September 11, 2017 Donald Scarinci

The Whitney Museum could not have foreseen how relevant its latest exhibit would be. An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017 opened August 18, 2017. As the museum highlights on its website, “Since its founding in the early twentieth century, the Whitney has served as a forum for the most urgent art and ideas of the day, at times attracting protest itself.” Most recently, a white artist’s abstract painting of lynching victim Emmett Till sparked protests for being “an injustice to the black community.” In 1970, the Ad Hoc Women Artists’ Committee protested the museum every Sunday for four…

April 6, 2015 Donald Scarinci

The Whitney Museum of American Art reopens its door next week, unveiling its new home and a new collection. The inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See, some classic photographic images from its permanent collection. Over 650 works by some 400 artists chronicle the evolution of American art from 1900 to the present. The Whitney Museum is located at 99 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, not far from its original home in Greenwich Village. It features 200,000-square-feet of space, including 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries and 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space. Located between the Hudson River…

October 13, 2014 Donald Scarinci

What if Edward Hopper had used a camera rather than a paintbrush? A new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art explores this exact question by pairing Hopper’s paintings from the museum’s permanent collection with the work of contemporary photographers. Edward Hopper, an American realist painter, is known for his use of light and shadow to create mood. While his paintings depict everyday American life in the 1920s through 1960s, they are anything but ordinary. Through the use of light, shapes, and angles, he conveys great beauty and deep emotion. “Nighthawks,” one of his most famous paintings, depicts customers…

February 24, 2014 Donald Scarinci

The Edward Steichen in the 1920s and 1930s: A Recent Acquisition exhibition just closed to make more room for the 2014 Whitney Biennial.  Since three floors of the museum were closed, it was a rare pleasure to spend time with Steichen’s work without the crowds Edward Steichen, who has been referred to as the godfather of modern fashion photography, had a long career prior to taking his most well known position as head photographer for Condé Naste. He first entered the art world at the age of fifteen when he began a lithography apprenticeship with the American Fine Art Company…