Do Artists Have a Creative Expiration Date?
The Long Run, an ongoing exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, contains many art pieces from established artists. These artists all had breakthrough moments in their careers that thrust them into the popular art world. However, this exhibition does not include the works of artists that were their breakthrough moments. This exhibition, on the other hand, explores works of artists after their breakthrough moments and how they continued to innovate. Furthermore, it showcases artists’ continued innovation and experimentation. The exhibition includes many artists with varying popularities. It features big names, like Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. However, it also includes less well-known artists, like Anne Truitt, Lari Pittman, Kerry James Marshall, Ernie Gehr, and Jimmie Durham. Incorporating less well-known artists shows how they continue to have breakthroughs and experiment even if their work doesn’t receive lots of attention. What brings all of the artists together is how the exhibition highlights how the artists continued to experiment with the boundaries of what art can be and how materials can be used. Walking through the exhibition, it is evident that the artists all encompassed similar traits: the love for art and the desire to create something meaningful.
Typically, young artists have sought after overthrowing the art movements of previous artists and making their own marks on history. As a result, many galleries and exhibitions feature works of artists establishing new movements — their so-called “breakthrough moments”. However, through their own introspection, curators at the Museum of Modern Art found that, “Our emphatic focus on new avant-gardes… abandons the individual artists’ stories that have already begun” (“Artistic Innovation in the Long Run”, Temkin, Josée, & Kravis). In other words, the curators are saying that we heavily focus on only one period of an artist’ career, which is usually their breakthrough moment. They are saying that artists’ breakthrough moments are only the start of their story, and they have so much more to tell. The Long Run is based off the idea of showing how artists continue to create and innovate long into their careers. The most clear example of how this is done is by featuring works of artists after their emergence onto the art scene. The title of the exhibition, The Long Run, is the perfect name for representing artists with careers of some length.
The exhibition features painting and sculptures, with many artists exploring different mediums. It does not feature just one art movement, instead it includes a myriad of artistic styles. There are 15 galleries throughout the exhibition, and it covers the entirety of the Museum of Modern Art’s fourth floor. Galleries are made up of few or even solo exhibitions of artists. As a result of the large number of galleries, this review will only focus on some of the galleries. Upon entrance of the exhibition, the viewer enters a gallery showcasing Louise Bourgeois and Robert Gober. The standout piece from this gallery is Bourgeois’ Articulated Lair, a folding screen-esque art piece. The piece invites you to step inside, which is almost like entering Bourgeois’ mind. This piece exemplifies the Long Run’s push to highlight the continuation of creation and innovation long into an artist’s career. Bourgeois, born in 1911, created Articulated Lair in 1986 when she was 75 years old, after having starting her career in the early 1940s. This piece was an excellent choice for the Museum of Modern Art to showcase because it clearly exemplifies a piece from an artist that is long into their career.
The next gallery featured the works of Philip Guston, who emerged onto the art scene in the 1930s. The gallery includes the pieces Head (1977), Talking (1979), and Cherries (1976). These pieces represents an abandonment from Guston’s abstractions of the 1940s and instead represents a new figurative technique. The painting Cherries is a perfect representation of his new technique. It features cherries as the main focal point and represents art derived from real objects. These paintings represent a return of Guston to his earliest work. In the 1930s, when he emerged into the art scene, he was creating comic-like realism. In the 1970s, Guston returned to this style after being frustrated with abstract expressionism a decade earlier. This gallery differs from the previous one in that Guston’s works are colorful and are a different art style.
The next gallery, featuring artists Romare Bearden, Ernie Gehr, Georgia O’Keeffe, and John Outterbridge, incorporates art on canvases, sculpture, and in film. As you walk into this gallery, there is John Outterbridge’s Broken Dance, Ethnic Heritage Series on display in the middle of the room. Behind it is Romare Bearden’s The Dove and Ernie Gehr’s Workers Leaving the Factory (after Lumière). What ties these three art pieces together is the continuation of innovation from the artists. Romare Bearden’s The Dove was a move away from his typical abstractions and into the collage space. The Dove, more specifically, comments on the African-American community and Bearden’s role in a new artistic group. He recently helped to found an African-American artistic group and was devoted to exploring black art. This piece was important for the Museum to include because it shows how social movements can impact the way artists create. These movements allow artists to think of new ways to express their thoughts and feelings.
This gallery is one where there are too many different forms of art all placed in one room. John Outterbridge’s sculpture is placed in the middle of the room, which is in front of Ernie Gehr’s film piece. This can make it difficult for museum-goers to truly experience both art works. Viewers of Outterbridge’s sculpture often blocked viewers of Gehr’s film piece. While the size of the projection of Gehr’s film piece wasn’t enormous, the piece requires enough space for viewers to stand and watch. Unfortunately, this gallery did not allow for this.
The exhibition does an excellent job at showcasing works of art from artists long into their careers. The show features artists from many backgrounds. There are American, German, Romanian, Venezuelan, Swiss, Japanese, and British artists. The artists are men and women and the show features artists from multiple racial backgrounds. However, where the show is lacking is in its showcasing of African-American female artists. There are multiple male African-American artists, however the show is seriously lacking in its showcasing of female African-American artists. Female African-American artists also continued to innovate throughout their careers and they deserve to be represented just as much as any other gender or race.
The Long Run exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art proves that artists don’t just have one singular breakthrough in their art. While artists may have one breakthrough moment that pushes them into the art scene, it doesn’t mean that artists do not continue to have breakthroughs. The art in this exhibit mainly features works that were created by artists when they were 45 or older. This shows how artists continue to develop their craft, develop new artistic styles, and innovate the ways of using mediums. The exhibit showcases how creativity and innovation do not have an age limit and demonstrates the desire to create art that is worthwhile.