It finally happened… after weeks of starting and delaying a new installation of this newsletter… I got caught!
Last night, I got an email from a reader politely asking: “I haven’t been receiving any of the emails since I signed up over a month ago? Could you help me figure out why …”
Dear reader, I don’t have a good answer to your query. I could give you any number of excuses: fashion week, seasonal depression, other writing projects (shameless plug for my short piece on Calida Rawles’ new work Thy Name We Praise) but in all honesty, I wasn’t inspired to put pen to paper until my second visit to view In the Balance: Between Painting and Sculpture, 1965–1985, excellently curated by Jennie Goldstein, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
During a private tour*, Jennie mentioned that she wanted to make a “beautiful exhibition.” This intention struck me. Recently, I have struggled with what seems like a divestment from aesthetic beauty. In my experience in art viewing over the past year, I have seen some terribly ugly art that is heralded for its intellectual complexity rather than criticized for its aesthetic failures and it makes me feel some type of way.
The show — which features works by painters active in the 1970s and early 1980s; many of whom who are women — is extremely beautiful. Poetically so. As I exited the elevator and found myself seduced by Lynda Benglis’ massive liquid rubber latex pouring — I was taken aback by all the colors and vibrations that leapt off the walls.
In particular though, I think my favorite work in the show was Edna Andrade’s Cool Wave (1973). The work is so quiet in its’ exacting line work and soft colors. Before visiting the show, I wasn’t aware of Andrade’s practice. In fact, the only woman Op-Art painter that I could name check was Bridget Riley (one of my favorite white artists).
Talking about the work, Jennie shared that Andrade’s move towards her minimalistic lines was not just because of an aesthetic interest, but additionally, because this style of working was most compatible with her life as a mother, artist, and educator. She could begin works, live her life, and return to them without missing a beat. It made me think about how Toni Morrison would write in the mornings before her children woke up and her day began. A seeming solidarity.
Here, I could wax poetic about finding room for productivity, but I dunno, it feels most urgent to tell you to see this beautiful painting, which is beautifully curated into this beautiful exhibition.
If there is room for life’s hard and ugly truths, I believe that there must be equal room for beauty. Moreover, there is something so powerful in the unapologetic investment in beauty. Societally, we aren't trained to turn away from beauty, which can also mean that in our beauty we invite external gazes and, of course, violences. That shit is punk rock, because honestly: fuck hiding!
And so, I say: be witnessed in your abundant beauty.
*Many thanks to Eve Biddle for inviting me and a colleague on Jennie’s tour!
I loved this, whole.
Great read :)