El Greco: Ambition and Defiance to Open at The Art Institute of Chicago

Bringing together over 55 paintings and sculptures, The Art Institute of Chicago presents El Greco: Ambition and Defiance from March 7 to June 21, 2020. The first major exhibition in over 15 years devoted to Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known widely as El Greco, Ambition and Defiance foregrounds the artist’s personality to chart the development of his distinctive style, offering a new view of his prescient aesthetic. The exhibition is organized by the Art Institute with the Réunion des musées nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris and the Musée du Louvre.

Photo Credit: El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos). The Assumption of the Virgin, 1577/79. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Nancy Atwood Sprague in memory of Albert Arnold Sprague.

Remaining true to El Greco’s character, Ambition and Defiance provides a window into the personal aspirations and struggles that drove his artistic trajectory. Born in Crete, El Greco trained as a traditional Byzantine icon painter before moving in 1567 to Venice, where he became an avid follower of artists such as Titian and Tintoretto. Mastering but personalizing the techniques of Venetian Renaissance painting, he later sought patronage within the papal circle in Rome, but his ambitions would ultimately be undermined by his outspoken criticism of Michelangelo. El Greco received no commissions from the church during the six years he spent in Rome from 1570 to 1576, building his reputation instead on the basis of occasional commissions for portraits and small-scale devotional paintings.

Ambition and Defiance tracks the intersections of El Greco’s professional savvy, rebellious spirit, and artistic reinvention, culminating in the proto-modern style he developed in Toledo, where he settled in 1577. There, El Greco quickly earned a major commission for the altarpiece of the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, anchored by the monumental masterpiece The Assumption of the Virgin (1577-79), a work acquired by the Art Institute in 1906 at the behest of Mary Cassatt. When a dispute over the price El Greco demanded for another major commission for Toledo Cathedral led to litigation and a fallout with this powerful institution, he embarked on a career as a portraitist of the local intelligentsia. El Greco’s aesthetic continued to transform, becoming otherworldly and deeply expressive, marked by dramatic, bold color, radical foreshortening, and elongated forms. Its distinctly modern tenor appealed to artists at the turn of the twentieth century, when El Greco’s oeuvre was rediscovered and championed by the avant-garde.

The Museum Of Modern Art’s Annual Armory Party To Feature A Live Performance By Orville Peck On March 4

The Museum of Modern Art will host the Armory Party, a benefit event with live music and DJs celebrating the opening of the Armory Show and Armory Arts Week, on Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The Armory Show is New York’s premier art fair and a definitive cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century artworks. The evening reception, along with the daytime Early Access Preview at Piers 90 and 94, benefits MoMA’s exhibition programming.

The Armory Show returns in March 2020, marking its 26th year as New York’s leading fair for modern and contemporary art, and definitive cultural destination in the heart of Manhattan. Staged on Piers 90 and 94, the Armory Show features presentations by nearly 180 leading international galleries, sitespecific commissions and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, the Armory Show has served as a nexus for the art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery and patronage in the visual arts.

The Armory Party at The Museum of Modern Art on March 6, 2019. Photo by Austin Donohue

The relationship between the Armory Show and MoMA dates back to 2001, the year in which the fair dedicated its opening day to the Museum and in which the Pat Hearn and Colin de Land Acquisition Fund at The Museum of Modern Art was founded. The Armory Party at MoMA was also first held in 2001 and continues to be a much-anticipated annual art event, reflective of the deep partnership between both institutions and their shared commitment to Armory Arts Week.

The Armory Party at The Museum of Modern Art on March 6, 2019. Photo by Austin Donohue

The 2020 Armory Party will feature an open bar, a live musical performance by Orville Peck, and DJ sets by Kitty Cash, Hank, and Mona. The event will run from 9:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and features access to the second-floor Collection Galleries, Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures, and Haegue Yang: Handles. Party ticket purchase also includes select access to the Armory Show at Piers 90 and 94. VIP tickets feature a designated bar and lounge, early party access at 8:00 p.m. with passed hors d’oeuvres until 9:00 p.m., and exclusive access to Neri Oxman: Material Ecology.

Orville Peck to perform at the 2020 MoMA Armory Show Party. Photo courtesy of MoMA.

Orville Peck will perform a live set in the Museum’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby. Described as country music’s newest outlaw, Peck performs in handmade, fringed masks—which obscure all but his ice-blue eyes and belie his deeply personal lyrics—and ornate Nudie suits that recall the golden age of country music. Since the March 2019 release of his self-produced debut album, Pony, on Sub Pop Records, the enigmatic singer-songwriter has been featured on NPR and in Billboard, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, Uncut, the Fader, the Bluegrass Situation, and Vogue. The record draws from country music’s rich traditions, while Peck’s unique and haunting baritone weaves through 12 original songs.

This year’s event is hosted by the Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

Salman Toor: How Will I Know Opens At The Whitney On March 20, 2020

Salman Toor’s first solo museum exhibition will be presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art from March 20 to July 5, 2020. Primarily making intimate oil-on-panel works, Toor expands the tradition of figurative painting by melding sketch-like immediacy with disarming detail to create affecting views of young, queer Brown men living between New York City and South Asia. Salman Toor: How Will I Know is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, which most recently included solo shows by Kevin Beasley and Eckhaus Latta, and will be on view in the first-floor John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Gallery, which is accessible to the public free-of-charge. This exhibition is organized by Christopher Y. Lew, Nancy and Fred Poses Curator, and Ambika Trasi, curatorial assistant.

“Over the past few years the field of figurative painting has been reimagined once again, this time by artists frankly depicting lives and cultures that were all too often overlooked,” said Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. “Salman Toor is one of the most exciting of these young talents, conjuring beautiful stories across his canvases with a sensitive and elegant touch.”

Salman Toor, Four Friends, 2019. Oil on panel, 40 × 40 in. (101.6 × 101.6 cm). Collection of Christie Zhou; image courtesy the artist.

Considering the figures he paints to be imaginary versions of himself and his friends, Toor portrays his subjects with empathy to counter the judgments he feels are often imposed on them by the outside world. Allusions to art history—notably classical European and modern Indian painting—feature throughout the artist’s work, endowing his narratives, which are drawn from experience, with elements of fantasy. Recurring color palettes, notably muted greens used to evoke a nocturnal atmosphere, heighten the emotion and drama of Toor’s compositions. In these dreamy vignettes, characters dance in cramped apartments, binge-watch period dramas, play with puppies, and style their friends’ hair. Meanwhile, another group of works, more somber in tone, highlights moments of nostalgia and alienation. One painting depicts a morose family dinner; in a series of works, forlorn men stand with their personal belongings on display for the scrutiny of immigration officers. Rich in personal detail and situated within a queer diasporic community, Toor’s paintings evocatively consider how vulnerability appears in public and private life.