Come and See the Hanging!

NOW for the good news. The most extravagantly praised exhibition in New York this season is not the pathological product of some “transgressive” freak but a stunning collection of Renaissance tapestries assembled from some two dozen collections in Europe and America. Is this a trend? At least since Andy Warhol observed that “art is what you can get away with,” the tony precincts of the New York art world seem to have been devoted to obliterating the line between garbage and art. How extraordinary, then, that at the very moment the Whitney Museum of American Art is parading the usual trash in its infamous Biennial Exhibition, and the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating the malevolent absurdities of Gerhard Richter, a deeply traditional exhibition a few blocks uptown should garner the lion’s share of the praise.

It is too soon to say whether the grateful attention lavished on the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition— Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, through June 19—signals any sort of sea change. But there can be no doubt that it is a welcome event. The exhibition is, quite simply, the most stunning exhibition in New York—so stunning that you should be prepared to see it more than once. Many of these tapestries are huge—they cover an entire wall— and so crowded with narrative detail that they are likely to overwhelm viewers when first seen. You leave the galleries impressed but dazzled.

About the Author

Roger Kimball

Mr. Kimball is publisher of Encounter Books, and co-editor and publisher of The New Criterion.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Art

New York City

NOW for the good news. The most extravagantly praised exhibition in New York this season is not the pathological product of some “transgressive” freak but a stunning collection of Renaissance tapestries assembled from some two dozen collections in Europe and America. Is this a trend? At least since Andy Warhol observed that “art is what you can get away with,” the tony precincts of the New York art world seem to have been devoted to obliterating the line between garbage and art. How extraordinary, then, that at the very moment the Whitney Museum of American Art is parading the usual trash in its infamous Biennial Exhibition, and the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating the malevolent absurdities of Gerhard Richter, a deeply traditional exhibition a few blocks uptown should garner the lion’s share of the praise.

It is too soon to say whether the grateful attention lavished on the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition— Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, through June 19—signals any sort of sea change. But there can be no doubt that it is a welcome event. The exhibition is, quite simply, the most stunning exhibition in New York—so stunning that you should be prepared to see it more than once. Many of these tapestries are huge—they cover an entire wall— and so crowded with narrative detail that they are likely to overwhelm viewers when first seen. You leave the galleries impressed but dazzled.