MOMA Exhibit GAUGIN Metamorphoses Mar 8 - Jun 8, 2014

Gauguin: Metamorphoses
March 8–June 8, 2014

The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor

This exhibition focuses on Paul Gauguin’s rare and extraordinary prints and transfer drawings, and their relationship to his better-known paintings and his sculptures in wood and ceramic. Comprising approximately 150 works, including some 120 works on paper and a critical selection of some 30 related paintings and sculptures, it is the first exhibition to take an in-depth look at this overall body of work.
Created in several discrete bursts of activity from 1889 until his death in 1903, these remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin’s experiments with a range of mediums, from radically “primitive” woodcuts that extend from the sculptural gouging of his carved wood reliefs, to jewel-like watercolor monotypes and large, mysterious transfer drawings. Gauguin’s creative process often involved repeating and recombining key motifs from one image to another, allowing them to evolve and metamorphose over time and across mediums. Printmaking, which by definition involves transferring and multiplying images, provided him with many new and fertile possibilities for transposing his imagery. Gauguin embraced the subtly textured surfaces, nuanced colors, and accidental markings that resulted from the unusual processes that he devised, for they projected a darkly mysterious and dreamlike vision of life in the South Pacific, where he spent most of the final 12 years of his life.
Though Gauguin is best known as a pioneer of modernist painting, this exhibition showcases a lesser-known but arguably even more innovative aspect of his practice.

Organized by Starr Figura, The Phyllis Ann and Walter Borten Associate Curator, with Lotte Johnson, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.
The exhibition is supported by BNP Paribas, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, and by Denise LeFrak in memory of Ethel LeFrak.
Additional funding is provided by the MoMA Annual Exhibition Fund.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Related Events

Upcoming

ACCESS PROGRAMS | INTERPRETING MOMA

Gauguin: Metamorphoses

Thursday, May 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Gauguin’s Prints: Process and Materials
In a conversation with Museum educator Deborah Goldberg and Museum conservator Erika Mosier, explore Paul Gauguin’s inventiveness as a printmaker, the relationship between his prints and his work in other mediums, and the role of Conservation in planning the exhibition

Monday, May 12, 2014, 11:30 a.m.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Gauguin’s Depiction of Women and Use of Materials
Take a closer look at Paul Gauguin’s depictions of women, from savage to saintly, playful to moody, seductive to childlike.Then compare related works to explore the variations of expression Gauguin achieved through the use of different materials and often innovative techniques.

Monday, May 12, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

Monday, May 26, 2014, 11:30 a.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Seeing Double: Gauguin’s Repetition and Synthesis
Explore Paul Gauguin’s modernity as reflected in his reframing, reimagining, and reuse of motifs across time and various mediums.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

Friday, May 23, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

MEMBER EVENTS | MEMBER GALLERY TALKS

Gauguin: Metamorphoses

Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 12:30 p.m.

Past

MEMBER EVENTS | MEMBER PREVIEWS

Gauguin: Metamorphoses

Saturday, March 1, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Sunday, March 2, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Monday, March 3, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Thursday, March 6, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

Friday, March 7, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS & SYMPOSIA | LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS

Paradise Lost: Gauguin and the Melancholy Logic of Reproduction

In conjunction with the MoMA Class Paul Gauguin: In Search of Modernism’s Origins, join us for two special presentations by Gauguin experts as they explore his creative process, his exotic travels, and new interpretations of his place in art history. With Alastair Wright, University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow, St John's College, University of Oxford, and Chair, Editorial Group, Oxford Art Journal.
From the moment he arrived in Tahiti, Gauguin bemoaned the destruction of the island’s original culture by French colonialism. Like many Western visitors to Polynesia in the later 19th century, he came to believe that the South Seas paradise of which he had dreamed was by now lost. We will examine the roots of this melancholy view of Polynesia and explore how it is reflected in Gauguin’s extended exploration of reproductive techniques following his first Tahitian trip.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 7:00 p.m.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS & SYMPOSIA

Sauvageries: Gauguin and the Strategies of Primitivist Sculpture

In conjunction with the MoMA Class Paul Gauguin: In Search of Modernism’s Origins, join us for special presentations by Gauguin experts as they explore his creative process, his exotic travels, and new interpretations of his place in art history.
However much painting remained at the heart of Gauguin's artistic enterprise, a key element in his avant-garde aesthetic was his use of wood—in sculptures, in relief panels, and in woodblock printmaking. He used sculpture to help fashion his artistic identity, both in how he presented his Tahitian works in exhibition in Paris, and in how he decorated his home and studio environments in Polynesia. This lecture examines the central role of sculpture in Gauguin's project of modernist primitivism, considering not just the relationship of his forms to indigenous Oceanic typologies, but also how, during his Polynesian career, his creation of sculpture facilitated his physical and material engagement with the non-European world.
With Elizabeth Childs, Etta and Mark Steinberg Professor of Modern Art and Chair, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 7:00 p.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Seeing Double: Gauguin’s Repetition and Synthesis
Explore Paul Gauguin’s modernity as reflected in his reframing, reimagining, and reuse of motifs across time and various mediums.

Monday, March 31, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Friday, April 4, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

LECTURES & GALLERY TALKS | GALLERY SESSIONS

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 11:30 a.m.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 11:30 a.m.

Paul Gauguin. Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit. c. 1900. Oil transfer drawing, sheet: 22 1/16 x 17 13/16" (56.1 x 45.3 cm). Private collection

Related Publication

Gauguin: Metamorphoses
Starr Figura. With essays by Elizabeth Childs, Hal Foster, and Erika Mosier

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