Exhibitions and Fairs
Five Museum Exhibitions to look out for in the US in 2020
By Shira Wolfe
On the eve of the new year, we take a look at five US museum exhibitions to look forward to in 2020. From French street art to the Italian Renaissance and American Minimalism, there’s a lot coming up in the new year.
1. JR: Chronicles at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York (through May 3, 2020)
The French artist JR has been making waves with his socially engaged street art for the past two decades. He has expanded the meaning of public art through his interventions in public spaces all over the world, working together with local communities by taking individual portraits, reproducing them at a large scale, and pasting them all over nearby public spaces. He is famous for having illegally pasted his pictures of Israelis and Palestinians on the separation wall in the West Bank. This Brooklyn Museum exhibition traces JR’s career, from his early days in Paris to his large-scale public art projects worldwide. The centrepiece of the exhibition is The Chronicles of New York City, a mural of over 1000 New Yorkers that is accompanied by audio recordings with each person’s story.
2. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983 at de Young Museum, San Francisco, California (through 15 March 2020)
This internationally acclaimed travelling exhibition celebrates art made by Black artists between 1963-1983, turbulent decades when issues of race dominated and defined public and private discourse. The exhibition has already travelled to Tate Modern, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Broad, and is now on view at de Young Museum in San Francisco. The exhibition at de Young includes a focus on artists from the Bay Area, and a full program of performers, musicians, activists and others will accompany the exhibition.
3. Raphael and his Circle at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (16 February to 14 June)
In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. presents 25 prints and drawings by the great Italian master in an intimate setting. The exhibition will show how Raphael’s art influenced and shaped the art and aesthetic tastes of later artists and connoisseurs.
4. Judd at MoMA, New York ( 1 March to 11 July)
Coming to MoMA in March 2020 is the Donald Judd retrospective “Judd”. The retrospective will be the first of its kind since 1988, when the Whitney Museum staged a full-career retrospective of Judd’s art. Judd, one of the foremost sculptors of our time, was one of the leading Minimalist artists of the ’60s and ’70s. The exhibition will include 60 paintings, drawings and sculptures by Judd on the 6th floor of the MoMA, spanning the artist’s entire career.
5. Gerhard Richter: Painting After All at the Met Breuer (4 March to 5 July)
Gerhard Richter: Painting After All at the Met Breuer is devoted to Richter’s six-decade-long career, and focuses on his preoccupation with painterly naturalism and abstraction in relation to photographic and other representational iconographies. Over 100 works by Richter will be on view, and two important series will be highlighted: Birkenau (2014) and Cage (2006). Both series will be exhibited in the United States for the first time.
Relevant related sources
Take a look at our recommendations for last-chance-to-catch exhibitions at the start of 2020!