"The Whitney has once again raised the curtain on history with Sixties Surreal, a landmark exhibition that does not so much revisit the 1960s as it reanimates them. Featuring more than one hundred artistsArbus, Kusama, Bearden, Chicago, Warhol, Hammons, Bourgeois, Johns, Marisol, Ringgold, Whitten, and othersthe show offers a thrillingly revisionist portrait of an era when art did not merely reflect civil unrest and cultural upheaval, but sought to transfigure them into enduring beauty."
"The painting itself is a striking testament to the human body as landscapeflesh arranged like terrain, both alluring and unsettling, punctuated by the austerity of a table that becomes anchor and stage. It is erotic and clinical at once, collapsing the distance between object and observer. Standing with Edelheit before this work felt like standing at a hinge of history, where the freedoms of the body and the struggles of the age intersected in unapologetic color. That encounter alone made my month."
"The sculptures throughout the exhibition startled with their urgency, bending metal and stone into the shapes of protest and longing. Yet Benny Andrews' No More Games caught me by the throat. The taut American flag, paired with those curled toes, formed a juxtaposition of method and color so precise and unflinching it left me breathless. The piece distilled the contradictions of its momentpatriotism and protest, order and disarray, allegiance and revoltinto one unforgettable image."
Sixties Surreal at the Whitney reanimates 1960s art through work by more than one hundred artists, including Arbus, Kusama, Bearden, Chicago, Warhol, Hammons, Bourgeois, Johns, Marisol, Ringgold, and Whitten. The exhibition transforms civil unrest and cultural upheaval into enduring beauty, pairing urgency with formal invention. Martha Edelheit's Flesh Wall with Table (1965) treats the body as landscape, erotic and clinical, collapsing distance between object and observer. Sculptures bend metal and stone into protest and longing. Benny Andrews' No More Games juxtaposes a taut American flag and curled toes to embody patriotism and revolt. The decade's questions of freedom, authenticity, and belonging resonate today.
Read at www.amny.com
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