Giants and Georgia O'Keeffe Elevate Atlanta's High

My Paris summer was a lot of things, from amazing in terms of five-ringed and French encounters to profound for life experiences while restoring faith in many aspects of the Olympic Family, a welcome change after Rio challenges and Tokyo's pandemic left me dismayed. 

 

With an abundance of stories to share, including two drafted but unpublished posts from the final days of the torch relay and the dazzling albeit drizzly opening ceremony (and hundreds of photos and Paris 2024 micro-moment impressions to share), I've struggled to decide how to get back to blogging, procrastinating around real-life and client work since August. 

That stops now with notes on two fresh fine art exhibitions underway at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, which kindly hosted me for media previews for both options.

The must-see, worth airfare and a sleepover show "Georgia O'Keeffe: 'My New Yorks'" (through Feb. 16) gave me goosebumps. 

First arranged and unveiled at the Chicago Art Institute, the exhibition features around 100 works, including several longtime favorites by the Wisconsin-born multimedia artist as well as several "new to my eyes" works from private collections or remote museums not yet experienced. 

"This exhibition offers the wonderful opportunity to highlight this important but perhaps unrecognized period of O'Keeffe's artistic life and demonstrate how [works] exemplify her innovation as a Modernist," said High Director Rand Suffolk. 

Showstopping works include:

• Taos Pueblo, which vividly captures the New Mexico destination circa 1929, on loan from the Eiteljorg Museum of Indianapolis

• Radiator Building-Night, New York, with all its radiant shades of blue, first experienced in its home gallery Crystal Bridges of Bentonville, Ark.
  

• A Celebration, at right, featuring all the clouds about which Jonie Mitchell sang, from Seattle Art Museum

• The Shelton With Sunspots, inserted atop this blog post, featuring O'Keeffe's home and studio address atop Manhattan from which many other urban works originated, here from Chicago Art Institute

• Abstract nature scenes via From The Lake No. 1 and From The Lake No. 3 from the Des Moines Art Center and Philadelphia Museum of Art, respectively

• The massive (seven feet tall) canvas Manhattan with a Rockefeller Center-like ivory tower affixed with pink, red and lilac roses in town from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington (don't miss the delicate pencil and ink artist sketch also on view nearby)

The exhibition's rich catalog from Yale University Press, edited by Chicago Arts Institute colleagues Sarah Kelly Ohler and Annelise K. Madsen, includes essays that detail O'Keeffe's daily life in Manhattan with a skyscraper vantage point. 

Trust me, you'll thank yourself for making time to view this exhibition. 

Meanwhile, also on view through Jan. 19 the High presents "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys." 

Like the O'Keeffe gathering, this private collection presentation -- on its only Southeast stop after debuting at the Brooklyn Museum -- features about 100 works. 

Standout works include Kehinde Wiley's floor-to-ceiling portraits of the collection's namesake owners, coastal views by Barkley L Hendricks, an untitled work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and several photos by Gordon Parks, including multiple portraits of Muhammad Ali only a few years after his Olympic feats at Rome 196o. 

Another set of monumental canvases titled "A Puzzled Revolution" by Titus Kaphar blends likenesses of Ali's knockout of Sonny Liston with riffs from other icons like the nautical crew in "Watson and the Shark." 

Across the room, be sure to spend time with "You Shouldn't Be the Prisoner of Your Own Ideas" featuring a quilt-like assemblage of used jail uniforms arranged by Hank Willis Thomas. 

And around another corner, there's a small batch of BMX bikes (a reminder of their recent addition to the Paris Olympic cycling competition) and music studio production equipment. Word!

The final gallery also features four large portraits of dancers or gymnasts resembling Simone Biles, with the exhibit bookended by another giant -- the collection's largest -- Wiley canvas. 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Musée Rodin and its Five-Ringed Connections

My expectations were simple for a premier visit to Musée Rodin, one of Paris' main museums skipped during prior travels. 

What a treat! 

Nestled a couple of blocks from Invalides -- the 2024 Olympic archery venue -- and the Museum of the Army in the 7th Arrondissement, the museum of Auguste Rodin blends with its neighbors on the exterior while unveiling a grand garden and main building (the sculptor's later-years Hôtel Biron residence of about 116 years ago). 

Of course, the sculptures impress. It was fun, albeit unplanned, to view Rodin's sketches, ceramic models or miniatures for many of his famed works while discovering dozens of new-to-my-eyes concepts, then touring the museum gardens to find the magnificent, and at times monumental, Rodin casts in bronze. 

I knew not that one of his first major works, as a teen, featured a bust of his father, now on view with portraits or other portrayals of family members. 

There were also reminders of works seen at the largest U.S. museums dedicated to Rodin, including venues in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Kansas City and Atlanta's High Museum of Art, home to a gifted sculpture "The Shade" presented by the French Republic to the City of Atlanta as a memorial to arts patrons lost at Orly Field.

Speaking of "The Shade," it was new-to-me info there are multiple Rodin figures by this title, with trios of Shade figures in the galleries, garden and atop a massive portal the artist fashioned with additional accoutrement. 

There are nudes around many corners, including some not-for-kids poses like "Iris, Messenger of the Gods" (previously noted in this October 2022 post also summarizing Rodin past Olympic connections). 

Special for the 2024 Cultural Olympiad, Musée Rodin added content and works of Rodin's partner of 10 years, Camille Claudel, whose dramatic 1897 onyx and bronze work "The Wave" seemingly splashes/crashes from its display (the work is described as Claudel's major break from Rodin not long after she left him).

The best surprise was discovering several paintings by Rodin contemporaries, collected through friendship or investment. Most impressive: Large canvases by Edward Munch, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Vincent Van Gogh. 

Another discovery: Rodin's personal collection of hundreds of artifacts from ancient civilizations, with many figures of antiquity serving as inspiration for his own work. 

An upstairs corridor showcased a 2023 sculpture, apparently designed and assembled by 12 apprentice sculptors, titled "The Flame of Culture" inspired by the Olympic torch relay traditions. 

Exiting through the gift shop, two items caught my eye: a miniature version of "The Kiss" in its own wood crate (these miniatures were not available when this work was on view at the "Rings: Five Passions in World Art" exhibit of the 1996 Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta), as well as a clever pin design inspired by "The Thinker."

I was also captivated by a tin and brass broach pin design, described by the gift shop manager as "piano hands" (it was not clear if this is a Rodin work but likely is). For over 100 Euros, it was time to stop the music and settle with a few postcards. 

Methinks my wallet may be even emptier by Games end.

The Musee Rodin has special hours planned during Paris 2024 -- whether you're in town for the Olympics or a future City of Light excursion, do yourself a favor and make time to discover this Parisian treasure. 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver