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Erik van Lieshout. Untitled. 2014. Conté crayon, synthetic polymer paint, felt-tip pen, and vinyl on paper, 59 x 107 7/8″ (149.9 x 274 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of The Contemporary Drawing and Print Associates of The Museum of Modern Art in memory of Riva Castleman. © 2017 Erik van Lieshout
Exhibition
Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection
19 Mar 2017 – 30 Jul 2017
Regular hours
- Sunday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Monday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Tuesday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Wednesday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Thursday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Friday
- 10:30 – 17:30
- Saturday
- 10:30 – 19:00
Address
- 11 West 53 Street
- New York
New York - NY 10019
- United States
Travel Information
- From the east side of Manhattan M1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 to 53rd Street From the west side of Manhattan M50 cross-town to 50th Street. Proceed to 53rd Street.
- From the east side of Manhattan 6 train to 51st Street, transfer to the E or M train; one stop to 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue From the west side of Manhattan E or M train to 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, or B, D, or F train to 47-50 Street Rockefeller Center
Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection brings together works by more than a dozen artists, made in the past decade and recently acquired by The Museum of Modern Art.
About
The artists that make up this intergenerational selection address current anxiety and unrest around the world and offer critical reflections on our present moment.
The exhibition considers the intertwining themes of social protest, the effect of history on the formation of identity, and how art juxtaposes fact and fiction. From Cairo to St. Petersburg, from The Hague to Recife, the artists in the exhibition observe and interpret acts of state violence and the resistance and activism they provoke. They reexamine historical moments, evoking images of the past and claiming their places within it. They take on contemporary struggles for power, intervening into debates about government surveillance and labor exploitation. Together, these artists look back to traditions both within and beyond the visual arts to imagine possibilities for an uncertain future.
The title of this exhibition is inspired by John Akomfrah’s three-channel video installation The Unfinished Conversation (2012), which is included here and chronicles the life and work of the Jamaican-born British cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1932–2014). Hall recognized the power that museum collections have to both shape and reflect culture and communities, contending that they are sources of inspiration “which create thought-provoking visions of our past. They provide testimony to the darkest and brightest of human history.”
Unfinished Conversations includes works by John Akomfrah, Jonathas de Andrade, Anna Boghiguian, Andrea Bowers, Paul Chan, Simon Denny, Samuel Fosso, Iman Issa, Kim Beom, Erik van Lieshout, Cameron Rowland, Wolfgang Tillmans, Adrián Villar Rojas, Kara Walker, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
