To quote Christina Olsen, Director of Williams College Museum of Art, it promises to be a “great summer” for the visual arts in that little corner of Berkshire County that her museum shares with The Clark Art Institute and MASS MoCA.
The blockbuster is going to be Van Gogh and Nature at the Clark (which runs from June 14 through September 13) and the people there are expecting so many visitors that they are even opening an extra café to cope. But this show is not just a crowd-pleaser. It brings together fifty of van Gogh’s pictures on loan from museums around the world and we are promised an introduction to van Gogh “not as the mythic ‘tortured painter’ but as a thoughtful and meticulous student of nature.” It should be quite an experience.
Also at the Clark there is a show that, were it not for the van Gogh, would almost qualify as a blockbuster in its own right. Whistler’s Mother: Grey, Black and White (July 4-September 27) brings the “most important American painting outside of an American collection” back home. It normally hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and Clark director Michael Conforti quips that bringing it here is in exchange for all the loans the French museum has had from the Clark. It will sit at the heart of an exhibition including Whistler’s prints and drawings, Japanese prints that inspired him, and – as a mischievous bonus – a room full of the old lady’s appearances in popular culture.
The Whistler theme continues around the corner at Williams College Museum of Art where Whistler: Close-Up (June 27-October 18) brings together a group of small Whistler paintings – some of which were left unfinished – from The Terra Foundation for American Art with prints from the WCMA’s own collection. The intention is to focus on Whistler’s brushwork and use of line and, in Christina Olsen’s words, “to really understand his painting process”.
Of course the big summer show at WCMA has already opened. Warhol by the Book (through August 16) is a genuine eye-opener. Beginning with books from his student days that Warhol made in collaboration with his mother, the show includes Wild Raspberries – a parody of a French cookbook – a reconstruction of the artist’s own library, and continues through his experiments with the book form right up until his death in 1987. According to the people at the museum, it answers the question “How did he turn himself into Andy Warhol?”
No less than eight separate exhibitions open at MASS MoCA this summer. In director Joseph C. Thompson’s words, this will allow us to “really look hard at photography” among other things. An exhibition of new work by Liz Deschenes will be supplemented by a group photography show that she has selected with in-house curator Susan Cross. A retrospective of Clifford Ross’s work, Landscape Seen & Imagined will take place in two buildings, six galleries, and one of the performance courtyards. Parts of it will only be visible on your phone(!)
Also at MASS MoCA will be Francesco Clemente, Encampment (opens June 13) a 30,000 square foot installation that includes six hand-sewn and painted tents that Clemente made with a community of artisans in India and a group of 19 erotic paintings that include contributions from traditional Indian miniaturists.
There is more: among many other things Thomas Schütte will be installing Crystal (a “site for contemplation”) atop Stone Hill on the Clark campus, WCMA is drawing on its Maurice and Charles Prendergast holdings for a new show called The Loosening of Time; and MASS MoCA will present a 100 foot mural by Barbara Takenaga and a 140-foot sculpture by Ran Hwang.
There is indeed something for everyone.
