Apr 28, 2017–Jun 2, 2019
WHERE WE
ARE: SELECTIONS FROM THE WHITNEY’S COLLECTION, 1900-1960
Where
We Are,
a new exhibition of works from the Whitney’s collection made between 1900 and
1960, goes on view in the Museum’s seventh-floor Robert W. Wilson Galleries,
beginning April 28. At a time when debate continues over what it means to
be American, Where We Are proposes a framework of everyday
relationships, institutions, and activities that form an individual's sense of
self. Where We Are brings together some of the Whitney’s most
iconic works by Louise Bourgeois, John Steuart Curry, Edward Hopper, Jasper
Johns, Jacob Lawrence, and Georgia O’Keeffe with rarely exhibited works by
Elizabeth Catlett, Jay DeFeo, and Ellsworth Kelly, along with recent
acquisitions by James Castle, Palmer Hayden, Archibald Motley, and PaJaMa.
“Where We Are surveys six decades during
which artists responded in complex and diverse ways to dramatic changes in
American history and culture due to economic collapse and recovery, cycles of
war and peace, and new modes of personal expression,” remarked Scott Rothkopf,
the Whitney’s Deputy Director for Programs and Nancy and Steve Crown Family
Chief Curator. “For his first installation of our holdings, David Breslin,
DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the Collection, has fashioned a
sensitive and stirring narrative that honors individual artists’ pathbreaking
approaches to depicting American life and their often complex relationship to
it.”
Where
We Are
is organized around five themes that suggest core aspects of one’s daily
existence: family and community; work; home; the spiritual; and the nation. The
exhibition, as well as each of its sections, is titled after a phrase in W. H.
Auden’s poem, “September 1, 1939.” Auden, who was raised in England, wrote the
poem in New York City shortly after his immigration to the United States and at
the very outset of World War II. The title of the poem marks the date Germany
invaded Poland. While its subject is the beginning of the war, Auden’s true
theme is how the shadow of a global emergency reaches into the far corners of
everyday life. The poem’s tone remains mournful but concludes with the
individual’s capacity to show "an affirming flame.” Where We
Are shares Auden’s guarded optimism, gathering a
constellation of artists whose light might lead us forward.
In
the portion of the exhibition devoted to family and community, newly acquired
photographs by PaJaMa (the name assumed by Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and
Margaret French for their collaborative photographs) give visibility to queer
relationships that continue, in our time, to demonstrate the commonality of
love. Elizabeth Catlett’s The Negro Woman
series, in the section on work, acknowledges anonymous Black women’s labor
and commemorates the courage, strength, and leadership of African American
women. Exploring various domestic spaces, Edward Hopper’s paintings reveal how
decisively the home structures our interior life, while Jay DeFeo and Mark
Rothko sought recourse in spirituality and mysticism to reinvest art with
mystery, awe, and wonder. Lastly, Diane Arbus, George Grosz, Jasper Johns, and
others examine the icons and figures that symbolically stand in for the
nation.
“The
Whitney’s collection is a mirror of the American culture it represents,” said
Breslin, “Beauty, diversity, difference, and complexity live together. Icons
reside in proximity to the not-yet-known or the forgotten. The exhibition
celebrates the breadth and compelling idiosyncrasies of the collection. Where We Are also suggests that each of
us, like the gathering of works in the show, is a collection of experiences,
activities, relationships, and contradictions.”
Focusing on works made from 1900 to 1960, Where We Are traces
how artists have approached the relationships, institutions, and
activities that shape our lives. Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s
holdings, the exhibition is organized around five themes: family and
community, work, home, the spiritual, and the nation. During the six
decades covered here, the United States experienced war and peace, economic collapse and recovery, and social discord and
progress. American artists responded in complex and diverse ways, and a
central aim of the exhibition is to honor each artist’s efforts
to create her or his own vision of American life. The artists and their
works suggest that our sense of self is composed of our
responsibilities, places, and beliefs.
Georgia
O’Keeffe: “Music, Pink and Blue No. 2” (1918. Oil on canvas, 35 × 29
15/16in.). Photo by Sheldan C. Collins, image courtesy Whitney Museum of
American Art, NY.
Where We Are, as well as each of its sections, is titled after a phrase in W. H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939.” Auden, who was
raised in England, wrote the poem in New York shortly after his
immigration to the United States and at the very outset of World War
II. The title of the poem marks the date Germany invaded Poland. While
its subject is the beginning of the war, Auden’s true theme is
how the shadow of a global emergency reaches into the far corners of
everyday life. Although mournful, the poem concludes by pointing to the individual’s capacity to “show an affirming flame.” Where We Are shares Auden’s guarded optimism, gathering a constellation of artists whose light might lead us forward.
Where We Are is
organized by David Breslin, DeMartini Family Curator and Director of
the Collection, with Jennie Goldstein, assistant curator, and Margaret
Kross, curatorial assistant.
