Improvisation, the ability to respond spontaneously to the moment, is a defining characteristic found in the work of two giants of modern art, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Improv is also a necessary element in understanding and playing jazz, the freestyle musical genre born in the late 19th and early 20th century in African American communities in the southern United States.
Art Galleries & Museums
At Bowery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the New Museum has stood since 2007, a 13-foot aluminum sculpture of two embracing figures now greets visitors before they step inside the recently renovated building.
Wherever you go in the United States of America, you aren't very far away from art. From intimate galleries to massive world-class collections, art museums worth visiting can be found across the country. In this special roundup, we are highlighting the best art museums in every state, plus the District of Columbia.
A current pocket exhibition at the Neue Galerie New York hearkens back to a time when the relationship between artist and patron was more direct, intimate, and collaborative than it is now that global capitalism has transformed art into an asset to enhance the ever-dizzying fortunes of billionaires. Today, art is merely a commodity, and by extension, artists are too.
The Louvre has weathered both revolutions and occupations over the centuries. Yet, the past few months have exposed a different kind of vulnerability in its leaking pipes, aging cameras, and institutional drift. The world’s most-visited museum is struggling to find steady footing in the wake of a series of mishaps and misdemeanors.
Tavares Strachan approaches art the way he thinks about music—fluid, improvisational, and open to interpretation. “Because I grew up listening to so much music, I just love the idea that it frees you up,” he said in an interview at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). “It doesn’t put this constraint on what you’re looking at. It empowers you in a way that visual art doesn’t.”
“The Smithsonian is not going to show somebody like me right now — specifically me,” Catherine Opie says in a recent Teams interview from Los Angeles, her voice matter-of-fact. “I’m not welcome right now in America.”
In late January, the Smithsonian announced that it would return a Shiva Nataraja statue and two other Chola Dynasty bronzes to India from the National Museum of Asian Art under a “shared stewardship” policy introduced in 2022.
The idea that 18th and 19th century landscape painting could be the setting for one of art history’s fiercest rivalries may seem unlikely, but Turner & Constable: Rivals and Originals, the current exhibition at Tate Britain, explores the competitive relationship between two giants of British landscape painting, J.M.W.
“The pain passes, but the beauty remains,” said Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). In Sacha Guitry’s 1916 silent film, there is a chilling and moving excerpt of Renoir painting. The artist’s hands are severely and painfully crippled by arthritis as he holds a long paint brush and a cigarette.
