As The Metropolitan Museum of Art embarks on a new programme of educational initiatives specifically its modern and contemporary art branch at The Met Breuer, a new exhibition delves into a topic that still causes great division among art lovers – when is a work of art finished?

Auguste Rodin, The Hand of God – Metropolitan Museum of Art.Auguste Rodin, The Hand of God – Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Inaugurating The Met Breuer and expected to usher in a new phase for The Met’s increased engagement with modern and contemporary art, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible examines a subject that is critical to artistic practice: when is a work of art finished?

With over 190 works dating from the Renaissance to the present – nearly 40 per cent of which are drawn from the museum’s collection, supplemented with major national and international loans –the exhibition proves the type of ground-breaking show that can result when a museum mines its collection and curatorial resources to present modern and contemporary art within a historical context.

The exhibition examines the term ‘unfinished’ across the visual arts in the broadest possible way. It includes works left incomplete by their makers, a result that often provides insight into the artists’ creative process, as well as works that engage a non finito – intentionally unfinished – aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended.

Such works are prized for providing access to the artist’s thoughts, as well as to his or her working process

Featured artists who explored such an aesthetic include some of history’s greatest practitioners, among them Titian, Rembrandt, Turner and Cézanne. There is also a long list of modern and contemporary artists, including Janine Antoni, Lygia Clark, Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg, who have taken the unfinished in entirely new directions, alternately blurring the distinction between making and unmaking, extending the boundaries of art into both space and time and recruiting viewers to complete the objects they had begun.

Jan van Eyck, Saint BarbaraJan van Eyck, Saint Barbara

The accompanying catalogue expands the subject to include the unfinished in literature and film, as well as the role of the conservator in elucidating a deeper understanding of artistic thought on the subject of the unfinished.

“Stretching across history and geography, the exhibition is the result of a cross-departmental collaboration, drawing on the expertise of The Met’s faculty of curators. The aim is to inspire audiences to reconsider the artistic process as they connect to experiences shared by artists over centuries,” said Thomas Campbell, director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum.

Using works of art as well as the words of artists and critics as a guide, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible strives to answer four questions: When is a work of art finished? To what extent does an artist have latitude in making this decision? During which periods in the history of art since the Renaissance have artists experimented most boldly with the idea of the non finito? And, finally, what impact has this long trajectory had on modern and contemporary art?

The exhibition features works that fall into two categories. The first includes works of art that are literally unfinished – those whose completion was interrupted, usually because of an accident, such as the artist’s death. In some instances, notably Jan van Eyck’s Saint Barbara (1437), there is still debate about whether the artist meant the work to be a finished drawing, which would have been considered unusual at the time, or if it was meant to be a preparation for a painting. Because such works often leave visible the underlying skeleton and many changes are normally effaced in the act of completion, they are prized for providing access to the artist’s thoughts, as well as to his or her working process.

Van Gogh, Street in Auvers-sur-Oise.Van Gogh, Street in Auvers-sur-Oise.

The second category includes works that appear unfinished –open-ended, unresolved, im-perfect – at the volition of the artist, such as Janine Antoni’s Lick and Lather (1993-1994). Antoni used a mould to create a series of self-portrait busts, half from chocolate and half from soap, fragile materials that tend to age quickly. After finishing the busts, she set to work ‘unfinishing’ them, licking those in chocolate and bathing with those in soap, stopping only once she had arrived at her distinctive physiognomy.

The unfinishedness of objects in this second category has been debated and appreciated at definite times in definite places. Unlike the historical art presented in the exhibition, which includes a significant number of truly unfinished objects, art from the mid to late 20th and 21st centuries is represented almost entirely through the lens of non finito.

La Scapigliata, LeonardoLa Scapigliata, Leonardo

The exhibition is organised chronologically, spanning the third and fourth floors of The Met Breuer. The works are subdivided thematically with each group representing a specific case-study in unfinishedness – corresponding to specific times (such as the Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern periods), media (prints and sculpture), artists (including Turner, Cézanne, and Picasso), and genres (most importantly portraiture).

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that constitutes an exploratory, yet also comprehensive, introduction to the long history of the unfinished in the visual arts, film and literature. The book is divided into two main sections that roughly correspond to the periods 1435-1900 and 1900-2015. It contains essays by curators, scholars and a conservator on a range of artists and subjects related to the theme of the unfinished and also features interviews with five contemporary artists – Vija Celmins, Marlene Dumas, Brice Marden, Luc Tuymans and Rebecca Warren – whose work is represented in the exhibition.

The aim is to inspire audiences to reconsider the artistic process as they connect to experiences shared by artists over centuries

A series of experimental films made by many of the 20th and 21st century’s most innovative filmmakers will be shown in conjunction with the exhibition. Organised by Thomas Beard, founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, these screenings, which take place on The Met Breuer’s second floor, address the unfinished in cinematic terms.

Rembrandt, The Great Jewish Bride, etching, drypoint and engraving on paper 21.9 x 16.8 cm.Rembrandt, The Great Jewish Bride, etching, drypoint and engraving on paper 21.9 x 16.8 cm.

The Met is also collaborating with The Orchestra Now to present The Unfinished, a performance at Carnegie Hall of two unfinished works – Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2 and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor.

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible runs between March 18 and September 4 at The Met Breuer, Madison Avenue and 75th Street, New York.

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