ART-PRESENTATION: Thea Westreich & Ethan Wagner Collection at Whitney
Celebrating an extraordinary and transformative gift of more than 850 works collectively given to the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Centre Pompidou Foundation by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, Whitney Museum presents an exhibition featuring a selection of works from the gift, the exhibition will travel at the Centre Pompidou on 9/6/16.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Whitney Museum of American Art Archive
Over the past 30 years, Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner have been very astute collectors of Contemporary Art. While the Collection is divided between the two institutions, with 550 works by American artists going to the Whitney Museum and 300 works by non-American artists going to the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition “Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner”, draw from both gifts aiming to reveal the international dialogue intrinsic to Contemporary Art. Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner have devoted themselves to the singular passion of art collecting, separately at first, and for the last 20 years as one of the international art world’s preeminent couples. They have consistently focused their attention on emerging artists, acquiring works soon after they were made, often following visits to artists’ studios. The collection they have built over the decades defies easy categorization, ranging as it does from the 1950s to the present, with photography by Diane Arbus, works on paper by Sol LeWitt and pieces by younger artists like Anne Collier, Gareth James and Rirkrit Tiravanija. It is particularly strong in works from the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the artists whose work they were drawn to early on have become some of the most heralded figures of their generation notably: Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Christopher Wool. The couple has also pursued a specific interest in photography, building deep holdings of the work of Lee Friedlander and Robert Adams, and acquiring multiple works by a number of younger artists, including Liz Deschenes, Josephine Pryde, and Christopher Williams. Their Collection is a personal reflection on the “Contemporary moment” as it has evolved over the last several decades. As such, it includes work in a wide range of mediums by such diverse artists as: Laura Owens, Philippe Parreno, Hito Steyerl, Cheyney Thompson, Danh Vo, and Heimo Zobernig. Their gift to the Whitney is transformational, bringing both breadth and depth by introducing new artists to the collection and adding important works by artists already represented in the Whitney’s holdings. This exhibition celebrates this remarkable gift as well as the perspicacious collecting of Westreich Wagner and Wagner by exploring several of the ideas and themes that recur in the collection across generations, mediums, and nationalities, the rise of mass media and the darker side of advertising, the adoption of street style and the punk aesthetic, the decorative arts and their ability to communicate often political messages, reflections on how technology has radically altered commerce, communication, and industry and the artist as celebrity, among others.
Info: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, Duration: 20/11/15-6/3/16, Days & Hours: Sun-Mon & Wed-Thu 10:30-18:00, Fri-Sat 10:30-22:00, http://whitney.org
\
