Two Exhibits at the Met

Two exhibits at the Met absolutely worth seeing are New Orleans after the Flood and Cezanne to Picasso: Ambrose Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde.  They are both on the second floor, literally next to each other.

New Orleans after the Flood are pictures by Robert Polidori.  The images are intense.  Long exposure allowed him to capture the intensity of the details.  You can almost smell the mold and dirt coming out of the picture.  Remarkable to see the aftermath of what was affected and what was not.  Why are clothes still hanging on hangers in a closet but the entire house has been destroyed?  Or why does not house remain and the house next door is gone?  A haunting and disturbing reminder of this tragic storm that destroyed New Orleans and peoples lives.  Seeing these images once again brings to light the failure of our own Government to help this city through a natural crisis.

Cezanne to Picasso is a curators dream.  My hats go off to who ever did the research for this particular project.  The exhibit is devoted to Ambrose Vollard who was the dealer for Picasso, Van Gogh, Degas, Matisse, Renoir, Gaugin and many other artists of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century.  Truly remarkable how much work from these artists touched his hands to get to the collector on the other side.  They all relied on Vollard.  The majority of work that he was responsible for is in the exhibit.  There are the original pieces of Matisse’s first solo exhibit. Paintings that each of the artists did of Vollard.  Vollard was the key to these artists future.  He was the sugar daddy of the art world.  The art work is magnificent.  It is interesting how much their work fed off of each other in that time.  Now, there is so much more available that we can see a much broader view of work whereas then although these guys were cutting edge, there were many similarities.  I particularly loved the piece that Van Gogh did of Vollard himself.  Great exhibit.  A lot to take in.

I believe these exhibits are running through mid-Dec for New Orleans and early January for Vollard.