THE
RED STUDIO

THE MOMA EXHIBIT FROM A LIVING ARTIST’S POV.

By Hayley Labrum Morrison

July 18, 2022

The MoMA did one thing right with their “The Red Studio” exhibition. But maybe just one thing.

I went to MoMA’s current Matisse exhibition curious to see what curators and researchers possibly had to say about a piece I had already read about many times before. Was there a new fascinating discovery since my in-depth art history courses?

I was fresh off the high of seeing “May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth” by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme and was mind-blown. It made me remember just how powerful art can be. (While I’m grateful to the MoMA for allowing me and many others to experience this piece, I would love to see a side-by-side budget comparison between this exhibit and “The Red Studio”.)

Maybe that’s why I was deflated by the excessive and stale veneration of a single painting created over 100 years ago (1911 to be exact) that “The Red Studio” exhibit celebrated.

An episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History Podcast came to mind: A Memorial for the Living. Gladwell questions the use of obscene amounts of money being used to create a 9/11 memorial to the dead while living humans suffer homelessness, hunger, abuse, and more. My criticism of “The Red Studio” and so many museum shows isn’t so dire, but begs a similar question.

“The Red Studio” certainly has its place in history and many important norms were broken with its entrance into the world. On a personal level, I very much value Matisse, Fauvism, and all the NEW that came with them: garish hues painted straight from the tube, the breaking down of objects into primal, dancing lines and shapes, and beautiful blobby brushstrokes floating on canvas.

I found it ironic, however, that one of the main points of the exhibition was that “The Red Studio” was initially “met with bafflement or indifference”. My next thought was—Shouldn’t that then be a(nother) lesson to us? Shouldn’t the natural conclusion and way forward then be to give great care and consideration to the avant-garde creators pushing boundaries TODAY, in 2022? Shouldn’t they be where the millions of dollars of museum money goes?

As an artist and lover of the arts, I certainly think so. Instead, the MoMA dives headlong into a budget-burning academic effort to prove provenance and increase market potential of a single painting in their collection that they are comfortably SURE will appeal to the masses. To illustrate further: MoMA devoted a large portion of the entire 3rd floor of one of the foremost art museums in the world to The Red Studio exhibition, published a large coffee table book (now for sale through their shop), funded research projects, produced multiple videos of art historians geeking out about insignificant details, and stole the valuable time, attention, and money of visitors from around the world on the little bit of art they choose to view each year. Not to mention the missed opportunity to fund living artists making equally (if not more) daring artwork everyday around the world. If massive art institutions like MoMA aren’t willing to take risks, aren’t willing to invest in the art-makers of today, who will?

I came to view “The Red Studio” as a symbol for what the “art world” actually is, and always has been on most levels—another irony, given that “The Red Studio” painting depicts (supposedly) an actual intimate space in which an artist created once upon a time. It was a stark reminder that art institutions don’t have the same values and interests as working artists, DIY and artist-run galleries and collectives, and art communities at the grassroots level. And they never will.

As I left the exhibition and made my way down an escalator to the second floor, I stepped off the moving stairs and was met by a MoMA recent acquisition:

Lisa Yuskavage Pink Studio (Rendezvous) 2021, oil on linen, 77 x 70”.

It was as though the curators of The Red Studio exhibition sensed its lack of relevance and attempted to address it—an attempt I would guess most museum-goers completely overlooked in its subtlety.

Yuskavage’s piece is quiet, thoughtful, and surreal, a fresh savior in the midst of the over-discussed, overstudied, and over-glorified. A reminder that living artists matter and society shouldn’t wait 100 years before we recognize the valuable contribution of those pushing boundaries today.

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Written by Hayley Labrum Morrison, 2022.