My Own Private Mandela Effect

It doesn't look like I have blogged about this previously, but I might have written it down in my journal.  At any rate, I have strong memories of being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and seeing a banner or a sign for "Guston in New York," which I assumed would have pulled from local museums and private collections, much like the Beckmann in New York exhibit (which I wanted to get to but couldn't quite justify).  But I looked in all the chief locations for small special exhibits (the front room of the modern art collection where they had a Joseph Cornell/Juan Gris exhibit) and the space carved out for the Robert Lehman Collection and just didn't see it.  Thinking back on it, they have started using rooms on the first floor on the way to the African/Pacific Islander art, and that might have been where it was.  What is incredible to me is that, no matter how tired I was, I didn't just stop and ask someone, given that I like Guston's early and late work quite a bit.  Ever since, it's one of those things I (mentally) kick myself about.  

So when I realized there was this big Guston exhibit that had become somewhat notorious because it was postponed for several years (due to the "challenging" Klan paintings and not because of COVID), I decided I needed to go to make up for my previous lapse.  Guston Now is coming to the National Gallery in DC in 2023 before heading over to the Tate Modern in late 2023, but it was going to be in Boston until Sept. 2022.  I decided that there was no point in dallying.  Between COVID roaring back or even more cowardice on the part of the art world, there is no question it might be cancelled again if someone Tweeted something mean about Guston loving the Klan.  (Incidentally, not waiting to see a recent Romare Bearden exhibit in Atlanta served me well, right before COVID hit!  I still haven't blogged about that trip but I will try to later this summer.)  I like Boston reasonably well, and it is easy to get there on Porter, so I booked a quick trip out to Boston, almost entirely to see this exhibit, though the fact the MFA also had a solid J.M.W. Turner exhibit at the same time helped settle the decision.

TRIGGER Warning -- I'm sure it's already too late, but be warned that this post will display, below the fold as it were, paintings containing ironic or rather sardonic mages of the Klu Klux Klan.

Philip Guston, Gladiators, 1940

Philip Guston, City, 1969

Philip Guston,The Studio, 1969 

Philip Guston, Flatlands, 1970

Philip Guston, Cellar, 1970

Philip Guston, Rug, 1976

After seeing the exhibit in Boston, I decided I should risk opening up the scars and see just what exactly I missed out on at the Met.  But I couldn't find anything on their website that referred to "Guston in New York," and in fact the only Guston exhibit from the past 20 years was a full-blown Guston retrospective that ran from Oct 2003-Jan 2004.  It's a challenge to reconstruct whether I was actually visiting New York over those dates.  I was still in Chicago, connected to Parsons Brinckerhoff, but a bit in the dog house (certainly by 2004) and they weren't flying me to New York nearly as often as before.  That said, it's possible I was there.  What is not plausible, however, is that I would have skipped a major Guston retrospective.  There were 75 or so paintings in the show, and I think it could only have been shown in the major exhibition area on the second floor, and I literally never missed a major exhibit if I was in town.  So this leaves a few unlikely scenarios -- one, that I saw a banner that hadn't been taken down or was up prematurely or two, that they did have a smaller exhibition at some other time that simply isn't on their website.

For the time being, I will assume it is the first option and that I have been misremembering missing out on the Guston retrospective (that I was likely not even in town for...).  I spent a bit of time comparing the retrospective catalog to the paintings in the Guston Now exhibit.  There was quite a bit of overlap, particularly in the early figurative work and then the later Klan paintings.  The Met retrospective did have a slightly larger number of abstract paintings and a few more non-Klan late paintings of legs, though I have seen a few in other museums.  One of the few pieces that I had wished I had seen was this one (from a private collection).

Philip Guston, Sleeping, 1977

That said, I do prefer Couple in Bed, on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, which was in the previous retrospective, and is one of the very first images you see when you enter the Guston Now exhibit.  I'm not 100% sure I did see this in Chicago, though probably I did at some point.  

Philip Guston, Couple in Bed, 1977

I'm having quite a senior moment and can't remember for sure if I saw Green Sea either on some trip to the Art Institute (and can't turn up any photographic proof), though I think it is fairly likely, as it was probably on view for some time after the Modern Wing opened, given that Green Sea features in one of their publications listing master works from the collection.  I actually just emailed them to try to nail down the dates it was on view, and I'll keep searching through my vacation photos.  Frankly, it's a shame it wasn't loaned to the Guston Now exhibit, given that it is just gathering dust in storage somewhere...

Philip Guston, Green Sea, 1976

On the whole I would say that Guston Now was a reasonable substitute for whatever exhibit I missed in New York all those years ago, and I can probably lay my feelings of missing out to rest.  I do wish, however, that when I visited the Walker in Minneapolis Bombay was on view!  Given that the Walker never has much of their collection on view, preferring to focus on contemporary artists, it might be a very long time before this rotates on view again...

Philip Guston, Bombay, 1976

One final image that deftly combines Klan imagery and Guston sleeping is simply titled In Bed.  It is held at the Centre Pompidou.

Philip Guston, In Bed, 1971

I'm pretty sure I would have remembered this on my visit to Paris, and it doesn't seem to be on view at the moment (and I don't think it will join the Guston Now exhibit on it's London leg, though I might be wrong).  It seems relatively unlikely I will ever see this in person, though never say never, I suppose.