In the Art Institute's new exhibit, Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, which celebrates the upcoming opening of the much-anticipated Modern Wing, the museum explores the diverse natures of modern and contemporary art, how they are developed and the multitudinous ways art can function within the definition of "a work on paper."
Who better to epitomize the diversity of modern art than Picasso? Amid a cool, calm gallery painted a mossy olive-beige, two Picassos hang side-by-side, essentially different. One, entitled "Woman with Helmet of Hair" (1904), realistically renders a lovely, slender, solemn woman from the shoulders up. There is a sadness in her far-off gaze and slightly pouted downturned lips. Her dark, silky hair is swept up upon her head, although a few resistant tendrils caress her cheekbone, curling lightly on her shoulder. The piece, although relatively traditional in many ways, is painted entirely in a symphony of soft, weeping, melodic blues, which is hardly surprising, as the early 1900s mark Picasso's Blue Period, where solemn, indigo figures were par for the course.
A mere five years later, however, the exhibit reveals that Picasso, like so many early modernists, took things in an entirely different direction, as is evident in "Head of a Woman" (1909). While still realistic enough that the work is evidently a portrait, Picasso chooses to take things in a much more abstract direction here. The subject appears in scrawly blocks of tan, beige and burnt sienna, and her face has been chopped up into trapezoidal eyes and a triangular nose. Picasso abandons realism for fervent, angular abstraction, and while an emotional presence still permeates the work, it is the artist's innovative drive that the viewer feels, not the thoughtful contemplation of the subject.
Even more abstract is Jackson Pollock's "Untitled" (1949), where there isn't so much as an obvious rendering in sight. Although there are some implied figural representations, the real focus of this piece is the splotchy, splashy splatters of magenta and teal, sketchy-etchy lines and frailly-floating strokes that besmirch any implication of tradition. In this work, Pollock conveys the progression of art, which, in this context, personifies a bright, brute shout of contorted excitement and eerie foreboding that epitomizes the emphasis of American abstraction on presenting emotion.
Laurie Anderson takes artistic progression to the next level when she goes past challenging traditional rendering, and instead, pushes the boundaries of what constitutes a "work on paper" in her captivating piece, "New York Times, Horizontal/China Times, Vertical" (1971-79). The piece is not so much a work on paper, as it is a work of paper. Anderson has taken the two front pages of the publications referenced in the title and woven them together, and in doing so, fuses global politics and craft art, proving that a work on paper is not necessarily a painting or a drawing, and that the paper doesn't even have to start out blank.
In Works on Paper, the Art Institute reminds viewers how difficult it is to define the modern and contemporary artistic movements. The exhibit encapsulates the ingenuity, progressiveness and diversity of recent artists and, in doing so, whets the viewer's appetite for the banquet of aesthetic delights that is sure to be served in May, with the opening of the new Modern Wing.
Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper will be on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, located at 111 S. Michigan Ave., through Sept. 13.
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