Page 53 - World of Art Contemporary Art magazine: The 2023 Guggenheim issue

WORLD-CLASS ART ALEX KATZ: GATHERING

Exhibition: Alex Katz’s eight-decade retrospective will feature
portraits, social scenes, and landscapes that capture the
immediacy of visual perception in paint.
Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue,
New York, Rotunda and Tower Level 7

THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM PRESENTS ALEX Across eight decades of intense creative
KATZ: GATHERING, A CAREER RETROSPECTIVE STAGED IN production, Alex Katz (b. 1927, Brooklyn, New
THE CITY WHERE KATZ HAS LIVED AND WORKED HIS ENTIRE York) has sought to capture visual experience in
LIFE, AND PREPARED WITH THE CLOSE COLLABORATION OF the present tense. Writing in 1961, Katz noted that
THE ARTIST. THE EXHIBITION FILLS THE MUSEUM’S FRANK “Eternity exists in minutes of absolute awareness.
LLOYD WRIGHT–DESIGNED ROTUNDA AND AN ADJACENT Painting, when successful, seems to be a synthetic
TOWER GALLERY. ENCOMPASSING PAINTINGS, OIL SKETCHES, reflection of this condition.” Whether evoking a
COLLAGES, PRINTS, AND FREESTANDING “CUTOUT” WORKS, glancing exchange between friends or a shaft of
THE SHOW OPENS WITH THE ARTIST’S INTIMATE SKETCHES OF light filtered through trees, he has aimed to create
RIDERS ON THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY FROM HIS STUDENT a record of “quick things passing,” compressing
DAYS IN THE 1940S AND CULMINATES IN THE RAPTUROUS AND the flux of everyday life into a vivid burst of optical
IMMERSIVE LANDSCAPES THAT HAVE DOMINATED HIS OUTPUT perception.
IN RECENT YEARS.
Installation view, Alex Katz: Gathering, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
October 21, 2022–February 20, 2023. Photo: Ariel Ione Williams and Midge
Wattles © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

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