Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul is at MoMA through May 8. It's a curious title - the modern life of the soul? (As opposed to its traditional life?) But 100 years later, Munch’s view remains the modern view.
The exhibition "charts Munch’s move away from Norwegian naturalism toward an unprecedented exploration of modern existential experience." The experience he explores, of course, is full of anguish and despair.
The best way to appreciate this exploration is to focus on his self-portraits as he ages. From a young and cocky bohemian smoking a cigarette, his figure dissolving into loose brushwork, to an increasingly tortured loner, the weight of his environment pressing in on him, Munch’s gaze seems to drill into the soul. The effect is gut-wrenching: hollow eyes that have seen death and madness, mouth turned down, arms hanging limply.
2 comments:
There is a fantastic film about the life & times of Edvard Much that Peter Watkins made for Norwegian TV in the 70's. It's in a then-experimental docudrama style that makes the club and art scene of 1890 Oslo so vivid ... MOMA is screening this, I think, as part of this show (I have this on DVD, Porcupine, if you're interested)
I am definitely interested!
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