The Very Best of NYC Art

Radical Acceptance, Edward Hopper, Slippages and Openings…

The Radical Acceptance exhibit opens at Tabla Rasa Gallery in Brooklyn on Feb 12. This groundbreaking exhibition of artwork by Clarity Haynes features 35 original contemporary paintings and works on paper, ranging in scale from the monumental to the miniature. On view through March 5.

Through Apr 10, Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time is on display at The Whitney Museum. Tracing the development of realism in American art between 1900 and 1940 and emphasizing the diverse ways that artists depicted the sweeping transformations in urban and rural life that occurred during this period, this exhibition highlights the work of Hopper. The artist’s use of modern life to portray universal human experiences made him America’s most iconic realist painter of the 20th century. Drawn primarily from the Whitney Museum’s extensive holdings, Modern Life places Hopper’s achievements in the context of his contemporaries—the Ashcan School painters with whom he came of age as an artist in the century’s first decades; the 1920’s Precisionist artists, whose explorations of abstract architectural geometries mirrored those of Hopper; and a younger generation of American Scene painters, who worked alongside Hopper in New York during the 1930s.

Red Hook, Brooklyn’s Kentler International Drawing Space presents Slippages and Openings, a one-woman exhibition of drawings by Beverly Ress from Feb 4–Mar 27. An artist’s talk will take place on Mar 12. “I don’t draw in order to make pictures,” says Ress, “I draw in order to see. I want to really see the materiality of the world – what is. I want to have that direct experience, not an experience that is removed.” You’ll have that and more at this new solo show.

Through Mar 15, CUE Art Foundation presents Brooklyn-based artist Elizabeth Winton, who constructs worlds of visual dualities. Traveling between printmaking, collage and painting, her work playfully juxtaposes multiple processes to create a multitude of layers, textures and forms. Rich colors and tones interact and compete on the picture plane with coarse fragments of paper and smooth strokes of paint. Sharp lines and solid geometric shapes intertwine along the surface with jagged lines and pulsating swatches of paint, organic pigments, plastic mediums and other materials.

Your high-school diary might be filled with lesbian longings and embarrassing doodles, but it’s safe to presume that the intimate journals presented in The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives contain no such awkward adolescent ramblings. Discover the innermost thoughts of novelists, scientists, musicians and intellectuals from the past 300 years at the Morgan Library and Museum, now through May 22. We’re eagerly anticipating the contents of “Sex, Drugs and Ennui: Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)” and “A Dark and Stormy Night: Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855).” Imagine where some of these writers might have penned their personal thoughts with a stop at Pierpont Morgan’s 1906 Library, installed and renovated in the museum with its exquisite murals and rich furnishings.

Since its opening on the Place Vendome in Paris in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels has played a leading role in style and design innovation. Its timeless pieces have been worn by style icons, including the Duchess of Windsor, Grace Kelly, and Elizabeth Taylor. Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels, at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, explores the historical significance of the firm’s contributions to jewelry design in the 20th century, including the establishment of Van Cleef & Arpels in New York with the advent of World War II. On view are more than 250 works, including jewels, timepieces, fashion accessories, and objects d’art by Van Cleef & Arpels, many of which were created exclusively for the American market. Opens Feb 18.


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