It's amazing that it took nearly one hundred years to round up all of German Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Berlin street scene paintings in one glorious exhibit. Organized by in-house curator Deborah Wye, Kirchner and the Berlin Street brings together seven of these masterpieces, along with approximately sixty works on paper that highlight Kirchner's interdisciplinary working methods. One of the founding members of the youthful Die Brücke collective, Kirchner moved to the newly bustling metropolis of Berlin in 1911 after spending most of his days in the quieter city of Dresden. Two years later, the Die Brücke artists bitterly disbanded and Kirchner entered a period he described as “one of the loneliest times of my life, during which an agonizing restlessness drove me out onto the streets day and night, which were filled with people and cars.” From this emotional state, Kirchner began the now famous Berlin street series.

Painted between the years of 1913 and 1915, each uses the image of the prostitute as a larger metaphor for modernity, promiscuity, and rising tension in a society on the brink of world war. The dramatic and claustrophobic rendering of these seedy city-dwellers in sharp angular lines and exaggerated colors underscore the emotional frailty of Kirchner during this time. However, there is a certain amount of delight, mystery, and wonder one finds in these works, in addition to feelings of alienation. Berlin Street Scene (1913) is a good example of this, where two seemingly decadent women/prostitutes are out on the prowl, or what we call, "turning tricks." Their facial expressions and that of a passing male turned toward the viewer bear a peculiar expression of both interest and disgust.

Some critics believe that this man may be a self-portrait of Kirchner and that his unusually red lips matching those of the prostitutes in Berlin Street Scene represents the artist's identification with marginalized social status on the fringes of bourgeois society. Given the amount of time he spent over the course of two years on essentially just one subject matter, I'm inclined to agree that the prostitutes we see in these paintings are not much different than Kirchner the artist, roaming Berlin in anonymity with a sense of estrangement.

Images: Berlin Street Scene (1913); Street Scene (1914). Courtesy Museum of Modern Art.

Joseph Mallord William Turner and Hillary Rodham Clinton have one thing - maybe two - in common; an understanding of the expressiveness of color, particularly orange, and the fact that both, in their respective periods, face(d) mixed reception. What influenced Clinton's choice of orange for her pantsuit ensemble during the Democratic National Convention last week was not far removed from the same Goethean color theory that inspired Turner. And like Clinton, who for this choice became the butt of many late-night talk show jokes, so too did Turner face ridicule.

Currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an exciting survey of Turner's majestic oeuvre. It's a rare exhibit and one not to miss, even if nineteenth century painting isn't your cup of tea. For it was Turner's commitment to capture on canvas and paper the ethereal qualities of light and air and the temporality of nature that makes his work resonate on a visceral level with contemporary viewers. 

A landmark of early nineteenth century painting, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) is one of the highlights of the exhibit and marks a significant epoch in Turner's artistic development. It is here where we see the beginnings of what art historians call the Turnerian vortex; a whirlpool of light and color that poetically consumes everything in its trajectory. The violence of imperial conquest, here implicitly connecting the Punic Wars to the Napoleonic Wars - Hannibal's 218 BC crossing of the Alps to Napoleon's 1800 AD crossing of the Alps - does not take center stage. Rather, the omnipotence of nature and its capability to annihilate both the human race and all of the surrounding natural landscape is what dominates the picture plane.

This theme of history as sublime catastrophe carries over to another star of the show, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1835), on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting captures a riveting testimony to a major event turned public spectacle, when the old Parliamentary building situated along the Thames River caught fire in 1834. Turner witnessed the event in person and made a number of watercolor sketches, also on view at the Met, that demonstrate his interest in the sublime as a source of terror and beauty, shock and awe. Also, we see in this painting the intensity of color as a medium capable of expressing sheer emotion, a use of color as subject matter unparalleled in contemporaneous Romantic painters.

As Turner advanced in his career, this notion of color as subject matter led him to make pictures of almost pure abstraction, ones that left him to die in 1851 in relative obscurity despite a successful career. The Met ends its exhibit with a large selection of these paintings and watercolors, which critics once called "the fruits of a diseased eye and a reckless hand." In Turner's late works, mostly unfinished, one sees a precursor to twentieth century modernist painting. Today, I do not think there is a single art historian who would dispute Turner's greatness, and this exhibit continues to prove what a genius he was. 

Images:  The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 (1835); Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812). Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

American Folk Art Museum
45 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

Tuesday - Sunday: 10:30am - 5:30pm
Friday: 10:30am - 7:30pm
Monday: Closed

Home to the single largest public repository of works by Henry Darger, The American Folk Art Museum re-opened its doors in December of 2001 after several identity changes  of name and location since the early 1960s. Now permanently housed in a gorgeous architectural feat, the museum hosts a number of programs and events that promote a deeper understanding and broader appreciation of self-taught art. Currently on view, until September 21, is an impressive exhibit that demonstrates Darger's pervasive influence on contemporary art, featuring the works of Amy Cutler, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Justine Kurland, and others - all of which are a surprise to see in this setting.