-a-walid-raad-primer/), an artist whose politically charged photographs, videos, performances, sculptures, prints, and collages, all of which fall uncomfortably between the conceptual and the material, make hash out of categorical distinctions. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/walid-raad.jpg) The Atlas Group/Walid Raad, “I might die before I get a rifle” (1993/2002), pigmented inkjet prints (click to enlarge) MoMA also scored a success with the reinstallation of its contemporary collection. Titled [*Scenes for a New Heritage*](https://hyperallergic.com/clearing-the-slate-momas-contemporary-reboot/), the display is filled with every form of contemporary expression, from computer games to cellphone photos to paintings on cardboard. It’s an intergenerational, international look at the art of today that avoids the pitfalls of the latest iteration of the New Museum’s [Triennial](https://hyperallergic.com/quickly-aging-here-the-2015-triennial/), another global perspective on all things contemporary, where a sense of discovery was supplanted by the generic and the tried and true. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City’s venerable storehouse of historical books, manuscripts, and art on paper, has recently leapt into the modern/contemporary fray. In February it presented a sampling of its [newly acquired drawings](https://hyperallergic.com/a-universe-of-drawing-rolled-into-a-single-room/) from the 20th and 21st centuries, followed in June by a sweeping survey of [portraiture](https://hyperallergic.com/staring-back-400-years-of-portraits-at-the-morgan/) from four centuries of drawings, which included many outstanding modern works. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/goodman.jpg) Brenda Goodman, “Self-Portrait 13” (1994), oil on wood, 48 x 40 inches (click to enlarge) Portraiture was also the theme of a lively summer group exhibition at [Life on Mars](https://hyperallergic.com/the-other-side-of-portraiture/) in Bushwick, in which impressive work by Brenda Goodman, James Prez, Todd Bienvenu, Elisa Jensen, Clarity Haynes, and Edith Singer, among many others, dispensed with convention in favor of a more expressive and subversive form of representation. There were also a number of strong, smart summer shows on the Lower East Side, including [*Cosmicomics*](https://hyperallergic.com/alien-forms-cosmicomics-at-froschportmann/) at Frosch&Portmann; [*I Dropped the Lemon Tart*](https://hyperallergic.com/failing-better-erroneous-art-at-lisa-cooley/) at Lisa Cooley; and [*Metamodern*](https://hyperallergic.com/going-meta-art-after-the-death-of-art/) at Denny Gallery. The most perfectly realized of them all was a three-artist affair, [*Cuts Noon Light*](https://hyperallergic.com/the-presence-of-absence-three-artists-at-brian-morris/) (the title is from a poem by Pablo Neruda) at Brian Morris Gallery, which featured collages by Andrew Ginzel, installations and sculptures by Kara Rooney, and photographs by Steel Stillman. Not only were the individual pieces stunning in themselves, but they seemed to have been made for each other, interacting seamlessly within the gallery space to create an independent, aggregate work of art. In Dumbo, the painters Gabriele Evertz, Anoka Faruqee, Gilbert Hsiao, Douglas Melini, and Michael Scott were featured in [*Breaking Pattern*](https://hyperallergic.com/confounding-the-eye-breaking-pattern-at-minus-space/) at Minus Space, a show of post-Op optical art that reveled in interruptions and imperfections. Though hardly freewheeling in their approach, these artists delved into the highly codified realm of perceptual painting with an attitude that was far more open to the messy and the visceral. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/bradford-blackwhite.jpg) Mark Bradford, “Black and White” (2015), mixed media on canvas, 60 1/4 x 48 1/2 inches (click to enlarge) Messy and visceral certainly applies to the dynamic paintings of [Judith Bernstein](https://hyperallergic.com/into-the-abyss-judith-bernsteins-dissection-of-desire/) at Mary Boone; [Mark Bradford](https://hyperallergic.com/mapping-the-body-mark-bradfords-new-work/) at Hauser & Wirth; [Karen Schwartz](https://hyperallergic.com/speaking-the-language-of-paint-karen-schwartz-at-life-on-mars/) at Life on Mars; and [Jackie Saccoccio](https://hyperallergic.com/the-skin-she-lives-in-jackie-saccoccio-paints-big/) at a double-venue outing on the Upper East Side (Van Doren Waxter) and Lower East Side (Eleven Rivington). A number of galleries staged revelatory historical exhibitions, featuring, among others, the late painters [Jack Tworkov](https://hyperallergic.com/the-anti-expressionist-jack-tworkovs-paradigm-shift/) (Alexander Gray Associates); [Edith Schloss](https://hyperallergic.com/forever-young-the-rapturous-art-of-edith-schloss/) (Sundaram Tagore); [Gregory Gillespie](https://hyperallergic.com/insanity-chaos-weirdness-gregory-gillespies-solitary-path/) (Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects); and [Andrew Forge](https://hyperallergic.com/colored-dots-and-brass-tacks-the-paintings-of-andrew-forge/) (Betty Cuningham). Another engaging show traced the stylistic turning points in the early career of Donald Baechler (Cheim & Read), while elsewhere, strikingly assured younger painters ([Jason Karolak’s](https://hyperallergic.com/dark-matter-jason-karolaks-wayward-abstractions/) boldly colored abstractions at McKenzie Fine Art; [William Buchina’s](https://hyperallergic.com/every-picture-in-the-world-william-buchinas-dream-logic/) complexly arrayed figurative works at Garis & Hahn; [Alison Hall’s](https://hyperallergic.com/earned-magic-alison-halls-deceptive-monochromes/) historically aware Minimalism at Stephen Harvey) were making their presence felt. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/brill-install-entire-1.jpg) Installation view of “PROJECT: John Brill” at Kent Fine Art, New York (click to enlarge) History and its discontents were evoked with exquisite subtlety in [Elana Herzog’s](https://hyperallergic.com/wreckage-upon-wreckage-elana-herzogs-angel-of-history/) sculptural installation at Studio 10 in Bushwick and [John Brill’s](https://hyperallergic.com/slipping-from-grasp-the-photographs-of-john-brill/) photographic installation at Kent Fine Art in Chelsea. Latter-day Minimalism and Conceptualism were given an airing, respectively, in the lumpy plaster and Hydrocal sculptures of [Robin Peck](https://hyperallergic.com/taking-the-minimal-out-of-minimalism-robin-pecks-abstract-skulls/) at CANADA and the Faustian contracts drawn up by [Patrick Killoran](https://hyperallergic.com/shadow-and-substance-patrick-killorans-faustian-bargain/) at Studio 10. Outside of New York, notable exhibitions included a group show of [narrative drawings](https://hyperallergic.com/tales-from-the-darkside-narrative-drawings-at-the-hunterdon-art-museum/) by four Brooklyn-based artists — Alex Gingrow, Carlos Rodriguez, Frank Magnotta, and Michael Scoggins — at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, and a set of extravagant installations by [Anselm Kiefer](https://hyperallergic.com/coming-back-to-kiefer/) at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/12/naples-fresco.jpg) Roman fresco fragment. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (click to enlarge) Farther afield (Italy, to be exact), there were fascinating things to be found wheat-pasted to a [wall](https://hyperallergic.com/twice-murdered-pasolini-as-street-art/) in Rome and inside an [empty altarpiece](https://hyperallergic.com/the-uses-of-enchantment-filling-an-empty-altarpiece/) in Ravello. At the Vatican Museum, an armless plaster figure made by [Marino Marini](https://hyperallergic.com/loaded-history-marino-marinis-armless-juggler/) in the immediate aftermath of World War II is rife with ambiguity — did the artist mean it to be a circus performer, as the title claims, or a disguised, desacralized Christ for a godless world? And in Naples, at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, on a [fragment](https://hyperallergic.com/lighter-than-air-desire-across-millennia/) of a 2,000-year-old fresco, a pair of lovers, their limbs intertwined in erotic abandon, spiral upward into a bejeweled blue sky, their ecstatic connection floating freely across the millennia.