In lieu of our usual late afternoon film engagement (perhaps still slightly aggrieved after Le Cineclub meets Match Point, and then a scheduling error on the part of the theater that prevented us from seeing La Petite Jerusalem last Friday), Emma and I instead went to the Neue Galerie for the Egon Schiele exhibition currently on view through February 20.
I used to live a few blocks away from the museum on the Upper East Side, and would often spend many a languid Sunday afternoon strolling through the small but exquisitely focused collection and afterwards, I'd stop to peruse the well-stocked bookshop and then linger over a truly proper coffee in the gorgeous Cafe Sabarsky. I'd always admired the Neue Galerie for its array of works by Egon Schiele, not astonishingly numerous but enough of a rarity in the U.S. that it's a memorable encounter.
After seeing an ambitious but ultimately slightly disappointing exhibition of Schiele's work at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam last spring, I expected that if any exhibition could do right by the talented but conflicted artist, it would be the Neue Galerie. In a way that was true: the show is of work from the collections of the museum's founders, Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky, and their sharp eyes and elegant taste certainly shine through immediately.
The conservatism of the presentation, though, gives it a rather lifeless air, especially unfortunate considering how much life Schiele packed into his own brief, vibrant existence. The work is shown in chronological order, and although it gives a nice layout of the artist's development, little useful biographical and critical information is offered by way of explanation for some major sudden shifts in style and artistic achievement
The first gallery is filled with ephemeral mementos of the artist's life -- letters, books, a folio of erotic watercolors, promotional materials from early exhibitions, and even the funeral notices for Egon and his wife, Edith, struck down, to paraphrase the striking text from memory, "in the full bloom of youth after a short period of severe suffering." I especially enjoyed viewing the draft manifesto of Neukunstgruppe (The New Art Group), written in 1909, and emphasizing the very modern sentiment that, "We are above all people of our time..."
Over a fireplace in the next room is an absolutely stunning portrait of Schiele's sister, Gerti, painted in 1909 (view). Now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, it is a beautiful archetype of femininity in slightly grotesque repose, colored in shimmering bronzes offset by an opalescent silver background. 1909 is, in fact, the year that Schiele's highly original streak can be seen to distinctively emerge as a singular departure from his academic background, and it's worth noting that's the same year he was so engaged in founding the Neukunstgruppe and drafting its manifesto.
In a gallery on the next floor that continues to trace this development, the text explains that, after losing the support of a relative, and "...unable to afford professional models, Schiele relied on available subjects -- his sisters, Melanie and Gertrude, friends and colleagues, street urchins, and anonymous patrons at the women's clinic of the university hospital." A predictably eclectic mix of works are displayed, some more sketches than finished pieces and all very straightforward in their exploration of Schiele's unconventional new approach to figurative representation. His characteristic bright colors and fervor for feeling melded with a certain drab mortality begin to take full shape in this period.
A gallery slightly further along in the timeline shows Schiele at what would be the seeming height of his achievement. "Wally in red blouse with raised knees" dated 1913, (view) is awash with the magentas, pinks and oranges that have always appealed to me. "Seated semi-nude in green blouse," also painted in 1913, has a similar striking effect (view). Her head wrapped in a colorful blue and green kerchief, the subject bears an odd, pensive glare that strikes an unsettingly odd chord with her spread wide open legs and arms, nearly crossed but not quite.
Despite the exhibition's slightly sterile ambiance, the cerebral, foreboding eroticism of Schiele's work is impossible to mute. Even in the portrait of the artist's teenage patron Erich Lederer, a young man presumably on the cusp of comfortable bourgeois life but clearly determined to flirt with the fringes of gritty bohemia, or "Seated woman in underwear, back view" (1917), a relatively demure redhead wearing a white slip, the come-hither temptresses of mythic lore, clad only in thigh high black stockings and hungry limbs akimbo, are, spiritually at least, never far from view.
Afterwards, Emma and I decamped to Cafe Fledermaus, located on the lower level of the museum, to enjoy a stylish repast and discuss her inquiry regarding stays at Chateau Marmont as it relates to our plans for a trip to Los Angeles. We are above all people of our time...
