For people already growing weary of Peter Gelb’s efforts to sex up the Metropolitan Opera, here’s another reason to miss outgoing manager Joe Volpe. This fall, the Met will be displaying "contemporary art" at a new gallery in the opera hall, featuring the hot young artists of the downtown scene--if you were in the downtown scene a decade and a half ago. We’re even not talking Chelsea here. It’s Soho at the Metropolitan. The press release from Rubinstein Associates came across the transom this morning:
Free and open to the public, “Gallery Met” continues and reaffirms the Met’s long history of groundbreaking relationships with major visual artists, while fostering new opportunities for collaboration. The exhibition has been curated by Dodie Kazanjian, the Met’s new curator at large for contemporary art, and the new exhibition space has been designed by Lindy Roy of Roy Co.If you get that sneaking suspicion you saw all of these artists in glossy magazine spreads, don’t be surprised. The curator of the show, Dodie Kazanjian, is the very writer who wrote about them for the slicks ten years ago.
Six artists have already produced works for the exhibition, inspired by the heroines of the season’s new productions: Cecily Brown (Suor Angelica in Il Trittico), John Currin (Helena in Die Ägyptische Helena), Barnaby Furnas (Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice), Makiko Kudo (Princess Yue-yang in The First Emperor), Richard Prince (Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly), and Sophie von Hellermann (Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia). In addition, other leading artists, including David Salle, Verne Dawson, George Condo, and Wangechi Mutu, have also agreed to take part, and the exhibit will continue to evolve until the opening. The works will be on display through the end of the opera season in May 2007...
Ms. Kazanjian, editor at large for Vogue, has been covering the international art scene since 1989. She has identified and written about many of the most promising young artists—among them Cecily Brown, Maurizio Cattelan, John Currin, and Wangechi Mutu—while also profiling and conducting in-depth interviews with such modern masters as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly. Most recently, she curated two exhibits for Vogue in prominent New York galleries.I mean, David Salle? One supposes he’ll be doing the illustrations for Pagliacci.
add a comment