Painter Alice Neel s first retrospective in 20 years is both timely and ambitious. And people are flocking to see her portraits, a chronicle of the 20th century through expressive faces and figures.
Painter Alice Neel s first retrospective in 20 years is both timely and ambitious. And people are flocking to see her portraits, a chronicle of the 20th century through expressive faces and figures.
Julie Mehretu
Until 8 August at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Manhattan
Julie Mehretu’s massive mid-career survey which has travelled from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art includes more than 70 paintings and works on paper that date from 1996 to today. It offers a chance for viewers to track the progression of Mehretu’s style from early pieces that focus more heavily on mapping and drawing to her sprawling abstractions with innumerable layers of visual information. Some of the most recent works on view also smartly deal with contemporary social issues, as the process begins with photographs one started with police in riot gear following the killing of Michael Brown, for example, while another began with images of climate change-related firescapes. These images are then blurred and erased beyond recognition before paint and other materials are stacked on, and are then sanded and erased, creating a pentimento surface where older layers peer through
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I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression “S/he’s a people person.” Alice Neel, whose long overdue retrospective
Alice Neel: People Come First, is currently drawing hordes of visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s no surprise, considering she based her entire life and career around the intimates and strangers that surrounded her. Every class, race, and gender came under her razor-sharp gaze. And no human being encountering her subjects comes away unscathed.
Born in Merion Square, Pennsylvania, in 1900, Neel was obsessed with capturing the turmoil of her times. She was convinced that “people’s images reflect the era in a way that nothing else could.” True to this “anarchic humanist” as she defined herself, she depicted labor organizers like