The Very Best of NYC Art

Into The Sunset at MOMA, Pioneer Women and more

-ART-

Now on display at MoMA is Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West, an exhibition that surveys photographic works dating from 1850 to 2008. The advent of the camera coincided with exploration of a large section of the American West in the middle of the nineteenth century, and much of what we have grown to understand as the seemingly infinite bounty and potential has been expressed through photography.  This exhibition explores the relationship between the image and the shifting political, cultural and social attitudes toward the region over a century and a half of development.  The first of two film series will be run in conjunction with this exhibit, from Apr 1 through May 1, called The Old West: Myth, Character and Reinvention, and will feature silent short films from 1894 (Sioux Ghost Dance and Annie Oakley) as well as more modern feature-length westerns (Annie Get Your Gun, Wild Bill).

Opening on Apr 10 at the Guggenheim is Intervals: Julieta Aranda, part of a new series “designed to reflect the spirit of today’s most innovative practices.”  This installation challenges the notion of time as a linear progression determined by clocks and calendars. The first piece one encounters is near the stairwell: a peephole that shows an hourglass (refracted by a camera obscura) in which the grains of sand flow upwards.  Previous works by the artist have been inspired by an event that occurred in 1995 in the small Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati, where the International Date Line was rerouted, effectively diving the islands into two different days. The Intervals series will offer a new artist each year, with Kitty Kraus slated for the next installation in the fall of this year.

Tabla Rasa Gallery in Brooklyn will open a new exhibit, Pioneer Women, on Apr 18.  Named for the women who have settled the fertile ground of the Pioneer Valley in Connecticut, the show features over 20 women artists who have created new works for the show in a range of mediums, varying from traditional sculptures and doll-making to high-tech computer art and green energy models.  Some of the women presented are showing their works in New York for the first time. Others artists are seasoned veterans who have pieces showing in various places across the globe, including a recent piece of Belinda Lyons-Zucker’s that was selected for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.


What Do You Think?