The shock of the....old

No. 12, 1949, oil on canvas, Mark Rothko

I visited the Walker Arts Center last week and checked out their "Benches and Binoculars" exhibit, a 19th Century salon-style hang of 20th century modern and contemporary art. In a word, terrific. The long answer? Problematic, but perhaps only to some.

There's a lot to like in this exhibition, not the least of which is the curatorial argument behind it. Can modern masterworks stand out in a crowd? How do we view art today, and is that practice worth re-examining?

For me personally, it was a treat to see some really signature works by Currin, Close, a late DeKooning, and a fabulous Neel.

Charlotte Willard, 1967
oil on canvas, 45 7/8 x 30 7/8"
Alice Neel

To the knowing, the hang makes little sense if the intent was to truly recreate a salon. Large pictures cling to the bottom of the wall, while still life and genre find themselves exalted "on high". It would have been fun to at least attempt to label some of our greatest abstract paintings by classification (genre, portrait, landscape, history) and to hang them accordingly, but admittedly I'm a purist at times.

Frankly, I enjoyed the occasional collective recoil of visitors entering into the gallery. Dogma seems to replace dogma, after all.

What struck me most was the fact that most of these works still stood as powerful and worthy of their status even in a decidedly non-modern proximity to their peers. While I think it could have been turned up a couple of notches, I appreciate the problems of trying to pull this off with an existing collection. The challenge, I feel, should go out to the big museums in general and New York in particular. I'd love to see this idea explored with the pooled collections of the big players and hung in the Met. We haven't seen a show like that in decades. Sadly, museum politics being what it is, we the public will likely never see this happen, and that is truly a loss.

I was impressed by the Walker's collection. I spent the night in St. Paul that evening and walked along Summit Avenue, with its amazing homes. Clearly, there is financial support for the arts in the twin cities.

Hope to go back next year.