"Guggenheim A to Z" comprises a series of intimate conversations that explore topics central to the Guggenheim and the landscape of modern and contemporary art at large. Covering concepts you may come across during your exploration of the Guggenheim, such as nonobjectivity, social practice, identity, performance art, Process art, spirituality, and globalism, these tracks are intended to provide a deeper understanding of the museum’s history and collection. Each episode features the voices of two staff members from departments across the institution, including archives, conservations, communications, curatorial, education, public programs, and the performing arts. The resulting conversations shed light on the museum’s past, present, and future from perspectives you may not have encountered before. 

This series originated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented visitors and museum staff from coming to the museum and physically engaging with the art for many long months. The interviews were recorded remotely and with the intention of bringing art and culture to the listener, offering inspiration and solace at a time when we need it most.  

Find a copy of the catalogue "Guggenheim A to Z" at the museum gift shop to learn more about these concepts and others that are essential to the Guggenheim.

Learn more at Guggenheim.org or on the Bloomberg Connects app.

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Guggenheim A to Z

One of the most prominent features of art from the late eighteenth century onwards, particularly after World War II, is artists’ tendency to evolve traditional artmaking methods outside the studio’s boundaries. This exhibition will examine the ways in which contemporary artists enacted new ideas formed by the social and historical contexts of their time and pushed the boundaries of artmaking and materials as a result.     

"By Way Of" offers a suite of works from the museum’s permanent collection inspired by the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift. Major artists from the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and 1970s, like Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz will share the galleries with artists working today, such as Rashid Johnson, Mona Hatoum, and Senga Nengudi. 

"By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection" is organized by Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator.

In this digital guide, receive an introduction to the exhibition from curator Naomi Beckwith and explore slow-looking exercises of select works on view.

Exhibition Website

By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection

Featuring over 90 artworks presented in the museum’s iconic rotunda, this major exhibition examines the vibrant abstract art of Orphism. It explores the transnational movement’s developments in Paris, addressing the impact dance, music, and poetry had on the art, among other themes.

Orphism emerged in the early 1910s, when the innovations brought about by modern life were radically altering conceptions of time and space. Artists connected to Orphism engaged with ideas of simultaneity in kaleidoscopic compositions, investigating the transformative possibilities of color, form, and motion. Selected works by artists including Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Mainie Jellett, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, and Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, and by the Synchromists Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, will be on view.

"Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930" is organized by Tracey Bashkoff, Senior Director of Collections and Senior Curator, and Vivien Greene, Senior Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, with the support of Bellara Huang, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions.

In this digital guide, enrich your exhibition experience with accompanying musical compositions. Musical compositions from different time periods were references for Orphist artists and, conversely, the visual compositions of the Orphist artists remain influential for composers. Enjoy a selection of historical compositions—from a classical Baroque fugue to the popular music of ragtime and jazz emerging contemporaneously with the Orphist artists—as well as music by contemporary composers who are reflecting on Orphist themes today.

Musical Pairings in Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930

This exhibition presents a selection of paintings and drawings by Piet Mondrian from the Guggenheim’s singular collection, one of the most representative in the world. Throughout his career, Mondrian made distinctive contributions to the development of abstract art. He sought to move painting away from the representation of nature to render a universal essence or spirit.

This exhibition will showcase works that chronicle the evolution of the Dutch-born painter’s signature style, from his early experiments in the Netherlands and his most productive period in Paris to his final years in New York. "Piet Mondrian: Ever further" is the first in the exhibition series, Collection in Focus, that highlights artists from the Guggenheim Collection.

This exhibition is curated by Mariët Westermann, Director and CEO, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.

In this digital guide, learn more about the exhibition from curator Mariët Westermann.

Collection in Focus: Piet Mondrian, Ever further

The multimedia guide to New Harmony: Abstraction between the Wars, 1919–1939 explores artworks from the Guggenheim’s 20th-century collection. Paul Klee, who played the violin every day, explored the relationship between music and color in numerous artworks featuring color grids as musical notation. 

Paul Klee, <i>New Harmony</i>, 1936. Oil on canvas, 36 7/8 x 26 1/8 inches (93.6 x 66.3 cm), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

New Harmony by Paul Klee

The audio tour for John Chamberlain: Choices shares perspectives on select key works from the exhibition.
www.guggenheim.org/chamberlain

John Chamberlain's Involvement with Abstract Expressionism

聆听艺术家托马希·杰克逊（Tomashi Jackson）讨论她的作品是如何结合与民主进程有关的物件，将美国黑人选民的边缘化与古希腊的民主理想进行对比。

Tomashi Jackson:你好，我叫托马希·杰克逊，我是一名画家。虽然我也使用其他媒介创作，但我相信我主要传达想法的方式是绘画。
今天我要谈谈《恐惧生态（吉勒姆竞选佛罗里达州州长）（自由乘车者巴士遭三K党轰炸）》这件作品。
我看到许多的历史在碰撞，我认为这种碰撞其实一直都存在。这件作品的重点是以研究为导向，它让我可以先观看，然后再提出一连串的问题，以此打开具有创造性回应的大门。我曾经在希腊呆过一段时间，在那里我被带到了雅典民主实验的中心。
当我在希腊时，对民主的认识是，人人都应该这么做。所以当时我想，“哇哦，这太惊人了。所以在美国，我们实际上还没有民主。”这是我所听到的。
于是我开始明白，在美国，当美国黑人试图参与民主时，回应他们的是恐怖主义。
Lyndon B. Johnson (archival audio): 无数美国人因为他们的肤色被剥夺了投票权。
Jackson: 我在想象的是由《Jet》杂志摄影师西奥多·加夫尼拍摄的作品，反映了1961年自由乘车者乘坐的巴士在阿拉巴马州被炸毁的情景。我也想像着1965年《投票权法案》签署时的情景。
Johnson (archival audio): 今天是一个自由的时代。
Jackson: 于是我带着希腊的选票文件和彭忒利科斯山大理石粉回到了美国。你知道吗，我仿佛又一次顿悟。我携带的土壤有地域特征，我的来自美国（主要是佛罗里达州和佐治亚州）以外地区的相关投票收藏品也有地域特征。
那个巨大的安德鲁·吉勒姆标语——安德鲁·吉勒姆竞选佛罗里达州州长，......
Newscaster #1 (archival audio): 如果吉勒姆赢了，.....
Jackson: ......首位当选的黑人州长
Newscaster #1 (archival audio): . . . 他将成为佛罗里达州的首位黑人州长。
Jackson: 在这个过程中，各种极端的种族主义言论想要阻挠安德鲁·吉勒姆的竞选。
Newscaster #2 (archival audio): 罗恩·德桑蒂斯告诉选民不要因为选举他的民主党对手而“搞乱”这个州。
Newscaster #1 (archival audio): 共和党议员罗恩·德桑蒂斯声称选民不应该把事情“搞砸了”。
Jackson: 我开始制作半色调线条色彩碰撞的作品。这其实是一件在创作过程中让我很兴奋的作品：在林登·约翰逊签署《投票权法案》，他的周围都是政客和活动家这个情景上作画。可以看到马丁·路德·金博士就在林登·约翰逊的身后，看着他签署法案。
所有这些最终都只是线条。所有这些都只是线条。一旦我可以看到他，我也可以看到林登·约翰逊时，这幅画就完成了。这幅作品的重点就在于有着微妙差异的蓝色之间的互动。这是一种有限值的练习。它形象地表达了美国的现实，这两幅蓝色画面彼此碰撞并形成交叉阴影，就像在民主进程中这两种真实的经验交织在一起。

托马希·杰克逊（Tomashi Jackson），《恐惧生态（吉勒姆竞选佛罗里达州州长）（自由乘车者巴士遭三K党轰炸）》（Ecology of Fear (Gillum for Governor of Florida)(Freedom Riders bus bombed by KKK)），2020。于PVC船用乙烯基上档案级印刷，丙烯颜料，美国竞选材料，希腊选票，安德鲁·吉勒姆（Andrew Gillum）竞选标语，纸袋，希腊画布，以及彭忒利科斯山大理石粉。231.1 × 254 × 30.5厘米。© Tomashi Jackson

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恐惧生态（吉勒姆竞选佛罗里达州州长）（自由乘车者巴士遭三K党轰炸），2020

Curatorial fellow Ksenia Soboleva and archivist Tali Han discuss the Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition "Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose" and how questions of identity impact the act of archiving.

Read the full transcript at Guggenheim.org/audio.

This series was inspired by you and your questions and interests. If your curiosity has not been satiated, or you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please email us at audio@guggenheim.org. We would love to hear from you.

Identity in Art and Archives

Curator Megan Fontanella and communications specialist Stephen Grant discuss the museum’s roots and inaugural director Hilla Rebay’s dedication to nonobjective art.

Read the full transcript at Guggenheim.org/audio.

This series was inspired by you and your questions and interests. If your curiosity has not been satiated, or you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please email us at audio@guggenheim.org. We would love to hear from you.

Nonobjective Art, Hilla Rebay, and the Guggenheim’s Formation

Assistant Curator X Zhu-Nowell and Duke Dang, General Manager of the Guggenheim’s Works and Process performing-arts series, discuss the nuances around performance art and the performing arts.

Read the full transcript at Guggenheim.org/audio.

This series was inspired by you and your questions and interests. If your curiosity has not been satiated, or you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please email us at audio@guggenheim.org. We would love to hear from you.

Performance Art versus Performing Arts

Objects Conservator Esther Chao and Senior Technician Derek Deluco discuss how they are preparing Eva Hesse’s "Expanded Expansion" to be exhibited in the future.

Read the full transcript at Guggenheim.org/audio.

This series was inspired by you and your questions and interests. If your curiosity has not been satiated, or you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please email us at audio@guggenheim.org. We would love to hear from you.

Process Art and Eva Hesse’s "Expanded Expansion", 1969

Curator Nat Trotman and educator Sharon Vatsky discuss social practice as an art form and Shaun Leonardo’s work "Primitive Games", a recent project at the Guggenheim that drew public participation.

Read the full transcript at Guggenheim.org/audio.

This series was inspired by you and your questions and interests. If your curiosity has not been satiated, or you have any thoughts you’d like to share, please email us at audio@guggenheim.org. We would love to hear from you.

Social Practice and Shaun Leonardo’s "Primitive Games", 2017–2018

Acompañe a la curadora Megan Fontanella en su análisis sobre la importancia del círculo en la práctica de Kandinsky y el significado de esta figura en su pintura.

Megan Fontanella: Esta pintura de "Vasily Kandinsky se titula Algunos círculos". Está fechada entre enero y febrero de 1926. 

Es decir, en las primeras décadas del siglo XX, un período de guerras y disturbios sociales, agitación política que llevó a Kandinsky a trasladarse físicamente de país en país, desde su Rusia natal a Alemania, de regreso a Rusia, luego a Francia.

Kandinsky en este período trabajaba como profesor en la Bauhaus, la escuela de arte alemana. Fue una etapa muy importante para él, pues fue un momento que vivió en comunidad, en el que trabajaba como parte de un grupo de personas creativas, diferentes de los herreros, de los tejedores, de los pintores como él. 

En este período, su estilo artístico toma una forma más geométrica. Obras como Algunos círculos son típicas de este período en algunos aspectos. Vemos que la pintura se halla sobre este fondo negro muy oscuro. Y lo que emerge del fondo son círculos coloridos y brillantes de todos los tamaños, del círculo más pequeño al más grande, dominante, negro y lustroso en el centro.
 
Desde sus primeros cuadros, Kandinsky experimentó con las apariencias de la superficie. Así, en esta tela, crea deliberadamente zonas brillantes y opacas. 

En este cosmos, si se quiere, ha creado un ambiente que parece casi de otro planeta: un guiño a la astrología, su interés por las estrellas, pero también su búsqueda incansable de conseguir extraer lo espiritual en el arte. 

A comienzos del siglo XX, hubo innovaciones y avances tecnológicos.Surge la ciudad moderna y él y sus compatriotas, creo, tomaron cierta distancia y pensaron, “Veo que el materialismo abunda, veo la necesidad por una nueva dimensión espiritual en nuestras vidas, y el arte podría ser esa guía, podría elevarnos a todos a un reino más espiritual”.

Entonces, cuando me acerco a esta pintura, pienso en ese otro mundo, en la idea del potencial del arte de elevarnos de nuestro mundo hacia otra dimensión. Pareciera que Kandinsky nos está invitando a entrar en la pintura y permanecer entre esos círculos. 

A partir de este momento en la década de 1920, el círculo se había convertido en una forma muy importante para él. Afirma, “El círculo es la síntesis de las mayores oposiciones. Combina lo concéntrico y lo excéntrico en una sola forma y en equilibrio”. De allí la idea de que el círculo era una figura armoniosa y equilibrada. Y en esta pintura... es cierto que se ven círculos en toda su obra, pero aquí aparecen varios círculos. Aquí dominan realmente el lienzo.

Vasily Kandinsky, "Varios círculos" (Einige Kreise), enero-febrero de 1926. Óleo sobre lienzo, 55 1/4 x 55 3/8 pulgadas (140,3 x 140,7 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Nueva York, Colección fundacional de Solomon R. Guggenheim, donación 41.283 © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), NuevaYork/ADAGP, París

Vasily Kandinsky. Around the Circle

Algunos círculos, 1926

Robert Motherwell, Blue with China Ink (Homage to John Cage), 1946. Oil, ink, charcoal, and pasted Japanese paper, colored paper, drawing paper, and fabric on paperboard, 101.6 x 76.2 cm. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, Gift of Richard Brown Baker, B.A. 1935 © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York. Photo: © Yale University Art Gallery

Robert Motherwell, Blue With China Ink—Homage to John Cage, 1946

Christopher Wool, Trouble, 1989, Enamel and acrylic on aluminum, 182.9 x 121.9 cm © Christopher Wool

Christopher Wool, Trouble, 1989

Peter Bayne 

Title: "Moirés"

About the Composition: "Moirés" is an exploration of overlapping sensations of time and movement. A visual moiré pattern creates the effect of a rippling, undulating surface while suggesting a larger slower form. In Bayne's piece, instruments play together but slightly off as if performing the same piece in adjoining rooms without a metronome. The feeling is one of time passing at varying rates, like sitting on a corner in New York city watching lives pass you by–some so fast they blur, and some, like nature itself, slow as eternity.

Composer Bio: Peter Bayne has built a critically acclaimed career as a composer, producer, and sound artist for film, television, advertising, theatre, electronic music, and sound art, yielding an expansive body of work in an incredibly wide variety of genres. His work envelopes the listener in the transportive, surreal, and lush fields of a detailed sonic imagination. His concert works, immersive sound art, experimental electronic works, leftfield dance music and avant dream pop have been distributed, streamed, and performed widely. 

His prolific work in the American theatre (over 150 original scores) has garnered him numerous awards and recognition from, among others, the Ovation Awards, the LA Drama Critics Circle, the LA Times, Broadway World, StageRaw, and the LA Weekly. In 2019, Peter started releasing leftfield electronic music under the pseudonym Jann. This work taps into ambient, downtempo, slow techno, and balearic dub touchpoints while maintaining Peter’s signature style as an orchestrator and film score wizard. In 2021, he premiered a massive new immersive & interactive work in collaboration with the "Kusama: Cosmic Nature" exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden. Current projects include: a series of collaborations with motion graphics and animation artists to be released and sold as NFTs, and a new LP to be released in early 2023.

Alex Katz

Peter Bayne - "Moirés"

Michael Sempert 

Title: "Window Pianos"

About the Composition: "Window Pianos" opens with Alex Katz stating "eternity exists in the immediate present." The piece first locates us in Katz’ studio with the sound of paintbrush strokes on canvas merging into the textural scrape of bow against violin and cello string. Those slow pulsing strings provide the foundation of the piece, over which a series of piano vignettes sparkle and glimmer - windows into memories of moments in NYC.  "Window Pianos" is a meditation on New York City, the artistic process and time itself.   

Composer Bio: Michael Sempert is an acclaimed composer, songwriter and producer. His original music has been performed on stages around the world including at the San Francisco Jazz Center, The Rathaus in Vienna and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. Sempert’s commissioned pieces include multiple recorded works for Areon Flutes and The Jeff Anderle Ensemble. As a composer for film and television, Sempert’s filmography includes a diverse array of over a dozen award-winning indie feature films and shorts.  Sempert’s original songs have garnered the recognition of fellow artists David Byrne, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver as well as critical praise by Pitchfork, Vulture and NPR. 

Graduating from New England Conservatory in 2004 in Jazz Composition, Sempert embarked on a formative creative journey as the music director and frontman for the indie-pop band, Birds & Batteries, producing six albums and touring nationally. In 2012, Sempert moved on to a prolific solo career. In the following decade, he released three singer-songwriter albums (indie-rock, folk, Americana), two albums as Volcanic Legacy (synth-funk, jazz-fusion, electronic) as well as two minimalist soundtrack albums.   

In 2015, Sempert co-founded West Channel, a commercial music house with fellow composer, Peter Bayne.   

In 2021, Sempert became an Assistant Professor of Songwriting at Berklee School of Music. 

Sempert continues to explore new sounds, genres and techniques, buoyed by an authentic joy for the process itself and an insatiable appetite for artistic discovery.

Michael Sempert - "Window Pianos"

Elori Saxl 

Title: “Surfaces” 

Additional Musicians: 
Henry Solomon - Saxophone 
Robbie Bowen - Glass Marimba 

About the Composition : “Surfaces” is inspired by Alex Katz's exploration of fleeting moments of perception, the liminality of dusk when an object's outlines start to become unclear, and the ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change. A moment later, the image is different. Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired Saxl to think about how there is no individual “her” as an artist without both the artists who came before her and the community of artists she's grown alongside. The delineation between them blurs, and she feels as though she is carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around her. At the same time, she knows that eventually she has to turn inwards and swim out alone.

Composer Bio: Elori Saxl is an American experimental electronic composer. Her debut album The Blue of Distance (released 2021 on Western Vinyl) received critical acclaim for its elegant combination of digitally-processed recordings of wind and water with the rich sounds of analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra. Half-written in the verdant Adirondack mountains of northern New York in a hot summer filled with love, ecstasy, and a feeling of promise, and half-written in the frozen Apostle Islands in Lake Superior in the dead of winter looking back at videos from the summer, The Blue of Distance effortlessly captures the gentle sorrows of nostalgia in an age of perpetual digital memory. 

Saxl has composed music for classical ensembles, Burton, Patagonia, Google, Poler, Dove, the New Yorker, This American Life, Public Radio International, SFMOMA, and more. She's directed films for the New Yorker and Slate. Her music has been featured by Pitchfork, The New Yorker, WNYC New Sounds, BBC 3 Radio, Popmatters, Dusted, A Closer Listen, and more. Her film work has been nominated for two Emmys and been featured by the New Yorker, Vimeo Staff Picks, and festivals around the world.

Elori Saxl - "Surfaces"

Hoshiko Yamane 

Title: “Cat in the Water” 

About the Composition: This piece feels like the first time you go into the ocean. It's a feeling we often forget as we grow up or begin life in the city: the knowledge that human life is with nature. 

Composer Bio: Originally from Osaka, Hoshiko Yamane is a classically trained violinist and composer. She is a current member of the German electronic group Tangerine Dream. Over the years, she has worked with numerous dance and theatre companies and toured with countless artists, collaborating with Mikael Lind, Eraldo Bernocchi, and Library Tapes, among others. Her solo works have been released by 1631 Recordings and Decca Publishing. During the pandemic Yamane began a performing improvisation and composing for silent movies in real time. As part of the project, a total of fifty films were livestreamed on YouTube between 2020 and 2021. In her solo project "Tukico," she composes and performs electronic music with the electric violin.

Hoshiko Yamane - "Cat In The Water"

请听作曲家梅雷迪斯·蒙克 (Meredith Monk) 比较卡茨和她自己的艺术实践，并回忆为这幅肖像画担任模特时的情形。

Transcript
Meredith Monk: 我是梅雷迪斯·蒙克，我是一名作曲家、表演者、导演，我还制作装置和电影。

当视觉艺术家们说他们画画时听我的音乐，我总是感到非常、非常的高兴。创作出有用的艺术，让人很有满足感。我......我非常感动。他们画画时会用我的音乐来作背景音乐，这让我非常激动。我猜亚历克斯这样做已经有一段时间了。

我的音乐很有表现力。而且很温暖。可以说是发自内心的。而亚历克斯的绘画方式，是非常正式的，让人认为也许他会选择画那些比较一本正经的人。但他选择去画那些流露真情的人。我认为这就是他的迷人之处。所以我才说他画他所见，爱自然流露。

我记得是这样的：我在纽约的厨房空间举办了一场音乐会，他可能来参加了。然后他提出来为我们作画。歌手三人组就是出现在亚历克斯画中的人物。他确保我们穿着音乐会上颜色鲜艳的服装。那朵花和每一个细节，他都希望完全跟我们表演时的装扮一样。我觉得能感觉到我们三个人之间的关系非常、非常亲近。

我不知道。可能因为我们都来自纽约吧。亚历克斯与众不同。我喜欢亚历克斯的地方是，他这个人很直率，我很有共鸣。 

他是有一说一、非常实诚的一个人。我认为他的作品也很诚实。而且我认为他的作品中有很多爱，但不一定很外露。这种爱是隐含的，因为他选择了他喜欢的东西来画。这就是关键所在。他的爱体现在他对题材的选择，他不需要做更多，如实画就是了。然后爱自然显现。

Alex Katz: Gathering 

《歌曲》(Song), 1980年

请听艺术史学家及为展览图录撰文的列维·普罗鲍姆 (Levi Prombaum) 讲述卡茨的肖像画创作方法与50年代其他画家的不同之处。 

Transcript
Levi Prombaum: 我叫列维·普罗鲍姆。我是一位研究20世纪中期肖像画的艺术史学家。我是卡茨的狂热粉丝，我也是科尔比学院的卡茨咨询策展人，那里收藏了近千件亚历克斯的作品。

在20世纪50年代，天才艺术家的形象是一个痛苦的人物，他独自工作，将内心的痛苦化作画布上的一幅杰作。而卡茨排斥这一点。亚历克斯谈到，拥有一个有兴趣和他一起讨论他作品的群体对他而言非常重要。作为一个个体画家，他的创作视野有限。他需要知道他的朋友们怎么看。他想知道评论家是怎么想的。

在亚历克斯·卡茨的艺术实践中，工作和生活之间没有人为的隔离。正如我们所看到的。我们看到的都是他的家人和朋友。卡茨不仅捕捉了几代人的波西米亚风情；在他的儿子成长过程中捕捉了非常特殊的亲子关系；还有他与妻子艾达的关系成熟、发展和加深的过程。

他还推进了一种完全不同的工作方式，传达“艺术和生活实为一体，你们将会在我的作品中看到这一点”。而且他非常享受欢乐的派对。卡茨生活中的快乐点滴在他的作品中充分体现了出来。

因此，这种亲密感让他的肖像画显得出人意料且脱离传统，跟我们对一般肖像画的想象不同。而且有时，私人关系会导致非常“不近人情”的结果。这就像在说：“嘿，我熟悉你的脸。我们住在一起。我们形影不离。所以在这块画布上我不会循规蹈矩，因为我们的密切关系给了我大胆探索的机会。” 
 
这样一个人物很快就会被分解成勾勒出下巴的那条柔和的线条，或者代表阴影的那笔厚重的颜料。现实开始分解成色块，这种方式非常震撼，很令人着迷。

《R·帕吉特先生和夫人，D·盖洛普先生和夫人》(Mr. and Mrs. R. Padgett, Mr. and Mrs. D. Gallup), 1971年

Curator Naomi Beckwith shares insights on the exhibition and its themes.

Transcript
Naomi Beckwith: I am Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator here at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. I’m thrilled to present "By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection," a show that features a small fraction of our holdings but which demonstrates the ways in which artists have made radical departures from the traditional definitions of art-making. 

This exhibition asks, Why would an artist like David Hammons, for instance, use food coloring instead of paint to make his own portrait? How do upcycled clothes—the way the artists Shinique Smith or Joseph Beuys utilizes them—represent the body? How can trash and discards—the way Abraham Cruzvillegas collects and reworks them—come to represent a notion of home? How can home be considered not just a place of nurture but actually a place of threat and danger? 

Art in "By Way Of" spans from the early 1960s to art made just a few years ago. This way of working—finding odd objects, finding unusual objects, and transforming them into artworks—is one that really finds its root in particular, in a movement coined by the Italian curator Germano Celant as Arte Povera. Arte Povera literally translates in English as “poor art.” Celant, the artists he championed, such as Piero Manzoni, or Pier Calzolari, Jannis Kounellis, or Mario Merz—all in view here in this exhibition—all believe that the value of art came from its idea and the way in which it was a reflection of the world around it. So, instead of using traditional materials such as wood, or marble, or bronze, or paint, they used the stuff they saw around them every day. Things like salt, or a natural material like ice, or clothing, even a motorcycle. All of these objects began to paint a picture of a society in Italy that was changing, that was moving from agricultural to industrial. 

That idea continues to animate so many artists working even today, especially working in the Global South, and African American artists in the United States. You see that especially in works by David Hammons, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Senga Nengudi, Rashid Johnson, Shinique Smith, and Mark Bradford.  

If artists can go into the world and collect trash, discards, and found objects to make them into artworks that we then value for their ideas and even for their beauty, then these artists pose an ethical question: What else, and who else, is in the world that we also need to hold in higher value?

Introduction to the Exhibition

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This chromogenic print from 2012 by artist Xaviera Simmons is titled "Index Two Composition Three." The vertically oriented photograph is just over 4 feet high by 3 feet wide and centers an accumulation of layered objects. The items are attached together haphazardly with clothespins and other materials and cover a vertical cylindrical structure.

The objects include a braid of light brown hair, a green palm frond, a tin can hanging from twine, and a ceramic jug hanging from a knot of red pantyhose. Vintage postcards and drawings hang from clothespins at various angles alongside cutout photographs and an image of singer and fashion icon Grace Jones. At the bottom center of the print hangs a slightly crumpled white square of paper reading “The Far West” in silver capital letters. The precariously layered items appear to have personal significance. In photograph form, the colorful objects appear flattened and abstract, like a collage on paper.

Upon closer study, one might notice that the structure is in fact a person from the waist down, though the body is so entirely covered in objects, it is difficult to decipher the person underneath. The only visible body part is a knee and calf wearing yellow tights near the lower left of the photograph, almost unrecognizable, peeking out from behind the attached items.

The body seems to be wearing a long skirt, which the wearer has lifted up to reveal the collection of objects attached to and covering their waist and legs underneath. The skirt flares upward from the waist in a funnel shape, filling the upper right of the photograph and concealing the wearer’s upper body and face. The objects, once hidden under the skirt, seem like they could be a pleated or ruffled underskirt.

It is as if this person has lifted their skirt to perhaps anonymously reveal their story or unveil their history. In displaying these objects, what has this person revealed to us? We may question, Why do they move across the world as a carrier of these historical and cultural accumulations?

By Way Of

Description of Index Two Composition Three, 2012

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work. 

Transcript
Narrator: "Oh! Les Beaux Jours" is a work by Maro Michalakakos from 2012. The installation is composed of two huge mounds that rise to a height of over 12 feet, created entirely from pinkish-purple polyester fiber. Upon close inspection, the fiber resembles wispy felt pieces, like collected dryer lint or pulled cotton balls, material with an individual lightness but an accumulated weight and density.

The color appears to change depending on our vantage point, and the individual pieces range in tone from lighter to darker burgundy. Each conical mound widens to a base of around 10 feet in diameter. The two mountains sit about 5 feet apart from one another as if in conversation. Their bases are rounded against the floor, the polyester fiber neatly touching it. At the top, a more organic edge encircles a gallery column that pierces vertically through each sculpture’s middle. It’s as if the mounds are living plants spreading up around the columns.

Near the mounds, about five small heaps of the material, up to about a foot in any direction, are tucked into crevices at the base of surrounding gallery walls, and a small pile builds up in a corner, as if they have escaped the large mounds. Above the work, in a small alcove housing a ceiling light, a line of fibrous material gathers like dust along a rafter or a wispy cloud hovering above us.

At this large scale, the installation forms an imposing yet soft presence. The calming hue and fluffy texture appear inviting, as if one could sink into it like a leaf pile. Alternatively, the mounds could be interpreted as piles of debris and dust, as if someone has just finished sweeping the floors, piles that we wouldn’t want to disturb.

This contradiction is echoed in the artwork title. "Oh! Les Beaux Jours," or “happy days,” is adopted from the work of Samuel Beckett, whose play by the same name was first performed in 1961. 

A woman is trapped up to her waist within an earthen mound. She continues to attempt her daily routines, such as brushing her teeth and reviewing the contents of her bag, while speaking with her husband who is nearby. By the second act, she is buried up to her neck within the mound yet continues to repeat “Oh, this is a happy day.” Like Beckett’s couple, these two mounds remain close yet never touch, leaving us with questions about their relationship.

Did these mounds once touch and now exist separately? Are they in conversation with each other? Do they evoke growth or deterioration?

Description of Oh! Happy Days (Oh! Les Beaux Jours), 2012

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work. 

Transcript
Narrator: "Strange Fruit (Pair 1)" is a site-specific installation created in 2015 by Kevin Beasley. A variety of everyday objects are bound together, hanging vertically from the ceiling. The main body of the sculpture is about 6 feet long, elevated about 3 feet off the floor. It hangs about 12 feet below the ceiling, with a diameter up to 2 feet wide.

At first glance it could remind us of low-hanging fruit from a tree, like a tangle of bananas bunched together. However, the artwork title, materials, and construction allude to a deeper meaning. At the heart of "Strange Fruit (Pair 1)" is a pair of Nike Air Jordan sneakers, barely identifiable as they are covered in dark resin and wrapped among parts of speakers and amplifiers. These elements are bound together with rope, power cables, and audio jack cords. Beasley uses this highly commercialized shoe brand in a manner reminiscent of shoes flung over power lines in urban settings, tied together with and hanging by their laces.

The installation is constructed using several feet of climbing rope and thick electrical cords hanging from the ceiling. The rope and cords lead down to a knotted jumble of materials gathered towards the center, with a single shoe hanging down at the bottom. In this precarious arrangement, the sneakers and amplifiers look like they are barely supported within the tangle of cords and could fall off at any time. Beasley expresses underlying tension and violence in the way these objects dangle limply and broken like a body. The speakers are pulled apart, with just the front cone remaining. Electrical equipment is tucked into tube socks, and resin-covered socks and shoes appear partially burned and dirty, as if a soiled plastic bag was melted on top. Referencing Abel Meeropol’s 1937 song of the same title which protests the lynching of Black Americans, Beasley’s installation acknowledges a legacy of racism and classism still affecting Black Americans.

Beasley’s creation is specifically reflective of the Guggenheim’s unique architecture and sonic experience within the museum space. A microphone and speaker are connected to each shoe. Small blue and green lights on the electronic equipment signal they are receiving power, giving this work a sense that it is “alive” as it captures and projects the ambient sound of the gallery space. If we listen closely at certain angles, we detect a faint hum or hiss like the sound of electromagnetic interference. The intake and outtake, reflection and absorption of sound is both expansive and intimate at the same time, similar to how sound varies depending on your location along the ramps or galleries, and distance from the artwork or each other. 

How does the incorporation of sound into this installation affect our perspective of the artwork?

Description of Strange Fruit (Pair 1), 2015

Access a slow-looking exercise of these works.

Transcript
Narrator: These two artworks by David Hammons are part of his "Body Prints" series from 1975. Both share the same name, "Untitled," and same dimensions, around 2 feet wide by 2 1/2 feet tall. They are vertically oriented and aesthetically similar, sharing the same colors and application of pigments.

Hammons uses his own body to create these visceral artworks. Covering his hands with a transparent grease, he applies them onto the cream-colored paper, palms facedown, fingers splayed. He repeatedly presses his hands onto the paper, smearing and smudging the grease. The flurry of movement doesn’t become visible until he applies colored pigment powder onto the greased surface, revealing the printed forms. The pigments are laid in three vertical columns, one each of cobalt blue, light brown, and green, a few inches wide. They have no distinct lines of separation and blend softly together at each transition point.

After the pigment is applied, Hammons greases his face, pressing it to the center of the paper. This lifts the colored pigment, revealing the creamy color beneath. He leaves a ghostly impression, subtle yet incredibly detailed, like memories of a dream. He precisely prints his nose, thick mustache, and full lips. Two pairs of short horizontal lines above the nose evoke eyelids, as if his eyes are closed or squinting at us, and seem to be made by dragging his fingertips on the surface. The face is almost lost among the soft colors, as one’s attention is immediately drawn to the swirling pigments and movement on the paper before noticing this absence of color in its shape.

When these two artworks are viewed side by side, subtle differences between them create the impression of a “before-and-after” moment. On the left, Hammons has carefully applied his handprints, the palms and fingers distinct, layered with occasional smearing. The vertical columns of pigments from left to right are cobalt blue, light brown, and a dark aquamarine color. His face, with closed lips, is pressed into the brown pigment at the center.

On the right artwork, his palms and fingers are barely distinguishable. Swirls of pigment are visible, as if he smeared and dragged his hands across the paper multiple times. This softens the colors, creating a hazy effect. Moving from left to right, the vertical columns of pigments are light brown, cobalt blue, and a forest-green color. In the center of this artwork, the face print is against the cobalt-blue color. His lips are puckered and open, forming an “O” shape, as if surprised or dismayed. An additional application of grease on the side of his hands along his pinky fingers has lifted the pigment, creating a ghostly impression that he is grasping his face, and cupping his cheeks.

The markings of Hammons’s palms and fingers near the eyes might make us consider how an artist sees with their hands. How does our experience of this work change, knowing that Hammons physically used his own body to create this artwork?

Description of Untitled, 1975

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: Rashid Johnson’s "Cosmic Slop “Bitter,”" from 2015, features a solid black surface just over 6 feet high by 8 feet wide, marked by deep cuts and grooves. If we were to touch this surface, our fingers would dance and skip over cracks and crevices, like peaks and valleys in a barren post-volcanic landscape, newly created after a lava flow.

We might also be surprised at its waxy feeling in contrast to the rough appearance of the surface. Johnson uses black soap and wax, which he melts and then manipulates through cutting and digging, etching deep slashes and scratches before it fully hardens. More than simply mark-making, Johnson relates his process to a performance, transforming and layering meaning to this everyday household material.

Black soap itself is said to have transformative and healing properties, particularly in West Africa. It cleanses us on the surface but tastes bitter, a contradiction noted in the artwork’s title, "Cosmic Slop “Bitter.”" The color and title also reference a 1973 song by Parliament Funkadelic and allude to the pain Black bodies have endured, scars both visible and beneath the surface.

What contradictory emotions might we encounter with this work?

Description of Cosmic Slop "Bitter", 2021

Watch a video of Günther Uecker's New York Dancer: http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/zero/#/artwork/everyday-materials-uecker

Günther Uecker, New York Dancer I, 1965. Nails, cloth, and metal with electric motor, 200 x 30 x 30 cm. Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. © Günther Uecker. Photo: Bruno Bani, Milan

Günther Uecker, New York Dancer I, 1965

Jelly Roll Morton performs “King Porter Stomp” (1924) with Joe “King” Oliver on trumpet, composed around 1906.

In the early 1910s, popular dances from the Americas arrived in Paris. Cafés and ballrooms cultivated an electric atmosphere, where paired bodies moved with the rhythms and improvisations of African American ragtime and early jazz.

“King Porter Stomp,” 1924, composed around 1906

Pianist John Bitoy performs an excerpt of Johann Sebastian Bach’s "The Well-Tempered Clavier," Book 1, Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, BWV 857, published in 1722.

František Kupka looked to the fugue, a musical structure characterized by interweaving and repeating a primary theme and one or more contrasting themes, as inspiration for "Disks of Newton (Study for “Fugue in Two Colors”)." Through the work’s subtitle, Kupka subtly points to eighteenth-century Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who developed the malleable fugue form through his two "Well-Tempered Clavier" books of compositions.

About the Performer
John Bitoy is an Afro-Dominican pianist and composer originally from Chicago, where he enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist and collaborative pianist. His recent solo engagements include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the South Loop Symphony and Symphony of Oak Park. He has performed in esteemed halls such as the Eastman Theatre, Chicago Symphony Center, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park, Perelman Theater, Edward Pickman Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, The American Repertory Theater, Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall, and the Copernicus Center. 

John is a passionate advocate for new music in performance spaces. Past projects include the recording and world premiere of several pieces from Steve Wallace’s Solo piano and chamber compositions in 2020, followed by his opera in 2021. As an avid chamber musician, John has been invited to play at the Gateways Music Festival, The Boston Celebrity Series, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Bienen School of Music, the Philarmonic Society of Orange County, the American Repertory Theater, Caramoor, The Bold Tendencies festival, and has performed works by Marcus Norris, Tyshawn Sorey, Davóne Tines, Ahmed Alabaca, and Brian Raphael Nabors. 

Mr. Bitoy enjoys playing standard repertoire, yet he is simultaneously devoted to shedding light on the new music of composers of the African Diaspora. In addition to taking pleasure in his classical engagements, John is well versed in other genres. He was invited to perform with Sigur Ros during their 2019 United States Tour of "Riceboy Sleeps," and has been a featured artist at the Jazz Showcase and Andy’s Jazz Club.

"The Well-Tempered Clavier," Book 1, Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, published in 1722.

Kate Ragan presents her original composition “streaking strains dry,” 2024.

Sudden, extreme, dynamic, and textural shifts in “streaking strains dry,” 2024 portray Kandinsky’s expressionistic and abstract style in "Improvisation 28 (Second Version)," 1912. Kandinsky’s apocalyptic and themes manifest in active, agitated, rhythmically offset material whereas his salvatory themes manifest through slower, stoic sustain. 

About the Performer
Kate Ragan is a DMA candidate in composition at Eastman School of Music. She received an MM in composition at Eastman and a BA in piano performance and political science from the University of Notre Dame, graduating summa cum laude. Her compositions often explore kaleidoscopic colors among instruments and stark, unpredictable contrast in register, texture, dynamics, and articulation. Also an active pianist, Kate strongly advocates for 20th and 21st century works, performing pieces by composers such as Olivier Messiaen, Tōru Takemitsu, Amy Williams, Tania León, and John Liberatore as well as premiering works by composers such as Marlies Hollevoet, Reilly Spitzfaden, and Trinity Hlynn Prater. As a passionate teacher, Kate has taught courses and lessons in composition, orchestration, and engraving for Eastman and University of Rochester undergraduate and graduate students. Through a research collaboration with Eastman Performing Arts Medicine and Eastman Community Music School, Kate is a piano instructor for adult students with Mild Cognitive Impairment and an accompanist for ENCORE, a choir dedicated to community members with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Her composition teachers include Daniel Pesca, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Robert Morris, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and John Liberatore.  

Additional Support From 
Tucker Johnson – Recording Technician 
Kaja Hammerschmidt – Flute  
Jacob Eichhorn – Clarinet 
Talia Berenbaum – Bass Trombone  
Gregory Galand – Double Bass 
Hannah Harnest – Piano

Orphism

“streaking strains dry,” 2024

Patrick Holcomb performs his original composition “Rapture After Schoenberg and Kandinsky,” 2024.

“Rapture after Schoenberg and Kandinsky” is inspired by Vasily Kandinsky’s "Improvisation 28 (Second Version)," 1912 and the final movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, “Entrückung,” 1908. In Holcomb’s work, Schoenberg’s opening gesture becomes distant thunder, and the subsequent melodies in the viola and cello parts become horn calls and, later, the bells are imagined sounding from the church in the upper-right corner of Kandinsky’s painting.

About the Performer
Patrick Holcomb (b. 1996) is a composer based on Long Island. A member of Mensa since age nineteen, Holcomb seeks to write music that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. His recent compositional honors include the 2022 ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Prize, a 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a 2021 American Prize in Composition, and a 2020 BMI Student Composer Award. In addition to concert music, Holcomb also composes music for film. Recently, his score for the 1925 silent documentary "Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life," which was commissioned by Indiana University Cinema as a part of the 2019/2021 Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award, accompanied the film during its screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in 2023.  

Holcomb completed his undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, from which he graduated top of his class in the School of Music with a BM in Composition in 2018. He went on to earn an MM in Composition and an MM in Music Scoring for Visual Media from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2021. His former teachers include Claude Baker, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Robert Morris, Eugene O’Brien, Evis Sammoutis, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Tom Schneller, Aaron Travers, Dana Wilson, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. Holcomb is currently a PhD candidate in composition at the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music as a recipient of the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull University Fellowship from the University of Rochester. In addition to composing, Holcomb is also a passionate educator. He is currently an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Hofstra University.

“Rapture After Schoenberg and Kandinsky,” 2024

Nicolas Chuaqui performs his original composition “Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten," 2024. 

Chuaqui’s “Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten” (“I feel air from another planet”) connects Kandinsky’s painting to Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 (1908), drawing from Schoenberg’s setting of his string quartet on Stefan George’s poem “Entrückung” and the groundbreaking inclusion of a soprano soloist in its final two movements. Through frequency shifting, delay lines, and spatialization, Chuaqui’s work evokes the imaginative and striking worlds expressed by Schoenberg and Kandinsky.

About the Performer
Nicolas Chuaqui (b. 1990) is a composer of wide-ranging music for voices, instruments, and Composer Nicolas Chuaqui has been praised for his "sharp and precise imagery" (The Utah Review) and recognized as a composer of depth and imagination. Most recently, he was winner of the Khorikos ORTUS International New Music Competition and winner of the Bernard Rogers Prize from the Eastman School of Music for his orchestral work Cantus. Equally at home in acoustic and electroacoustic settings, Chuaqui composes music for a broad range of performers, all of which is influenced by his background as a performer and his fascination with musical memory, time, and impression. He has worked with the Oregon Symphony, Ensemble Signal, The Crossing, New Voices Opera, pianist Jason Hardink, and many others. His work has appeared at many venues including the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, American Composers' Orchestra's EarShot Program, and the SEAMUS National Conference. In addition to composition, Chuaqui takes an active role in music as both a performer and educator. He has performed newly written compositions as conductor, pianist, and vocalist, and, in 2023, he founded Become New Music, a New York-based ensemble dedicated to currently living composers. Chuaqui is a dedicated teacher of composition, theory, and technology, and has served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Wyoming and a teaching assistant at the Eastman School of Music. He holds a doctorate in composition from Eastman, where his primary teachers were Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Liptak, and Robert Morris, and he also holds degrees from Indiana University and Dartmouth College.

“Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten,” 2024

Europe’s Society Orchestra performs “Castle Walk,” 1914, composed by James Reese Europe.

Orphist artists looked to popular dance and music of the time. After a transformative trip to New York in 1913, Picabia incorporated many impressions of the city into his art, including the syncopations of early jazz he heard in Harlem.

“Castle Walk,” 1914

Transcript
Tracey Bashkoff: Welcome to the Guggenheim. I’m Tracey Bashkoff, Senior Director of Collections, and Senior Curator.  

Vivien Greene: And I’m Vivien Greene, Senior Curator of 19th and Early 20th Century Art. We curated this exhibition, "Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930."  

Bellara Huang: I am Bellara Huang, Curatorial Assistant of Exhibitions, and I supported Tracey and Vivien over the last two years on this project.  

Bashkoff: Here you’ll see artworks that explore themes of Orphism. Artists associated with Orphism sought to channel the innovations of the early twentieth century, which radically altered how people lived and thought, by capturing the simultaneity of modern existence in their art. Newer, faster modes of transport and communication changed conceptions of time and space, the aerial perspectives of early flight offered manifold viewpoints, and electric lighting animated the texture of the city streets at night. In their works artists also made tangible the dynamic rhythms of popular music and dance, especially early jazz and tango, by articulating the multiple physical sensations and movements occurring synchronously in contemporary cafés and dance halls. 

Greene: Artists such as Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Mainie Jellett, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and Morgan Russell created kaleidoscopic compositions that often encompass disks of brilliant color and evoke multisensory experiences. When pushed to its limits, Orphism meant total abstraction. 

Huang: A poet and critic, Guillaume Apollinaire invented the word “Orphism” to describe this art. He based it on the Greek myth of Orpheus, who played the lyre and whose magical music and song even moved stones and allowed him, if briefly, to beat death and save his love, Eurydice, from the underworld. The idea behind this term was that music is transcendent. It can convey feelings and sensations in the most ethereal and abstract form.  

Bashkoff: Vivien and I have been curators at the museum for thirty years, but this is the first exhibition we have organized together.  

Greene: It combines our respective areas of interest: I am an expert in Divisionism and Neo-Impressionism, and Tracey is an expert on Vasily Kandinsky and the Blue Rider group. The art and artists of these movements all had significant impact on the Orphist artists.  

Huang: I have expertise in art of the Russian Empire and contributed in particular to research on artists from current-day Ukraine and Russia who were important presences for Orphism. 

A quarter of the exhibition features artwork from our own collection—many even from our founding collection. Some of these paintings have never been exhibited! We spent many hours in our art-storage facilities viewing works and collaborating with our conservators, who had to treat some so we could include them in the show.  

Greene: I’m a member of the Green Team at the museum, which is committed to incorporating sustainability into our work, including exhibition research and production. While organizing this exhibition, we traveled to many public and private collections in the United States and all over Europe (from Dublin to Prague and points in between) to view the artworks we hoped to include and to visit archives to learn more about the artists’ lives. Happily, we were able to combine travel for this exhibition with other work-related responsibilities, such as accompanying artworks on loan to other museums as couriers, which helped contain our carbon footprint.

Read more at guggenheim.org/audio

Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930

Learn more about Harmony and Dissonance from the exhibition's curatorial team.

Mariët Westermann, Director and CEO, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum introduces the exhibition.

Transcript
Mariët Westermann: Hello, I am Mariet Wëstermann. I’m the Director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and I’m also the curator of this special exhibition, "Piet Mondrian: Ever further." Piet Mondrian is one of my favorite artists of all time, so I’m really glad that you came. 

When I had this thought of doing a small Mondrian focus show, I thought, “Well, everyone must know this art.” Then I realized that even perhaps my own children, who are grown up now, might not know Mondrian nearly as well as I did, growing up in the Netherlands, also being of a certain generation where he was the ultimate abstract artist.

Since the Guggenheim as a museum was founded on the idea that abstract art was important and that it should be collected. I thought, “You know what? I bet we may have paintings by Mondrian. So they pull out this rack on which the paintings hang in a storage facility, I see in fact that there are nine paintings there. Mondrian also made many drawings. And it turns out we have some eight drawings and two entire sketchbooks. So we thought, “Why not bring them out and show the world that we can tell the entire story of Mondrian’s journey just from our collection alone?” 

Mondrian was born in the Netherlands, and he grew up in rural villages—a very strict Christian upbringing he had. But he had a yearning even then to escape the strictures of that environment and become an artist. He studies for a few years. It’s mostly flowers, and it’s still life and landscapes. All of a sudden, he becomes restless, and he says, “I don’t want to show this art that just shows the natural world in a traditional way.” He falls in love, so to speak, with a movement called Theosophy, the idea that the human spirit can be developed ever forward, ever further, as it puts it, away from the natural world to a more abstract, almost utopian idea of sort of a universal spirit. The unusual thing about Mondrian is that as he used paintings to find these new abstract realities that would be of a higher spiritual plane.  

The ones that are probably most famous, those are largely squarish paintings that divide the surface with black lines into a sort of grid that he then fills with only pure primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. No more green. Far too natural. And those are balanced with shades of white and diluted blacks. Painting becomes the medium by which he seeks abstraction that is not a representation of the natural world but it’s whole own spiritual reality.  

When he tries to explain what his art is about, he says, “I don’t want pictures. I want to find things out.” We’re just so very lucky that we know his findings because they are preserved in his pictures. And that is the journey that we will show.

Exhbition Website

Learn more about the exhibition from its curator, Mariët Westermann.

Kevin Killian's Reflection on Simon Fujiwara's Rehearsal For A Reunion (with The Father Of Pottery)

Materiality: Shea Butter and Tiles

Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye

Artistic Evolution

Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, 2008

Artist Introduction

Gwendolyn Brooks: The Blackstone Rangers (Verse 1 - As Seen by Disciplines)

On Sanguine, 2024

Paul Beatty: The White Boy Shuffle (Epilogue)

Description About the Artist’s Process and Technique

About the Artist

Learn More About "Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty"

In this collection of interview and lecture excerpts, Agnes Martin speaks about inspiration, truth, perception, and the transformative power of art over the course of her lifetime. This track was published on the occasion of the exhibition "Agnes Martin," on view at the Guggenheim October 7, 2016–January 11, 2017.


Transcript: https://www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/guggenheim-agne-martin-speaks-about-emotion-and-art-audio-transcript.pdf  

Audio excerpts featured in this track are from the following sources:

Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, "Agnes Martin 1974: An Interview" (Chicago: Video Data Bank/School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1974, reedited 2003), black-and-white video, with sound, 41 min. © Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, courtesy Video Data Bank 

Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, "Agnes Martin 1976: An Interview" (Chicago: Video Data Bank/School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976, reedited 2003), black-and-white video, with sound, 31 min., 13 sec. © Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, courtesy Video Data Bank 

Agnes Martin, faculty lecture, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, July 3, 1987, audio recording

Agnes Martin: "Between the Lines," 2002/2016. Produced and directed by Leon d’Avigdor. Leon d’Avigdor Film, 2002/2016. DVD, 60 min.

Photo of Agnes Martin © Arne Glimcher/Courtesy Pace Gallery

Agnes Martin: In Her Own Words

As part of the Guggenheim Museum’s “Summer of Know” series, pianist and composer Vijay Iyer and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University Professor of History and political commentator, conversed on creativity in the “strongman” state, in a conversation moderated by Vivien Greene, Senior Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, on July 11, 2017.

Summer of Know

Conversation: Vijay Iyer and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2017)

The artist explains how details in everyday objects inspired sculptural works such as “The Twist” and “The Knot,” and how works like “Brass Column” and “Banque Bannister” relate to architecture and material value. Khan also speaks about his musical performance at the Guggenheim and reveals his “live sculpting” approach.

Artist Interview: Hassan Khan on Sculptures and Musical Compositions

Hear about the building’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and about how it exemplifies Frank Lloyd Wright’s concept of “organic architecture.”

Opening day of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 21, 1959. Photo: Robert E. Mates

Transcript
Roman Mars: Welcome to the Guggenheim Museum. I’m Roman Mars, the creator and host of the design and architecture podcast "99% Invisible."

The Guggenheim Museum is an architectural masterpiece made by a master of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright. In 2019 UNESCO selected eight buildings designed by Wright, including the Guggenheim, to be a World Heritage Site. UNESCO sites are considered vital to the collective interests of humanity. Yellowstone is a Heritage Site. So is the Grand Canyon. Of the World Heritage properties in America, twelve were made by God. Eight were made by Frank Lloyd Wright.

When cofounder and first director of the Guggenheim Museum, Hilla Rebay, commissioned this building, she said she wanted a “temple of spirit.” And Wright designed one for her. Here’s the director of the Guggenheim, Richard Armstrong.

Richard Armstrong: I feel now when I look up into that dome, I’m actually looking at a very beautiful abstraction of a rose window in a cathedral. I’m in awe.

Roman Mars: So we’re going to take the genius of this building as a given. It’s great! What I’m going to focus on are the oddities, the accretions, the interventions that reveal a different kind of genius—not just the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright and his bold, original vision, but the genius of all the people that made this building function, adapt, and grow over the decades.

Frank Lloyd Wright was the originator of a concept called “organic architecture.” You might look around and see how this entire building resembles a seashell, and you might think, “Oh cool! This must be organic architecture!” But sorry, that’s actually not what he meant.

Ashley Mendelsohn: Really for Frank Lloyd Wright, organic architecture was more about the metaphor of a living organism.

Roman Mars: This is Ashley Mendelsohn, the Guggenheim’s Assistant Curator of Architecture and Digital Initiatives.

Ashley Mendelsohn: And actually when he was on the site, he referred to the steel as the tendons and the muscles of the building, the concrete as the fatty tissue, and the waterproof paint as the skin.

Roman Mars: So we’re going to explore, touch, and even dance with this living organism of building, and witness the evolution that’s occurred within these curved walls.

Hear the Building's Story

Introduction

As part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Summer of Know series, artist Ad Minoliti and activist Adam Werner discussed social and artistic responsibility, and building community on digital platforms, with moderation by X Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum.

Photo: Ed Marshall

Archivo de la Memoria Trans
https://archivodelamemoriatrans.tumblr.com/

Queer Ancestors Project
https://www.queerancestorsproject.org/

The Feminist School of Painting
http://fschool.kadist.org/

Cromoactivismo
https://www.facebook.com/Cromoactivismo-1430319627007557/

Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal Seguro y Gratuito
http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/

Conversation: Ad Minoliti and Adam Werner (2019)

建築音声ガイドのこのバージョンは、グッゲンハイム美術館開館60周年を記念して99% Invisibleで放送されました。この音声ガイドは、美術館の建物についてそれぞれ独立した音声ガイドのトラックを30分のエピソードとしてまとめたものです。

来館後すべての内容をお聞きになりたい方は、Guggenheim.orgでエピソードを検索するか、99% Invisibleのポッドキャストで英語版をお聞きください。

ソロモン R. グッゲンハイム美術館　開館日、ニューヨーク、1959年10月21日撮影：Robert E. Mates

建築ガイドを日本語でお聞きください。

Hear actor Marilee Talkington describe the museum’s urban setting and how the building looks from the street.

Transcript:
Marilee Talkington: Walking north along Fifth Avenue, we pass rectangular New York buildings with towers ten stories high and taller. Traffic rushes by [car horns and traffic sounds]. Central Park is on our left [bird calls and people talking]. We may hear pedestrians talking or birds calling above us in the foliage. 

Crossing 87th Street, we glimpse a bright, ivory-gray, curving form ahead, protruding from the rectilinear shapes around it [footsteps on sidewalk]. The trees and buildings partially obscure the view, but as we near 88th Street, the circular, concrete building reveals itself in full magnificence. It’s the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum [light music with xylophone begins].

The Guggenheim occupies the whole stretch of Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street. We sense that the building belongs to this place. It’s dug in, emerging from beneath the ground plane. 

It’s an asymmetrical building: On the south side of the block is a large, circular form, like an inverted four-layer tiered cake, each ring wider than the one below it. The base of each layer cuts in at a sharp angle, so the tiers seem to float, with space between them. 

On the north side of the block is a smaller circular form, half the other’s height. The structure gives the overall impression of an air-traffic-control center—distinguished by half-moon shaped windows with dark mullions that span one level, a rectangular form sandwiched between that level and the building’s top floor, circled with windows in the round [music stops].

There’s a sense that both circular forms are sitting on a deep, hovering shelf, as a second-floor concrete wall wraps around them. We also see some vertical elements skewering the building together. The entire building is painted a light gray, though on a sunlit day it can appear bright white. The only exception is a frieze circling the top of the smaller building, which is a greenish tone, made of copper. 

Moving closer, our sense of scale changes [light music with piano begins]. The structure feels intimate and contained. It’s set far back from the street and looks deceptively small tucked between the tall buildings around us. Yet the curves of the building reach out toward us, gently muscling the city grid to the side. 

Looking up, the bright facade bulges out toward Fifth Avenue. The round layers aren’t entirely smooth. The skin of the paint reveals a diagonal grid in the concrete form underneath. Soft shadows emerge when the sun hits at certain angles [music stops]. 

As we step toward the building, the sidewalk widens. Street vendors are parked along the way, and the aromas of hot dogs and falafel drift toward you [people chatting and walking]. The sidewalk ends at knee-high walls [birds chirping], creating a buffer zone between the building and the street where deep planters, embedded in the urban block, make a landscaped garden and reveal a ramp to a side entrance below street level. Year-round, people perch along these walls, taking in the sun, enjoying a snack from a street vendor, or watching the passing parade of New Yorkers and visitors [distant city sounds]. 
 
Approaching the museum’s main entrance, the walls funnel us into the shadow of the overhang.

Mind's Eye: A Sensory Guide to the Guggenheim New York

Approach

Listen to audio about exhibitions and artworks at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark building is home to a collection of modern and contemporary masterpieces.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Pinned to spotlight

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