The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-06)

E10 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MARCH 6 , 2022

spring arts preview | museums

BY SEBASTIAN SMEE

It’s wonderful to see America’s matchless

museums back in the swing of things after the

past two fearful, pinched and stuttering years.

There are so many exhibitions opening across

the country, covering the gamut of art-mak-

ing, from photo graphs, sculpture and weav-

ing to drawings, the history of cinema, auto-

mobiles and even the very niche category of

paintings on stone.

Most of these shows have been years in the

planning. The expertise, scholarship and

l ogistics behind every one of them would

a stound you even in ordinary times. It’s a ll the

more impressive given the impediments,

u ncertainty and heartbreak so many curators

and their colleagues have had to negotiate in

recent times. Hats off to museum workers!

Here are 10 shows I’m excited about — but

honestly, there are so many more. Go to the

websites of your favorite museums and see

what they have in store.

Joan Mitchell

Arguably the most acclaimed of the second

generation of abstract expressionists, Mitch-

ell came to prominence in 1950s New York,

before spending more than four decades in

France. This retrospective, co-organized by

the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,

will open in Baltimore with 70 works bor-

rowed from public and private collections in

the United States and Europe.

Joan Mitchell March 6-Aug. 14 at the Baltimore

Museum of Art. artbma.org.

Alberto Giacometti

This is an ambitious overview in Cleveland

of the modern sculptor’s celebrated postwar

work, featuring 60 sculptures, paintings and

drawings. Giacometti is best known for his

slender sculptures, the products of ferocious-

ly focused attention over long periods. As

identified with postwar existentialism as

Meursault, the fictional protagonist of Albert

Camus’s “The Stranger,” they appear to have

been nibbled down to a dense core by the

space around them. The show will tour to

Houston, Seattle and Kansas City.

Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate

Figure M arch 12-June 12 at the Cleveland

Museum of Art. clevelandart.org.

Security guards turn curators

Who spends more time in galleries than

security guards? What do they like? What

would they want us to see? The Baltimore

Museum of Art has asked 17 of its officers to

choose an exhibition of works from the

collection. Working with the renowned art

historian and curator Lowery Stokes Sims, the

guards have not only chosen the pieces, but

also contributed to research, design, didac-

tics, content for the accompanying catalogue

and public programs. They’re getting paid for

the extra work, too.

Guarding the Art M arch 27-July 10 at the

Baltimore Museum of Art. artbma.org.

Whitney Biennial

A hit-and-miss affair, lately more con-

cerned with preempting criticisms and check-

ing identity boxes than creating a coherent

exhibition of powerful new art, the Whitney

Biennial, this year organized by David Breslin

and Adrienne Edwards, nonetheless remains

the most closely watched survey of contempo-

rary art in America. However well it succeeds

overall, this year’s iteration, like most of its

predecessors, is sure to introduce us to

compelling new talent.

Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept

April 6-Sept. 5 at the Whitney Museum of American

Art. whitney.org.

‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’

This exhibition of more than 130 works of

art addressing the experiences and complex

histories of the African diaspora, from the

17th century to today, comes to the National

Gallery of Art after a spell in Sao Paolo, Brazil,

in 2018. It will include contemporary art by

the likes of Njideka Akunyili Crosby, the late

David C. Driskell and Zanele Muholi, as well

as historical paintings, sculpture and photo-

graphs not only from Africa, but also Europe,

the Americas and the Caribbean.

Afro-Atlantic Histories A pril 10-July 17 at the

National Gallery of Art. nga.gov.

Winslow Homer

This exhibition at the Metropolitan

M useum of Art will be the biggest show

devoted to Homer, one of America’s most

reliably popular artists, in 25 years. Hinging

on a theme of conflict, it will present an

overview of the great 19th-century artist’s

career in 90 oil paintings and watercolors.

Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents A pril 11-July 31

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

metmuseum.org.

Matisse masterpiece

Six feet high and seven feet wide, Henri

Matisse’s “The Red Studio” (1911) was met

with perplexity when it first appeared. It’s

now one of the anchoring masterpieces at

New York’s Museum of Modern Art. MoMA

will make the painting, which depicts six of

Matisse’s paintings, three of his sculptures

and a decorative ceramic plate scattered

around his studio, the centerpiece of an

exhibition exploring the circumstances of the

work’s creation.

Matisse: The Red Studio May 1-Sept. 10 at the

Museum of Modern Art. moma.org.

Philip Guston

Four major museums organized t his exhibi-

tion, devoted to one of America’s most ac-

claimed and influential postwar painters,

before deciding to call it all off ahead of its

opening at the National Gallery in 2020. Their

reasons were confusing, but it appears they

wanted to be sensitive to the imagined

reactions of particular viewers and possibly

feared protests. (For a period, Guston, an

avowed opponent of racism, painted and

drew dull-witted figures with Ku Klux Klan

hoods to signify stupidity, evil and psychic

sludge). The rearranged schedule means the

show kicks off in Boston instead of in the

nation’s c apital, where it will open in February

2023.

Philip Guston Now M ay 1-Sept. 11 at the Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston. mfa.org.

Cézanne

This exhibition will try to demonstrate not

only how important Cézanne — the ultimate

artist’s artist — was in his day, but also how

relevant he remains. It’s definitely a case

worth making. With 90 oil paintings, 40

drawings and watercolors, and two complete

sketchbooks, the show is being billed as the

first major Cézanne retrospective in 25 years

and the first in Chicago in 70 years. It should

be a knockout.

Cézanne May 15-Sept. 5 at the Art Institute of

Chicago. artic.edu.

Robert Adams

Adams, 84, has taken some of the most

beautiful and plain-spoken landscapes in the

history of American photography. Known for

his aesthetic of modesty and compassion and

his ardent championing of the environment,

he believes in art’s capacity to change us for

the better. Adams is getting the full retrospec-

tive treatment at the National Gallery of Art,

which will display 175 of his photographs

taken between 1965 and 2015.

American Silence: The Photographs of Robert

Adams May 29-Oct. 2 at the National Gallery of

Art. nga.gov.

There’s a show ready

to scratch your niche

SONNY ROSS/ILLUSTRATION FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

COLLECTION STEDELIJK MUSEUM AMSTERDAM/MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

Philip Guston’s show “Now” will run at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts from May 1

through Sept. 11. Above is his “Painting, Smoking, Eating” from 1973.

ESTATE OF JOAN MITCHELL

Joan Mitchell’s work will be on exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art through

Aug. 14. Above is her work “South” from 1989.