This week, Jared Bowen brings us through the Addison Gallery’s 90th anniversary exhibition in Andover. Plus, Dawoud Bey and Alice Neel showings in Manhattan.

“Learning to Look: The Addison at 90,” on view at the Addison Gallery of American Art through December 31

Learning to Look: The Addison at 90
Edward Hopper, Manhattan Bridge Loop, 1928
Courtesy of the Addison Gallery of American Art

The Addison Gallery celebrates its 90th anniversary with a new exhibition highlighting its own extensive collection. Since 1931, the Addison’s collection has grown from 400 works to more than 23,000. From Georgia O’Keeffe to Carrie Mae Weems to Jackson Pollock, a variety of famous and lesser-known artists are on display alongside documents pertaining to the museum’s own history, like original plans for the building’s construction in the 1930s.

“We were the first museum in the United States to give Josef Albers a show,” says Gordon Wilkins, the Addison’s Associate Curator of American Art. “We were the first museum in the United States to give Hans Hofmann a full retrospective. The Addison has a personality and it has its own identity, and it's this amazing force.”

“Dawoud Bey: An American Project” on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through October 3

“Dawoud Bey: An American Project” is currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where it will remain until October 3rd. The exhibition is a collection of Bey’s photography that examines racial and power disparities that have existed—seen or unseen—since he began working in the 1970s. From his early Harlem Portraiture to a new series about the Underground Railroad, Bey utilizes the photographic medium to capture the realities of the Black experience in America.

“Alice Neel: People Come First,” on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through August 1

The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts a retrospective of works by Alice Neel. The exhibition, titled “Alice Neel: People Come First,” marks the artist's first feature in New York City in two decades. In addition to paintings, a series of drawings and watercolors are also on display.

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