Garry Winogrand At The Metropolitan Museum

The Garry Winogrand retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a generous sampling of the photographer's work, which was first centered around New York City before encompassing the Midwest and California. His NYC work, shot in midtown Manhattan in the 1950s and 1960s, captures the city at a time when its inhabitants were more formally attired and less culturally diverse than they are today (see above, from 1962). He also portrayed the turmoil of the late 1960s with portraits of anti-Vietnam war protests in Central Park and construction worker riots against peace demonstrators. When Winogrand went west, he depicted a country adrift: faceless suburbs, self-absorbed pedestrians, a legless veteran at an American Legion convention, a woman who is a hit-and-run victim lying in the street as a car drives by. Similar to his peers Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand's black-and-white photos have a haunting power.

"Garry Winogrand" continues through September 21, 2014, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., NYC; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org 

"Matisse: In Search Of True Painting" At Metropolitan Museum

How did Henri Matisse (1869-1954) achieve such vibrancy of light and color in his paintings? Apparently by his lifelong habit of reworking his canvases, as is made evident by "Matisse: In Search of True Painting" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He created series and pairs of paintings on the same subjects that nevertheless resulted in startling differences; compare the hue and brushstrokes of "Le Luxe I" (1907, above left) and "Le Luxe II (1907-1908, right). The exhibition also includes, among others, varied renderings of still lifes, domestic interiors, a young sailor, Notre Dame and a dark-haired model, Laurette. These experiments demonstrate that Matisse remained true to his mission, in his words, to "push further and deeper into true painting."

“Matisse: In Search of True Painting” runs through March 17, 2013, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., NYC; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

"Punk: Chaos To Couture" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Punk: Chaos To Couture" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art traces the punk aesthetic and its influence on high fashion. The exhibition is replete with multimedia representations from punk's two former centers, New York and London. There are videos of punk performances; a recreation of the London shop "Seditionaries," owned by designers Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, and a recreation of the New York punk club CBGB's notoriously grungy and graffiti-laden bathroom. The fashion items most representative of punk culture are Westwood and McLaren's T-shirts, with political and sexual statements and images designed to shock. Following this look at the early days, the show surveys punk's influence on current couture–and here its message becomes muddled. Viewers examine dresses festooned with safety pins, rips, spikes, studs, chains, splatters of paint and, at times, political statements. These designs are created by the most prominent names in fashion. It's clear that, despite the museum's signage stating that the designers are revolutionaries, they've actually co-opted punk's rebelliousness and created expensive costumes enabling the wealthy to pose as renegades.

"Punk: Chaos To Couture" continues through April 14, 2013, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., NYC; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.

"Regarding Warhol" At The Metropolitan Museum

Was Andy Warhol the most influential artist of the past 50 years? Regarding Warhol: Fifty Years, Sixty Artists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art goes a long way to proving that he was. The exhibition covers themes that are central to Warhol's cannon: consumer culture and disaster and death; celebrity portraiture; queer identity; appropriating images; and the business of art. These concerns are shared by the 59 contemporary artists who, along with Warhol, are represented here. Shown above, for example, is Warhol's Green Coca Cola Bottles, 1962 (left) and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's mixture of commercial culture and an ancient form in Neolithic Vase With Coca Cola Logo, 2010. The exhibition contains a generous sampling of Warhol's famed icons: Marilyn Monroe, the electric chair, Campbell's soup cans and more images that overturned previous conceptions of appropriate subjects for art–and whose repetitious treatment (as in the image at left above) reflect our media-saturated society.

“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” runs through Dec. 31, 2012, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., NYC, (212) 535-7710, www.metmuseum.org

"Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection" At The Metropolitan Museum

"Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection" encompasses 81 paintings, collages, drawings and sculptures presented as a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from collector Leonard Lauder. The works are by the four most influential Cubists: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris. This comprehensive survey reminds one anew just how decisive the early twentieth-century Cubist movement was to the entire course of modern art. In shattering the illusion of three-dimensional representation for flat, two-dimensional paintings, Cubism paved the way for abstract art. The artists' use of collage and mixed media broke the boundary between "high" and "low" art and brought in popular culture. The Cubists deconstructed the everyday world–musical instruments, human figures, landscapes, still lifes–in a radical new way that still resonates. This exhibition is essential viewing for an understanding of the art of the last century.

"Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection" continues through February 16, 2015, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street), NYC, (212) 535-7710, www.metmuseum.org