The Loft Generation and Sound Suits

Today, we went to The Guggenheim to see the Alex Katz exhibit and the Nick Cave show.

I remember Alex Katz’s paintings from the 1970s and 1980s and, honestly, I’m not sure why. I know I had a postcard of one of his paintings, but I didn’t love it, although I did feel as if I had never seen anything like it.

This week, before we went to the exhibit, I thought a lot about portraits (again, not my favorite images) and also the times in which Alex Katz painted. He’s in his 90s, so he has seen abstract expressionism, a lot of contemporary sculpture, and, of course, all manners of portraiture and new types of art: film, video, performance art, installations,

So, here are three portraits all done in the same year, 2017. The two paintings are by Alex Katz and Kehinde Wiley and the photograph is Cindy Sherman.

Look at the way he paints hair. Susan loved that. It’s very long strokes of paint.

Not to mention Chuck Close, whose work, I think, Alex Katz most contradicts. This is Paul Simon, 2017:

Unlike some of the most recent shows I’ve seen at the Guggenheim, Hilma auf Klimt and Cai Guo-Qiang, which was truly mind-blowing, the Alex Katz exhibit was both wonderful and quiet. It wasn’t staggering (like Klimt and Guo-Qiang) or political (ditto), but the beauty and quality of his work was something to behold.

This is an early Alex Katz; his use of paint is so inventive.

Then, fortunately, we were also able to see the Nick Cave exhibit. I’ve seen many of his Sound Suits before at the Peabody Essex Museum (I miss that museum so much!), but today, after George Floyd and Sandra Bland and Tyre Nichols (and all the many others), I appreciated his work so much more.

Nick Cave….is….well….I mean…he is a genius. Truly spectacular and out of this world and like no one else. Being close to the Sound Suits is a privilege. He began creating the suits after the beating of Rodney King so that black men could have a safe way to walk on the streets on the United States. Sit with that as you watch these videos and look at the suits.

“I want it to be beautiful, even when the subject is hard. Honey, the question is: How do you want to exist in the world, and how are you going to do the work?”