PaperCity Video Exclusive — The Modern’s Chief Curator Shares One of Her Favorite Paintings in the Fort Worth Museum

"We Don't Normally See People of Color in a Painting Like This"

By Billy Fong // Apr 29, 2020

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Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977). Colonel Platoff on His Charger, 20078. Oil on canvas, 122 x 122 in. (309.9 x 309.9 cm). Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Gift of the Directors Council and Museum purchase, 2008. © Kehinde Wiley

One of my favorite ways to wile away an afternoon was walking through the galleries of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The stunning building alone, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando is enough to take my breath away. You likely share in my longing to visit the world-renowned museums in North Texas as we continue to shelter-in-place. They are places to find inspiration or simply lose ourselves in beauty and reflection. I understand from my sources at various institutions that they are already making plans to provide a safe experience once they open their doors again.

Many institutions had opened exhibitions shortly before the order came for us to shelter-in-place. The Modern, for example, had unveiled “Mark Bradford: End Papers,” on March 8. On view in those now-dark galleries are works employing end papers, which Bradford learned to use during this days as a hairdresser in his mother’s beauty salon in South Los Angeles.

Tthe Modern’s chief curator, Andrea Karnes, a woman I cherish as a dear friend with a brilliance and wit like no other has created a video exclusively for PaperCity as part of our series spotlighting some of our most noted arts institutions. Most recently, she organized a four-decade-long survey of the work of the artist Laurie Simmons, Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera, which opened in 2018 and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2019.

The show examined the artist’s career-long observations of prescribed gender roles, particularly focusing on American women in domestic settings.

Kehinde Wiley Andrea Karnes — Artist Kehinde Wiley with the Modern’s chief curator, Andrea Karnes.

In this video, Karnes shares with us one of her favorite paintings from the Modern’s extensive permanent collection – Kehinde Wiley‘s Colonel Platoff on His Charger. The Museum had a comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s worth, Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic, which opened in 2015 and drew record attendance. Hopefully soon the galleries will once again open at the Modern, and you’ll have the chance to see the Mark Bradford show and many of the modern masterpieces from their permanent collection on view.