6 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010
EZ EE
KLMN 2010’s greatest hi
LEE STALSWORTH/HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN FORERUNNER:A1960 piece by YvesKlein. TheHirshhorn’sKlein exhibition, “With theVoid, Full Powers,” was one of the high points of the year in art. art BY BLAKE GOPNIK The old masters are getting younger
by the day. 2010 was a year—maybe the first — in which all of modern art has started feeling safely in the past, fully museum-able. There were fine shows of older work, but they rarely had the force of exhibitions exploring the last century. Here, in chronological order, are 10 shows that have stuck inmy mind. The Sacred Made Real: Spanish
Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700,at the National Gallery of Art in February. An innovative show about 17th-century art, providing harrowing visions of suf- fering made saintly. The pairing of 2-D and 3-Dimages of the same scenes made clear that what an artwork showed might once have mattered more than how it showed it. The surface look of art is a 20th-century obsession. Mark Rothko’s black paintings,at
the National Gallery of Art in February. One of curator Harry Cooper’s new permanent-collection shows in the tow- er gallery of the East Building, whose skylights have been revealed once again. In the soaring, light-filled space, Roth- ko’s black-on-black pictures, as pared- down as art can be, revealed themselves to be full of incident and meaning. The Allure of the Automobile,atthe
High Museum in Atlanta in March. It was easy to ooh and aah at the beauty of Duesenbergs and Alfa Romeos. It was more rewarding to take them seriously as art, and figure out what they meant. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a
Time of Change, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in April. An exhaustive survey of this late 19th-century photographer in- cluded little-known landscapes and travel shots. It also featuredMuybridge’s most famous works: high-speed photos revealing the true motions of animals
and humans. Those photos also blurred the boundaries between science and art. Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Pow-
ers, at the Hirshhorn Museum in May. One of the high points of the year in art. Klein’s stunning all-blue paintings, made a few years before his death in 1962, have always spoken of transcen- dent beauty. Seen in the context of the rest of his strange objects and perfor- mances — the faked photo of his “leap into the void”; an empty all-white gal- lery as art — they came to seem about ideas as much as prettiness. Klein was shown to be a forerunner of the most advanced artists of the next decades. Robert Ryman: Variations and Im-
provisations, at the Phillips Collection in June. A one-room show that got its artist absolutely right. For about 40 years now, Ryman has been known as an abstract painter immersed only in the color white. This show revealed the huge range he has achieved within those self-imposed limits. Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-
1917, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in July. We know Matisse as the artist of sweet line and bright color. He once said he wanted his art to soothe, like a comfortable armchair. For the few years covered in this landmark show — one of the best I’ve ever seen—wewatch Matisse go dark and difficult. During WorldWar I, his pictures could be more like the stiffmetal stools from a lab. Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire
in American Portraiture, at the Nation- al Portrait Gallery in October. When, in response to a ginned-up outcry, the Smithsonian pulled a single video from this exhibition, its move was misguided for any number of reasons. Maybe the most important one was that a superb show came to be overshadowed by a mishandled controversy. The rise of
STILL FRESH: John Baldessari’s 1984 “Kiss/Panic.”
COPYRIGHT JOHN BALDESSARI/METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
homosexuals from a silenced minority to a proud community is one of the most notable stories of 20th-century culture. This show explored it through art. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade,at
the Baltimore Museum of Art in Octo- ber. It once seemed clear that Andy Warhol’s greatest work came early in his career, with his silkscreened riffs on pop culture. This exhibition showed that the strange public persona he’d adopted by
the end of his life made the man himself one of his own most important pieces. His last paintings show him struggling to deal with the figure he’d become. John Baldessari: Pure Beauty,atthe
Metropolitan Museum in New York in October. Baldessari, a stalwart of the Los Angeles scene for the past 40 years and more, launched his career with objects that still feel absolutely fresh today: Canvases lettered with how-to-paint
bromides; videos reworking Hollywood cliches. Baldessari translated tough thinking about art into humorous, ap- pealing works. He gave us conceptual- ism with a human face.
gopnikb@washpost.com
6 pop
TWISTED: With KanyeWest, you’ve gotta love (or hate) him.
ONWASHINGTONPOST.COM To view a photo gallery of the year in art, go to
washingtonpost.com/style.
music BY CHRIS RICHARDS
Into the ’10s we go! It’s gonna be crowded. In a decade that promises so much pop music, artists will have to invent new ways to infiltrate our over- stuffed iPods (still the reigning gadgeta- phor for our overstuffed lives). Kicking it off, 2010 was all about
CHRIS PIZZELLO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
bravura strokes and shoulder shrugs, a year in which our greatest talents cut through the data flow by assuming the entire planet was listening, or assuming that nobody was listening at all. There were epic masterpieces, sprawling dou- ble discs, heart-rending comebacks . . . and albums about getting stoned and wishing your cat could talk. Here are the year’s 10 best:
1. KanyeWest, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” You love him or you hate him, but it’s probably both. In the finest hour of his turbulent career,West broadcasts his complexity in high definition: his petulance, his wit and his drive to create the most breathtaking pop music of our time—something he can now check off his to-do list.
2. Jamey Johnson, “The Guitar Song” He sings in the baritone of God and carries a guitar covered in Sharpie squiggles—autographs from the likes of Haggard,Nelson and other country music
royalty.NowJohnson’s sweeping double album raises the question:How long before he has to sign it himself?
3. Sade, “Soldier of Love” After a decade in self-exile,Helen Folasade Adu returned with her darkest, most paralyzing effort. R&B’s most enchanting voice has never sounded this smooth, and her pain has never sounded this sharp.
6. Robyn, “Body Talk” Who’s that girl? TheMadonna of Sweden? The Gaga of blogland? Think of it this way, America: Everything the Black Eyed Peas do horribly wrong, Robyn does exactly right, tempering clinical dance-floor pop with the messiest of human emotions.
7. The Soft Pack, “The Soft Pack”Here’s a lottery ticket of a band—one that garnishes the ancient guitars-bass-drums recipe with a singer who sounds profoundly bored yet somehow ends up dropping one of the most invigorating rock albums of the year. Everybody wins!
8. Drake, “Thank Me Later” With so many rap rookies shouting for our attention (See:Waka Flocka Flame), Drake quietly cooed his way onto hip- hop’s A list with a thoughtful dissertation on fame, fortune and romantic fallout.
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