Before you go: Beatriz Milhazes
plus notes from an arts educator
This is the newsletter/waitlist behind Exhibits in New York, a currently private iOS app that lets you track and review shows in the city. Subscribe to join the waitlist and receive regular updates on shows around town. -Sarah + Alexandra
the basics
Who: Beatriz Milhazes, contemporary Brazilian artist.
What: Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty. Her works from the last four decades, most of which are large-scale with bright, bold acrylic paint.
Where: The Guggenheim Museum. Part of its Collection in Focus series, which also had Mondrian.
When: You have all summer. It’s through September 7.
Why: Milhazes’ paintings are a puzzle: How did all this color get on the canvas, without the trace of a brushstroke? Over the years, Milhaze discovered a technique she called monotransfer. Instead of painting directly onto a canvas, she applies acrylic paint to a smooth, plastic strip, lets it dry, and places the painted plastic over the surface. Then, by applying pressure to the plastic, she can adhere the acrylic to the canvas, pulling away the plastic to leave the smooth side facing out. This way of “painting” allows for more engagement with chance, and more acceptance of the possibility of error.
before you go (from an arts educator)
Read this interview with the artist, from the Guardian, to get an idea of why she uses the shapes and images she does. When you’re in the exhibit, examine the combination of abstraction and figuration. Search for elements of Baroque architecture and Catholic iconography. Consider: What effect does the monotransfer technique have on each piece? Is the artist’s hand completely hidden, because traditional brushstrokes are missing, or do you feel it is even more present, because of the careful arrangement of the collaged shapes and images? Does it feel like a traditional painting, or like the wall of a building you’ve passed by? Where else, outside of the space of a museum, have you seen anything like this?
also on view:
Women’s History Museum, Museum Manu, at Company Gallery. Through June 21.
Dietmar Busse, The Lives of Birds, at FIERMAN. Longtime subs of this newsletter may remember Amant’s show of his work earlier this year. Through June 22.
The Semiotics of Dressing at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery. Through July 12.
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