As a professional writer and avid traveler of North America, I often take advantage of the cheap deals existing for the most-traversed of all American flight routes: ATL to New York City, which could be to any of that area’s three major international airports. The World’s Busiest Airport saw over ninety-four million visitors pass through her gates and concourses in 2011, while I was a year removed from the utter nightmare that bartending on the Delta Concourse in Atlanta was. Back to town – back to the central city – where the Capital of the South has made great cultural strides since the Olympics swept through in 1996.
That year, for the first time in my art-loving life, I experienced an undeniably overwhelming art show: Rings at the High Museum of Art. The huge collected assemblage of international art was on display in Atlanta to educate the Southerners and amuse/entertain the world. It essentially foreshadowed a much brighter future for the only truly major art museum in Atlanta, which would later triple in size with a Renzo Piano architectural expansion of the original Richard Meier building. Rings was one of several cool High Museum shows I attended with my then girlfriend; we would go on to marry and consistently bounce between our home in Georgia and the NYC area, where she was originally from and had a host of friendly family members.
Hitting New York City every few months gave us ample exposure to excellent ethnic food, offbeat and often cheap shopping, whirling drunken nightlife, big tourist attractions that actually didn’t suck, transit that connected and world-class art. In NYC, we took in the life-as-art street culture and toured the incredible museums one-by-one: the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”) with its mammoth number of collections; the Guggenheim with its incredible interior and exterior designed by “starchitect” Frank Lloyd Wright; the classy Whitney; and, of course MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. I never knew I loved Monet so until I virtually swam in the life-sized pastels of his lily ponds there, bathing in beauty. I knew I loved many of the modernists, but maybe I underestimated the strength of that love, until I found myself enraptured and elevated inside MoMA. After surviving ten years of ups-and-downs my first wife and I divorced, but I never dropped NYC from my heart as one of my towns. What a city New York City is – truly the Capital of the World.
I was last in NYC for the Writer’s Digest Writer’s Conference in January of 2011. It was super cold and snow was flurrying as I entered via Queens. Then the sight of the Chrysler Building, as it always does, galvanized my strength. Engaged to marry again and happy and confident in my powers of word after finally finishing editing my first full-length book creation, I was in Manhattan to network with my story editor at the conference and interview prospective literary agents, which is always a mixed bag. I was alerted to two bits of art news prior to my arrival: I would be touching down on the Friday night of the month when MoMA was free, and MoMA had itself expanded. So, rather than partying or simply prepping for the conference, I trudged from my hotel, slip-sliding on a fresh glaze of ice – bright lights and big buildings buzzing me.
On a fairly recent excursion, I had been to SF MoMA in San Francisco, and the West Coast sister museum had only heightened my sense of desire to return to the even more incredible original. MoMA is never a bad time. The expansion, though remarkable, was not nearly vast enough to compensate for the crush of art revelers. Dark, lovely, urbane women and men vamped throughout MoMA, and it felt like a New York Friday night out. Of course, I was there for the art rather than to cruise or be cruised. As usual, I was finding The City intoxicating in its essence. After, I had a quick drink at a nearby Irish pub and retired to my hotel room a few blocks away.
I thought I had seen the majority of the museum’s collections over my trips to MoMA, so I did not immediately rush out to the High Museum when they had a MoMA show back home in Atlanta. I was pleasantly surprised at the show’s depth when I eventually did attend Fourteen Modern Masters: From Picasso to Warhol. I could go on and on about the more well known of these artists and just give a quick verbal brush stroke on the slightly lesser known, but in fairness to the two museums and all fourteen of the artists, I will instead quick flash each of them. My hope is that you, fair reader, will take the time to learn more about each of these artists in the coming months. I know that I am inspired to continue to self-educate on all of them.
Before I get to the list, I want to choose an omitted artist who should have been included in this show. And above many worthy others, I must select Jean-Michel Basquiat for that distinction. A true modernist, he evolved from writing dogmatic graffiti, cheap postcards he handed to Andy Warhol and basic street art, to be the single highest-paid painter in the world. Basquiat was snubbed again, which come to think of it was one of the major themes of his work throughout his sadly drug-shortened career: the black art mascot feeling the wealthy white art world’s snub. Famed Spanish Surrealist and Classicist Salvador Dali would have been another obvious choice, but a major exhibit of his later works was very recently featured in the High Museum. I promise to make a pilgrimage to Dali’s larger new museum in St. Petersburg, Florida and report back. His old museum there was a fun visit in 1995.
1. ANDY WARHOL (American, 1928-1987):The real King of Pop was making fifteen minutes of fame repeat from his Factory before Michael Jackson could moonwalk. I recommend reading Warhol Diaries to all of the culture curious. He broke Basquiat, the Velvet Underground and so many more stars major and minor. Most fail to understand that he was just an outline tracer, not even an average painter in the pure sense of the word. I want to visit the Warhol Museum in his birth city of Pittsburgh at some point. Two words: Soup Cans.
2. PABLO PICASSO (Spanish, 1881-1973):Guernica and Cubism are only small parts of his legendary story, as his brashly too confident artist’s life and competitive friendship with Matisse are worthy studies in art history. Biggest lie in the history of punk rock: “Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.” As with many of the great Euro-painters, Paris was his sometime home.
3. JASPER JOHNS (American, 1930-Living):This Georgia-born painter disassociated himself with popular Abstract Expressionism because he felt it was too emotional. He instead painted known images like flags, targets and numbers. I have a cute cat named Jasper Johns who absolutely refuses to be housebroken, but the artist seems a much more sensible being. He is almost tame or relatively simple when compared with his peers, as one might expect of a white male from the conservative area of Augusta, Georgia/Aiken, South Carolina. He moved up to New York City at the age of 18. I love his U.S. flags.
4. ROMARE BEARDEN (American, 1911-1988):Several years ago, the High Museum had an awesomely huge show of this African-American artist. Born in North Carolina, he worked out of New York and was a noted civil rights leader and co-founder of the Spiral Group. He is known to be perhaps the single greatest collagist of all time; his works depicting rhythmic city life can sing.
5. HENRI MATISSE (French 1869-1954):His style, known as Fauvism, emphasizes movement, shape and color: There was never another colorist to rival the great Matisse. He is my favorite for his larger works and the sweeping dance that plays out on the canvas before my eyes. He too had a major show at the High years ago, but it lacked enough of his large-scale pieces to satisfy my craving, focusing on his drawings and underrated sculptures.
6. JACKSON POLLOCK (American, 1912-1956):Everyone called Mr. Jackson Pollock an asshole, even his wife, painter Lee Krassner. Associated alone at the top of the Abstract Expressionism movement, he dripped and splattered and smirked and smoked his way to great fame. Some of his lesser stuff looks like drop cloths that should have been thrown away. The best of his stuff looks like drop cloths that should be and are ranked amongst the greatest paintings of the 20th century. Luck. Chance. Talent. Desire. Controversy. Rugged. Pollock.
7. PIET MONDRIAN (Dutch, 1872-1944):Lived in Paris, London and New York City and developed what he called a universal vision of the world. He used strong lines and bold color planes as he evolved from painting naturalistic landscapes to Cubism to a unique style called Neo-Plasticism.
8. MARCEL DUCHAMP (French, 1887-1968):He moved to America to discover commercially produced objects he had never seen before and deemed them to be art. These so-called readymades are emblemized at the High show by a snow shovel. He also dabbled in the everything/nothing of Dada. 9. JOAN MIRO’ (Spanish, 1893-1983):He is known for an unusual use of squiggly and dotted lines throughout his works. The suggestion of spiders may crawl throughout his pieces, rather than real spiders.
10. ALEXANDER CALDER (American, 1898-1976):He made the mobile a work of art. These kinetic sculptures of shapes of color are easily recognizable due to him. A large work by Calder permanently resides on the High Museum’s front lawn, as does a Lichtenstein “house” and a Rodin sculpture.
11. LOUISE BOURGEOIS (American, Born France, 1911-2010):She has some beautiful sculpture on display here, and she painted in the styles of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. I feel she is the least worthy of being in this show and was thrown in for two primary reasons: 1: At least one woman had to be included, and Georgia O’Keeffe has had two major shows at the High. One I wrote about as my first piece for my personal website (hanvance.com) in 2008 and another more recently on her famous artistic relationship with her husband, photographer and artists’ champion Alfred Stieglitz. 2: She died fairly recently. The great Mexican painter Frida Kahlo would have been another nice female selection, but then they may have had to include her controversial muralist husband, Diego Rivera, and the High Museum tends to shy away from any and all controversy.
12. GIRGIO DE CHIRICO (Italian, Born Greece, 1888-1978):His Classic painting emphasized grand scale architectural settings, while he was known for influencing the early Surrealists by inserting familiar objects not in scale.
13. CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI (French, Born Romania, 1876-1957):His sculpture work integrated him into the Paris artistic avant-garde as just a young man. He consistently returned to the same forms throughout his career, refining and reweaving them as themes: the endless column, birds of flight. He is often praised for clear simplicity and his relational use of works with presentational surfaces.
14. FERNAND LEGER (French, 1881-1955):The rhythms and forms of life influenced this painter to create his own style of Cubism. He dynamically integrated planes, cylinders and disks into his work. During World War II, he relocated to the United States, where he became fascinated with the theme of the natural and the mechanical at play in urban centers like NYC.
If you like NYC, MoMA is a must-see on each and every visit. Picasso to Warhol is on display at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta through April 29th.
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