"...the first comprehensive look at de Kooning's work in nearly 30
years..."--Carol Vogel "The New York Times"
"De Kooning: A Retrospective," at the Museum of Modern Art, is the
most piercing, inexhaustible, and relentlessly intense full-on
career survey I have ever seen in this country.--Jerry Saltz "New
York Magazine"
"De Kooning: A Retrospective" is a superlative exhibition. (Its
catalogue is equally fantastic.)--Tyler Green "Modern Art
Notes/ARTINFO"
Elderfield (emer., MoMA) offers an introductory essay that analyzes
early critical approaches to the artist and acquaints readers with
the spatial complexities of de Kooning's paintings. Dwelling upon
de Kooning's use of preparatory sketches and recycled pictorial
elements, the author deflates the rhetoric of action painting that
has oversimplified the artist's work. Subsequent essays by
Elderfield, Mahony, and Jennifer Field offer erudite studies of
everything from the WPA works and the "Woman" series to de
Kooning's "full arm" "urban landscapes" and the torqued ribbons of
his late canvases. This is a catalogue about biography, sources
(many of them from pre-modern painting), process, form,
and-particularly in the studies of major works by conservationists
Jim Coddington and Susan F. Lake-materials...the many reproductions
are invaluable, and Delphine Huisinga's meticulous chronologies are
a boon to researchers.--S. K. Rich "Choice"
This volume magnifies and clarifies the great exhibition's many
facets, honoring the complexity of de Kooning's historical presence
and his work's lasting fascination. Short essays examine various
aspects of nine distinct phases of his career; to each phase is
appended a detailed chronology and an analysis of materials and
methods used in a single representative canvas. In his
idiosyncratic syntax, de Kooning once described himself as a
"slipping glimpser," referring to his preference for the incomplete
or provisional information that a dynamic viewpoint affords, and
this teeming book aptly provides slipping glimpses of one of the
giants of 20th-century painting.--Maine Stephen "Art in
America"
Bring open eyes and an open mind, for if you cherish the ox of any
aesthetic of ideological bias, de Kooning will gore it.--Peter
Schjeldahl "The New Yorker"
If you are looking for something jaw-dropping, then look no further
than this sprawling retrospective devoted to one of the most
important figures in 20th century American painting.--Carolina
Miranda "WNYC Culture"
Predictably awe-inspiring... In its scale, crème-de-la-crème
editing and processional sweep, it's MoMA in excelsis, and for many
people it will probably represent this institution's
history-writing at its best.--Holland Cotter "The New York
Times"
The first retrospective since de Kooning's death in 1997, it will
give us our first opportunity to experience the artist from start
to almost-finish.--Kelly Devine Thomas "ARTnews"
The Museum of Modern Art's generous, even prodigal De Kooning
retrospective is the most ambitious show New York has seen in a
long time - a lavish, knotty and definitive tribute to a tricky and
alloyed genius.--Ariella Budick "Financial Times"
Ask a Question About this Product More... |