Art Review: Guggenheim Museum ‘Alec Katz: Gathering’ Show Good, but Not New

The Guggenheim’s retrospective of the career of Alex Katz opened in late October, and I’m certain it’ll please people. Alex Katz: Gathering covers eight decades — at 95, he’s still working — and certainly pleased me, inasmuch as I think he’s an uneven artist who hasn’t had a new idea since Duran Duran was hot. Still, I’d recommend it. It looks fantastic at the Guggenheim and suits its spiral rotunda galleries. The labels are lucid and thorough. His collages, cutouts, paintings from the ’60s, woodcuts, and, here and there, paintings from the ’70s are exquisite. His later work? Bigger ain’t better. Being as long and wide as a city block does not a blockbuster painting make.

Katz has had a few retrospectives and, by the artist’s count, 320 solo exhibitions since 1954. There’s nothing new to say about him. The catalogue says nothing new but does so beautifully. I don’t begrudge a 95-year-old a splash, though, and Gathering’s raison d’être is easy to spot. Paid visitorship at the Guggenheim, as at almost every museum in the country, has stalled at about two-thirds of its numbers from 2019, the last full year before the Covid mass hysteria and lockdowns. Katz, they hope, will break the logjam and bring people back to the museum.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

The Guggenheim’s retrospective of the career of Alex Katz opened in late October, and I’m certain it’ll please people. Alex Katz: Gathering covers eight decades — at 95, he’s still working — and certainly pleased me, inasmuch as I think he’s an uneven artist who hasn’t had a new idea since Duran Duran was hot. Still, I’d recommend it. It looks fantastic at the Guggenheim and suits its spiral rotunda galleries. The labels are lucid and thorough. His collages, cutouts, paintings from the ’60s, woodcuts, and, here and there, paintings from the ’70s are exquisite. His later work? Bigger ain’t better. Being as long and wide as a city block does not a blockbuster painting make.

Katz has had a few retrospectives and, by the artist’s count, 320 solo exhibitions since 1954. There’s nothing new to say about him. The catalogue says nothing new but does so beautifully. I don’t begrudge a 95-year-old a splash, though, and Gathering’s raison d’être is easy to spot. Paid visitorship at the Guggenheim, as at almost every museum in the country, has stalled at about two-thirds of its numbers from 2019, the last full year before the Covid mass hysteria and lockdowns. Katz, they hope, will break the logjam and bring people back to the museum.