Insights on gender and race at Wallach Art Gallery
New Women New Yorkers’ first Cultural Trip of 2019 took place at the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University. The space belongs to the newly opened Lenfest Center for the Arts, a multi-purpose building designed by Italian Renzo Piano in Upper Manhattan that features art shows, screenings, and symposia. A group of immigrant women attended a guided tour of the exhibit Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today, on view through February 10 and one of the highlights of the season in the always busy Manhattan art scene.
The show, based on a PhD thesis at Columbia on the representation of the black figure in the history of modern art, received glowing reviews from The New York Times and The New Yorker, among many other publications. Tickets to attend curator Denise Murrell’s lectures sold out, even after the university booked an event space three times larger than initially planned. Following its smashingly successful run at the Wallach, the exhibit travels to the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris.
At the Wallach, the presentation focuses specifically on the black female figure, beginning with Edouard Manet’s 1860s portrayals of Laure, the black model who posed for some of his artworks, including as the maid in Olympia, often characterized as the first work of modernism. The idea for the show — and the thesis that preceded it — came to the curator Denise Murrell after sitting through many art history lectures that pored over the white subject of Olympia, but barely mentioned its black one. “Ms. Murrell sought to discover more about the model for the maid and other black models like her, and what they could tell us about modernism,” told to the group the Wallach educator Pierre Obando, who led the tour.
The depictions of the female black body on view encouraged many insights from the NWNY group. “The exhibition is well curated, with both traditional women’s portraits; manipulated for men’s fantasy, and attempts to depict women as they are,” said attendee Sarah Lee. The discussion followed with more reflexions on gender and race. “The black figure have always been portrayed with stereotypes, either exotic naked bodies or black women as servants,” commented Navrioska Mateo.
Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today is on view through February 10 at the Wallach Art Gallery – during the show’s final weekend, the space will be opening at 8 am and closing at 11pm. Don’t miss it!
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Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today
Through February 10 at the Wallach Art Gallery
Lenfest Center for the Arts, Columbia University
615 West 129th Street, New York
Wednesday/Friday: noon – 8 pm
Saturday & Sunday: noon – 6 pm
Admission: free and open to the public
