Jack Whitten. “The Tomb of Socrates”, 2009. Wild cypress, black mulberry, marble, brass, mixed media. Collection of the Artist’s Estate © The Estate of Jack Whitten. Courtesy The Estate of Jack Whitten and Hauser & Wirth.
‘Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture’ at Met Breuer On view at The Met Breuer from September 6 through December 2, 2018, ‘Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017’ presents the extraordinary and previously unknown sculptures of acclaimed American artist Jack Whitten (1939–2018), who has long been celebrated for his work as an innovative abstract painter.]]>
Source: The Met Breuer
Featuring 41 sculptures and 18 of his most notable paintings, “Odyssey” is the first exhibition in New York City to span the entirety of Whitten’s career and the first time in 36 years that Whitten has enjoyed a monographic exhibition at a New York City museum. Ultimately, “Odyssey” not only rewrites the history of a canonical artist whose oeuvre has yet to be fully explored; it also showcases an exciting, alternative to mainstream modernism and expand our understanding of the aesthetic vocabularies favored by artists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Whitten’s sculptures, which he first created in New York and later at his home on Crete, where he began to summer in 1969, consist of carved and sometimes charred wood, often in combination with found materials sourced from his local environment, including bone, marble, paper, glass, nails, and fishing line. Representing a radical break from the assemblages most often associated with the 1960s and 1970s, Whitten’s sculptures are of roughly five types—jugs, totems, guardians, reliquaries, and swords, many of which serve a ritualistic or commemorative function. Inspired by art historical sources rooted in Africa, the ancient Mediterranean, and the Southern United States, Whitten’s sculptures address themes of place, memory, family, and migration. They also give expression to a transnational, cosmopolitan perspective—one that reflects the geography of Whitten’s life and of the African diaspora as a whole.
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