A Tale of Two Visions

October 11, 2024

On view in two different cities, National Gallery of Art’s American Places in DC and The FIU Wolfsonian Museum’s The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era in Miami, are two large scale shows focusing on early 20th century landscape art. Together they represent the striking contrast between ideological vs. humanist approach to environment and ecology. The works in the American Places portray human beings as subjects of landscapes that represent natural forces and confront their human built modernities. In contrast, the works at The Big World, which are mostly obsessed with utopian and totalitarian depictions of the nature, depict human beings as masters of the nature. I was lucky enough to see these two shows in quick succession, and found their opposing world views revealing. In Miami, the fore front of US totalitarian politics and climate change denialism. The Big World was an ideal show to look through. It mainly consisted of art that praises nature as a submissive collaborator of modernity. In Washington DC, the American Places came across as a collection of works that show human beings and nature in a symbiotic struggle against the fantasies of industrialism or victims of a failing modernism. If in Miami I was looking at romantic ideals, in DC I was confronted by a depression induced by those ideals. The contrast was easily extendable to the forms, in terms of scale, color and hues; American Places mostly consisted of works which depicted human beings as overpowered subjects of architecture and polluted industrial landscapes, using monochrome tones and low perspectives. In contrast, The Big World was packed with vibrant colors that praised and magnified industrial dreams which dwarfed their dreamers. The two shows also exposed how art can be accumulated in opposing directions and understandings of history. American Places consisted of works coming from the Corcoran collection which focuses on modern art in general. The Wolfsonian collection is almost strictly dedicated to propaganda art. The two shows also paralleled the cultural psychology of their respective cities, I believe; Miami is where our most ridiculous ideologies are kept a float and DC is where all ideologies come to die.

American Places: Featuring Selections from the Corcoran Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, on going.

https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2023/american-places.html

The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era, FIU Wolfsonian, Miami, on going.

https://wolfsonian.org/whats-on/exhibitions+installations/2023/08/the-big-world.html

Hitler's summer house on a porcelain plate. Image by Murat Cem Mengüç