{"id":5592,"date":"2016-06-16T19:56:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T19:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=5592"},"modified":"2016-06-16T21:03:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T21:03:35","slug":"unfinished-but-not-forgotten-at-the-met-breuer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/unfinished-but-not-forgotten-at-the-met-breuer\/","title":{"rendered":"Unfinished, But Not Forgotten at The Met Breuer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pictured above: “Black Draftee (James Hunter)” by Alice Neel<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all left a project or two (or ten) unfinished, but I\u2019d bet that few were as remarkable and worthy of display as the 190+ artworks currently exhibited in Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible<\/a><\/em>. The inaugural exhibition at Met Breuer<\/a>, the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s newly-opened contemporary art space, presents unfinished works by artists from the Renaissance era to the present.<\/p>\n

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\""The<\/a>
“The Return of Mary Queen of Scots to Edinburgh” by James Drummond<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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What determines whether a work is complete? Is it the artist\u2019s intention or a critic\u2019s interpretation? Unfinished<\/em> explores this question by presenting works that were abandoned, unresolved and incomplete, whether due to death, disinterest or the artist\u2019s sense that he or she has fully conveyed their sentiment.<\/p>\n

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Works left unintentionally<\/em> incomplete \u2013 ornately painted garbs on a person with no facial features, or sketches left unsubstantiated \u2013 provide some insight into the creative process of their makers. The absence of details invites the viewer to inspect what remains and what is missing. In Gustav Klimt\u2019s \u201cPosthumous Portrait of Ria Munk III,\u201d loose charcoal waves and swirls invite the addition of brightly colored paints, many of which never made it to the canvas due to Klimt\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

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\""Opalka:<\/a>
“Opalka: 1965\/1-\u221e” by Roman Opalka<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Alternately, works that appear<\/em> unfinished were often left unresolved or imperfect at the volition of the artist. Many of these pieces embrace a deliberately unfinished aesthetic, leaving the work open-ended. Alice Neel\u2019s \u201cBlack Draftee (James Hunter)\u201d became something other than what she initially intended \u2013 the subject of the portrait, who had been drafted for the Vietnam War, did not show for his second sitting. Rather than finish, or give up on the work, Neel found poignancy in the piece as it was, and deemed it \u201cfinished.\u201d The canvas\u2019 negative space in turn became an important element of the painting and speaks volumes \u2013 perhaps even more than if it had been completed as it was first envisioned.<\/p>\n

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Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible<\/a><\/em> features works from Da Vinci and Bourgeois to Homer and Rauschenberg, and is on view through September 4. Met Breuer is located in the former home to the Whitney Museum at 945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY.<\/p>\n

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\""Self=Portrait"<\/a>
“Self-Portrait” by Lucian Freud<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/dt>\n
<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

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Photos \/\/ Mary Alice Franklin<\/span><\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve all left a project or two (or ten) unfinished<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}