Forced thematic groupings of works, dominated by bossy wall texts, amount to grisly autopsies of modern art.
Both his Bern show, which closed last week, and his current exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, are extremely elegant, sensitively installed groupings of works within the gallery spaces.
In "Matisse Picasso," through Aug. 18, more than 30 groupings of works illuminate the similarities and contrasts between the men while tracing their long and evolving relationship.
Each gallery has a clear and different focus, but there is a consistent tendency to favor groupings of works tightly related by time or place.
I was tickled to see one of Jenny Holzer's satirical plaques affixed to the wall above a metal plate commemorating some past act of political patronage, and marveled at groupings of works according to theme, size and color.
The exhibition repeats its strategy in two smaller groupings of works on paper, segregating colorful watercolors and woodcuts by the likes of Klee, Kirchner and Kandinsky from pencil and ink portrait sketches by Dix, Grosz, Lovis Corinth and others.
In accord with the Venetian penchant for polyphonic conversation, Early Music New York's 75-minute program featured four groupings of works combined not by date or theme, but for optimal contrast: for example, a piece for brass followed by one for strings and continuo, then one for combined forces.
The pairing of the two panels is just one of many instances in the show in which groupings of works offer revelation and dialogue.
It is like an armoury of stacked up materials as much as groupings of finalised works.
They have decided to distribute groupings of 50 works each — kind of snapshot Vogel collections — to 50 museums.
