Louise Nevelson
- art
-
exhibition
Mrs. N’s Palace. An icon with an inimitable style, Louise Nevelson is today recognized as one of the major sculptors of the 20th century. Her art is generally associated with cubism, constructivism, Schwitters, her imaginary grandfather as Arp suggests in his poem on the artist in the XXème siècle magazine (1960), ready-made art, or the collage practices of the Dada and surrealist movements. However, her sources of inspiration are much broader, and her work invites exploration in art history where dance and performance – around which the exhibition is centered – play a leading role. Thirty years after her death, her legacy continues to resonate with the young contemporary scene, even in the fashion world. Nevelson's life and work were revolutionized by two decades of studying eurythmy with Ellen Kearns, who taught a physical expression aimed at discovering one's vital force and creative energy, as well as her fascination with Martha Graham in the 1930s. In 1950, her discovery of Mexico and Guatemala added a monumental dimension to her work, now carried by a blend of geometry and magic. Under this dual influence, her environments emerge, becoming progressively monumental, enveloping, totemic, and sacred. In 1958, at a time when the term installation only emerged in the 1960s, Nevelson staged her first major environment at Grand Central Moderns in New York, entitled "Moon Garden + One," where she presented her first "wall," Sky Cathedral, a vertical homage to New York, her adopted city. The work consists of reclaimed wood objects that she arranges in boxes, then stacks and paints black, unifying the composition with a monochrome veil. Beyond the synthesis she achieves between pre-Columbian art, cubism, and the color field painting movement, Nevelson imagines a place to explore rather than a sculpture to view frontally. For each of her environments, which John Cage described as music theater, Nevelson has a particular interest in space and light, imbuing some of her works with blue, intensifying shadows and the viewer's disorientation in darkness. Nevelson creates scenes in which the viewer's entire body is engaged. The theatricality is likely the linchpin of all her major exhibitions, from Dawn's Wedding Feast, created in 1959 at the Museum of Modern Art for the "Sixteen Americans" exhibition, to Mrs. N’s Palace, a major work inspired by Edward Albee’s play, Tiny Alice, to which the exhibition owes its title. Fifty years after her last exhibition in France in 1974 at the Centre national d’art et de culture, the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz invites immersion in her multiple atmospheres, hoping to fulfill Nevelson's wish to present her sculptures as part of a total space, a narrative opening the doors to her imaginary world, an experience to be lived with all senses and not as individual entities. The reconstruction of her environments facilitates highlighting the fluidity between the multiple media she used, from her early terracotta figures and paintings to her engravings and plexiglass sculptures, up to her installations, not to forget the collages – the true matrix of her art – which she made from the 1950s until the end of her life.
Good to know
Exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Automatically translated from French.
Where does it take place?
Metz Métropole
1
parvis des Droits-de-l’Homme CS 90490 57020 Metz Cedex 1
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