Who's Your MoMA Part Two

 

Klint

I've been in Canada for the past week, hence the radio silence on this blog. It was an amazing experience just to get a break from the news cycle, talk to nice folks, and let them know that yours truly is as baffled as they by American politics. More anon on that subject. 

Here's part two of things from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. First up is Swedish artist Hilma af Klint. She died in 1944, but is having a moment these days. MoMA is currently featuring her works of vegetation. If that sounds dull, let me assure you, it's not. Klint loved flowers, ferns, etc. The above image is like a clay photographic negative of Queen Anne's Lace. Note my comments on the ones below.

 

This work reminded me of Aboriginal waterhole "dreamings"

 

 

 

 

Klint moved into abstraction. This is her impression of an orange marigold.

 

 

 

She is best known as a precursor to pop art.

Numerous artists commented upon the human condition and its foibles.

This Kazuo Shiraga tackles First World gluttony

This 1968 sculpture by Dorothy Dehner is social distancing before it was a thing

And, of course, war is the ultimate human frailty. 

Kathe Kollwitz, "Tower of Women "

This David Alfaro Siquero work from early WW II says it all

Of course, abstraction and deconstruction have long been staples of art. 

Francis Picabia 1914 during WW I 

 

 

Arshile Gorky 1941

Nkanga tribute to Ralph Ellison

 

 

Nkanda tribute to Art Blakey

Jack Whitten tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

 Finally, one of my all-time favorites. Henri Rousseau was considered a primitivist, a style of art that came after impressionism. He was not interested in real situations or color, so he was also a bit of a fauvist. This work is huge and I took a detail shot of "Dreaming."

Rob Weir