We asked celebrated US artist Stanley Whitney to look back on his Summer of 2016, visiting cities across Europe and America.
Usually, in the summer we spend my time at our summer house outside of Parma where I paint. This summer I had the opportunity to paint but also travel a lot more than usual, to see artwork in NY, Paris, Basel, Rome, Athens and Naples.
New York – Carmen Herrera at Lisson Gallery
This was the inaugural exhibition at Lisson Gallery’s new space in New York. It was a great choice for the first show in their beautifully designed gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of NY. Hererra is 101 and still painting, as she has done for her whole life. The works exhibited were all painted over the last couple of years and I was immediately struck by their energy and youthfulness. The colours and shapes were so gorgeous and fresh, and there was such extensive knowledge behind the paintings, which was exciting to see. Wow! If people didn’t get to see that show, the Whitney Museum in New York currently has a beautiful exhibition of older and recent works. For anyone interested in painting who’s in New York, it’s a must see.
London – Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures at Whitechapel Gallery
I saw a small retrospective of Mary Heilmann’s paintings at the Whitechapel Gallery in London when I gave an artist talk there alongside Fiona Rae and Varda Caivano. I’ve known Mary for years and have seen other shows by her, such as her brilliant show at the Orange County Museum in California in 2007, which travelled to the New Museum in New York the following year. But to see the early work alongside the recent work again in London was very special. It was a well-curated show and Mary always brings clarity to her ideas on colour, play, knowledge and her positivity about life is always so refreshing. Her work always reinvigorates me.
London – Making and Unmaking: An exhibition curated by Duro Olowu at Camden Arts Centre
Duro Olowu is an internationally known fashion designer who was asked to curate an exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre. For this exhibition, he brought together 70 artists with pieces from the 18th century through to recently created work. The show included painting, sculpture, textiles, photography and ceramics and showed Duro’s openness: his love of fabric, colour, scale and art of all forms. It was breathtaking to walk through. Lots to see and think about. I saw this show twice.
London – Etel Adnan: The Weight of the World at Serpentine Gallery
I first came to know about Adnan’s work as a writer when I read Sitt Marie Rose, which is an incredible book set during the civil war in Lebanon. She was born in Beirut in 1925 and later came to the US to study before landing a position teaching Philosophy at the University of California. She had no formal artistic training when she started painting in the 1950s. This exhibition included painting, video, tapestry, calligraphy and fold out books, showing just how skilled she is across a range of media. Her use of colour has always struck me, and what she brings to painting in terms of colour. The work feels personal and has a timelessness and intellect which I find inspirational. She once said of her painting that it “is very much a reflection of my immense love for the world, the happiness to just be, for nature, and the forces that shape a landscape.” What else can you say? I’m very happy that I got to see this show.
Picasso in Paris and Basel – Picasso Museum and Fondation Beyeler
I always make a stop at the Picasso Museum now that it’s open again. I’m drawn to Picasso’s late painting that I find fearless, intelligent, playful and youthful all at the same time. This time in the museum they had a lot of sculpture around, and the room of wooden stick figures, and I was struck by how funny, smart and playful the works are. Picasso is always a great inspiration to me.
I go to Art Basel every year and while in Basel I always visit the Beyeler, which I think is one of the best museums in Europe. What struck me this year was a room full of late Picasso paintings. Since there weren’t so many of the late paintings up at the Picasso museum, I was very happy to walk into the Beyeler and see a whole room of them there.
Paris — Seydou Keita at Grand Palais
Keita is a Malian Photographer, who is known for his black and white studio portraits of individuals and families taken around the 40s and 50s. What always strikes me about these photographs (and other African photographers who worked in a similar style such as Malick Sidibe and Bobson Sukhdeo Mohaniall) is the rhythm. For me, it’s always about the rhythm and intellect and the tradition of African music and dance. These classical photographs, although black and white, have great colour, and seeing them in Paris on a rainy day was very special.
Rome — Pantheon
Rome is a place I go every summer for at least a couple of days. We refer to Rome as Homa Roma. And no matter what else I do in terms of shopping or eating, there is always going to be a visit to the Pantheon. It’s everything: scale, weight, the original doors, circle/square marble floor, the ceiling and the hole with the light coming through. The whole building is ancient and brilliant. For me and my practice, this is a very important building and space.
Athens — Acropolis Museum
Acropolis Museum is a new beautifully designed building by Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with Michael Photiadis. I’m a great lover of ceramics and they had so many small and large pieces on display. It’s great to see all the ancient work and the thing I love about ceramics is the human touch. It’s amazing to think about touch, and how it hasn’t changed.
The sculptures were also great. When you think about ancient sculpture you often think about the whiteness, but in reality, there is a lot more colour. Athens wasn’t a big city at the time but what’s incredible is where art was in their civilization and how much art they produced, in terms of ceramics, sculpture, and painting. It was a really important part of their culture and you get a great sense of that at the Acropolis.
Naples – Jimmie Durham: Studio Visit
We visited the brilliant artist Jimmy Durham at his studio in Italy. Durham is a Native American living in exile in his beautiful place in Naples. I’ve always admired his work and it was an honor to spend a day with him talking, looking at work and whiling away the afternoon together on his piazza. It was a wonderful summer day. Naples is beautiful and very unique. The food, the street life, the beauty, the danger, the energy is very inspiring.
New York — Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible at Met Breuer
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently took over the old Whitney Museum building and Unfinished was their inaugural show in the space. True to the title, the works shown all examined what the term “unfinished” means, and in turn explored when is an artwork “finished”. It was a wonderful show that presented classical, modern and contemporary work, from Titian to Cézanne to Twombly. Titian is one of my all time favorite artists and it is always great to see his late work. The highlight for me in this show was Titian’s The Flaying of Marsyas (1570s). This is a very important painting to me as there is such magic in the way he touched the canvas. As a painter, this was a great gift of a show.
