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A wall photo welcomes you to the Matisse show, Radical Reinvention 1913-1917, but there's no photography allowed in the special exhibitions galleries
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This special exhibition, Matisse: Radical Reinvention 1913-1917, covers a period when the artist pared down his canvases—often by scraping back the oil or repeatedly painting over large passages of the image—to arrive at his most precisely geometric and relatively pattern-free compositions. Sometimes I think the museums invent Matisse exhbitions just to bring in visitors (and that’s fine; I’m always happy to see more Matisse) but this exhibition does focus on the manufacture of the image, the process, often accompanied by video and wall text, so that you can see something of the painter’s visual thinking.
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Chief among the metamorphosed paintings of this period is Bathers by a River, below, a large work that initially appears to be comprised of several panels. It's one large canvas, close to 9 by 13 feet. (The Art Institute of Chicago, which presented the exhibition earlier this year, shows the development of the painting here.)
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Bathers by a River, 1909–10, 1913, 1916–17; oil on canvas, 102 1/2 x 154 3/16". The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), I’m not in the habit of shilling for museums, but if you want to see the Matisse show at MoMA—and it’s a show worth seeing—you can get in early if you’re a member. I went at 9:30 on a recent morning, an hour before the museum opened to the general public. There were just a handful of people in the gallery with me. Other times I go to the members' preview evenings. And even if you don’t get in early, you can bypass the timed entries and the lines, which during the recent Marina Abramovic show, sometimes stretched around the block. Just flash your card and walk in. You can get into P.S.1, too. (There are different categories of membership, including an artist’s membership. It’s not listed on the membership page, so you have to ask for it. Be prepared to offer some proof that you’re an artist. I did it so long ago that I forget what I showed them—probably an exhibition announcement. Click here for general info.)
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Radical Reinvention is up through October 11. If you miss it, there's always the Matisse room on the fifth floor. If you're new to MoMA, it's like walking through Janssons to get to that gallery. Here are a couple of works from there (photographing the permanent collection is allowed, sans flash):
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Dance (1), 1909, oil on canvas.
