ArtInfo’s Top 10 Shows of 2006

ArtInfo’s Top 10 Shows of 2006

Robert Rauschenberg Fernando Botero Anselm Kiefer Jim Dine Robert Polidori Fred Tomaselli Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night "Dada"

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How embarrassing: I have to admit that my list looks like a solid endorsement of the artistic canon. Although I was lucky enough to see dozens of wonderful exhibitions this year (and a lot of other things that didn’t qualify for this list, including performances and publications of all sorts), it is perhaps not surprising that the big—and not so big—museum shows dominate my top 10 this year.

1. (tie)

“Sean Scully: Wall of Light” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I’ve watched Sean Scully’s development since the early 1970s, and it was a genuine thrill to discover what a truly great artist he has become. He is one of the few still wresting something new from the traditions of Modernist abstraction, and I shall remember this show for a long time.

“Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980-2005” — Whitney Museum of American Art

Ah, the divine Ms. Smith! I genuinely believe that she has an inventiveness and emotional reach to match any of the greatest artists in history. This retrospective is almost perfect.

[Please note: My two top picks are both still running: Scully through Jan. 15 and Smith through Feb. 11. Go see them, if you haven't already.]

3. “Anselm Kiefer: Velimir Chlebnikov” — The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

A tour-de-force by the great German alchemist, Velimir Chlebnikov was a history and a mystery crafted from paint and mud and dead flowers and misshapen miniature ships—all housed in a huge shed specially constructed on the Aldrich’s grounds. The work has since disappeared into a Connecticut private collection.

4. Nan Goldin — Matthew Marks Gallery

A stunning act of raw self-revelation, the three-screen video piece that stole this show—it deals with Goldin’s sister’s suicide and her own history of depressed self-harm—is one of the most moving pieces of art of any sort that I have ever experienced. (I also count my interview with Goldin as my proudest achievement of the year at ArtInfo.)

5. “Klee and America” — Neue Galerie New York

“Klee and America” was a delicious, thoroughly entertaining show, and it was all the more enjoyable because the Neue Galerie didn’t go the blockbuster route, including just enough wonderful painting and drawing to remind you what a magician Paul Klee was.

6. “Robert Rauschenberg: Combines” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art

An inevitable choice perhaps, but the show brought together many key works from a key period by one of the 20th-century’s key artists. Sheer delight!

7. “The Art of Betty Woodman” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Max Protetch Gallery

If you had told me at this time last year that I would be selecting pottery shows in my 2006 top 10, I would have laughed out loud. But Woodman is far more than a potter; She is a supremely gifted artist, endlessly inventive, often playful. And these twin shows changed my mind about a lot of things.

8. Colette Calascione — Nancy Hoffman Gallery

We all owe Nancy Hoffman a debt of gratitude for discovering the unique Calascione. Exquisitely detailed visions of a vaguely sexual fantasy world are her specialty. My only anxiety is that she works on each painting for so long that it may be years before we see another solo show.

9. “Eva Hesse Sculpture” — The Jewish Museum

Congratulations to the Jewish Museum for transforming its exhibition spaces into the sort of rooms for which Eva Hesse intended her materialist, Minimalist sculpture. And the museum should also be commended for concluding the exhibition with a display of Hesse’s personal treasures, which made her seem more like a human being than ever before.

10. “Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib” — Marlborough Gallery

Here is another selection I would not have predicted a year ago. But who could have foreseen the uncompromising honesty with which everybody’s favorite painter of jolly fat people focused on these still-shameful atrocities?

Notable Mentions:

Dada at MoMA; Fred Tomaselli at James Cohan; Willem de Kooning at both L&M Arts and in Allan Stone’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach; Tom Nozkowski at Max Protetch; Elinor Carucci at Edwynn Houk; Jim Dine at Craig Starr; a really good Whitney Biennial; Robert Polidori at the Met; Donald Judd at Christie’s; William Christenberry at Aperture; Ecotopia at ICP; Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins … and the list goes on and on ...