Double Whammy At The Whitney

Two fabulous exhibitions at The Whitney for the price of one (even got my student discount). The Picasso exhibition presented an excellent chronological view of his influence on American artists. In the period before the first world war, when communication between the US and Europe would have been ponderously slow there was room for an almost daily update of who was painting what, who had seen what, and what effect that viewing had. In this age of instant communication the notion of tracking ideas across the world is impossibly complex, but here was a clear and fascinating linear artistic evolution. It was amazing to see such wholesale lifting of Picasso's ideas and styles, as his cubist and classicist periods were reproduced with remarkable verisimilitude.. Even Jackson Pollock was shown to be influenced by Pablo, there were some fabulous Pollocks on display. The only stuff I didn't really like were the Lichtenstein pop art copies from the sixties, and Jasper Johns more recent Picasso-esque daubs which just displayed a lazy lack of ideas rather than inspiration.

I still don't understand why I didn't go and see the Edward Hopper retrospective at the Tate Modern last year. I told myself that I knew the paintings pretty well, and his brushwork was merely proficient, and a close up view wasn't really necessary. What a sap, but then again maybe I knew this show was waiting in NY, especially extended just for me. The Whitney is the repository for the majority of the Hopper estates considerable archive, which allowed them to present a series of his most important works, with the provisional sketches and watercolours that display their evolution. Wim Wenders over the top commentary on the audio guide for Nighthawks was rather comical, but the painting itself is stunning. Remarkable that an image that is so familiar from reproductions is still so potent. Another favourite was New York Movie:

The usherette just looks so lonely and vulnerable and sad she could break your heart. This painting is from 1939, and I didn't realise that he carried on producing quality work into the 1960's. The later work doesn't look dated though, it's as if all of the paintings take place in some timeless, mythical, alienated America. Interesting that Hopper spent quite a while in Paris at the time that Picasso was gaining his reputation, and yet he fails completely to be influenced by the new European strains of modernism and keeps determinedly pursuing his bleak vision of lonely America.