The last exhibition I attended was the De Kooning Retrospective
at Moma in NYC. Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist
who was born in the Netherlands. He had a career that lasted over a thirty-year
period. The body of work (200 paintings) was impressive and overwhelming. I
love his dramatic use of geometric shapes and candy-like colors that collide
and create an abstract a female figure. At the time, many critized De Kooning’s
“Women’s” series for being misogynistic, but I find them to be more of a
child-like expression that could possibly been seen as comical depictions of
the women in his life (just a thought).
As I was searching for the exhibition reviews, I stumbled
upon an old Art News article that didn’t just review the body of work or how
the show was curated, but it included a behind the scenes look at the many
aspects how fine art world operates. There are a number of people involved in
managing and maintaining an artist career, especially if the artist is
deceased. There are lawyers, collectors, dealers and museum that seek to gain
power and prestige from the artist’s work. The individuals do not always have
the best interest of preserving the work, but instead the goal is to maximize
profits. For example, the current record for a de Kooning at auction is
$27 million.
Museum Exhibition:
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