Selected Gifts from Agnes Gund at MoMA - Seldom Seen Works and Recent Acquisitions

Agnes Gund is a life-long philanthropist, art patron and collector.  Pres. Obama nominated Ms. Gund as a Trustee for the Nat'l Council of the Arts.  This collection of 20th & 21st C artworks is an astonishing opportunity to look at art with depth and perspective.  There's the added audio guide which I recommend.  This allows you to hear the artists talk about their works, their interactions with Gund and Gund's own responses to selected works.  Ms Gund's generosity, perceptive eye and social convictions are profound.  I delved into this show with a cavernous interest.  Many iconic artists are represented.  Women and artists of color are highly represented.  There are social & political messages expressed through the works.  Walker's recent large mural "Christ's Entry Into Journalism" ('17) is anything but subtle.  Her images are shocking, repulsive and shameful reminders.  Lying on the floor in front of Walker's mural is Mona Hatoum's "Pin Rug" (1999) a sculpture of tightly condensed stainless steel pins painted black.  At first look it appears as a soft, innocuous rug until you  get close up and note the thousands of sharp objects which reminded me of death by a thousand cuts.  Jackie Winsor's sculpture "Burnt Piece"  (1978) is clustered nearby.  Winsor speaks on the audio guide of the fear she felt living near the Twin Towers and having a premonition of them falling & burning down.  This brick, chicken wire and wood structure was set on fire by the artist with the intent to observing the transformation the destruction it would wrought.  Entering the show there is a smooth white slab tile lying on the ground, Wolfgang Laib's "Milkstone" (1978).  Listening to Laib explain his combining of materials & meditative process and Gund's contemplative response gave the work added wonder.  Nick Cave's colorful, whimsical and delightful sculpture "Sound Suit 11" was in response to the 1992 riots in LA sparked by the acquittal of Rodney King's brutal attackers.  Cave describes his feelings as a black man of being dismissed and without a voice.  The sculpture was meant as another skin or suit of armor.  Both the artists and Ms Gund speak of shifting perspectives, various ways of experiencing the art with intensity, integrity and reflection.   The powerful show speaks to social injustices and condemnations but most importantly it tethers the arts with humanity.  My favorite piece in the show is Glenn Ligon's "Graduating Girl" which is a silkscreen & oil portrait of a young woman in cap & gown holding a diploma.   "Graduating Girl" is emblematic of fresh opportunaties and hope for the future.