The “Other” Art at Lincoln Center

Riley, Charles A.
Art at Lincoln Center: The Public Art and List Print and Poster Collections
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009

We all know of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, but have you ever experienced Lincoln Center for the Visual Arts? If not, I recommend a tour of the campus, where to the surprise and delight of many, master works of sculptors and painters have become part of the aesthetic identity of this world renowned cultural center. As Charles A. Riley, author of Art at Lincoln Center, so aptly points out, “Most Lincoln Center patrons are probably so used to dashing by these sculptures and paintings on the way to an eight o’clock curtain that they are barely aware of the gems around them” (7). I sheepishly admit that I am one of these aforementioned patrons who, minutes after rushing by the magnificent Chagalls in the grand foyer at the Metropolitan Opera, is admiring the inspired visual aspects of the opera that I am viewing.

Certainly, we all experience the wonders of costumes and sets that are integrated into theater, ballet, and opera. Even the lighting during a concert may add a layer of meaning to the music. But the inventive collaborative aesthetic of the performances that are presented year round in the Lincoln Center theaters is also present in the non-performing works of art that we can view before or after the event. This art is as integral to the campus at Lincoln Center as are the sets, costumes, and lighting to the performances. Art at Lincoln Center reveals the vision and history of the collaboration between the artists and the curators as it takes readers on a tour of the major artworks.

The book points out that there are three distinct aspects in the process of bringing visual art to the Lincoln Center campus. There is the original collection that was planned as a permanent fixture of the buildings and outdoor spaces. There is the ongoing selection of contemporary art pieces, such as David Michalek’s Slow Dancing, a video portrait installation. These pieces, shown outside or at the new gallery adjacent to the Met, are not permanently installed. Finally there is the List Art Poster and Print Program, which from its inception to the present has commissioned exciting, cutting edge visual artists to create prints to commemorate and celebrate the work of this vital community. Almost half of the book is taken up with a handsomely presented Catalogue Raisonné for the poster collection.

In the first and second chapters, as we are introduced to works from the permanent collection that grace the halls, balconies, and plazas of Lincoln Center, we also meet the founders and shapers of Lincoln Center’s original look. This forward thinking group, which included a powerhouse of New York businessmen, art dealers, art connoisseurs, architects, and designers, took on the complexities of choosing and installing works of art in public spaces. It was agreed by the Art and Acquisition Committee that the visual art on campus “would advance the Modernist aesthetic agenda set by the architecture” (72). Despite differences in taste, funding issues, and difficulties with the physical execution of the art works, their collaboration was framed by this shared idea.

One of the earliest commissions was Henry Moore’s monumental but minimal Reclining Figure, which bathes in the rectangular reflecting pool on the North Plaza (or, which will again bathe there once the construction of the new restaurant building has been completed and the pool restored). The story of this aesthetic choice is retold in detail, including the influence of the architects whose buildings faced the North Plaza and who insisted on having their opinion heard. The author also recounts the committee’s infighting, the final decision by vote, and the unfaltering courtship of an initially reserved Moore by the committee’s head, Frank Stanton.

This is one of the many histories told, not only by the author, but by the voices of those involved in art acquisition during Lincoln Center’s infancy in the early 1960s. The first-hand reporting comes straight from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts archives, where Riley found memos, letters, and meeting minutes. There are also excerpts from interviews taken from Lincoln Center’s oral history project.

The clever organization of the book provides brief biographies of the key contributors to the original collection project. These sections are disbursed throughout the first two chapters and set off from the narrative text on special blue pages. Among the biographies are those of the “starchitect” Philip Johnson; the philanthropist and collector, David Rockefeller; the Russian immigrant, artist, and theater designer, Marc Chagall; and the reticent southern painter, Jasper Johns. These are just a few of the innovators who came together to help build this superb permanent collection.

The biography of Vera List, along with the introductory essay to the catalogue for the List Art Poster and Print Program, illuminates an important piece of Lincoln Center’s visual arts commitment. Mrs. List and her husband were wealthy benefactors, whose original donation to Lincoln Center included a proposal for a poster program intended to generate income. The works by contemporary artists have provided a lively graphic energy to Lincoln Center’s collection. From its inception, with Ben Shahn’s Philharmonic Hall Opening, the program has kept apace with the world of art. As Riley puts it, this program “ensures that the visual aesthetic of Lincoln Center is always up to date, not merely a time capsule of a particular moment in Modernism” (119). As I perused this well presented catalogue I was taken with the vitality of the work, which includes Helen Frankenthaler’s Lincoln Center Institute: 30^th Anniversary.

At Lincoln Center Institute, where I am a visual arts teaching artist, we practice teaching and learning through aesthetic inquiry and shared explorations of works of art, a process involving deep noticing, art-making, and reflection (among other elements). Our collaborations produce wonderful original art work and new insights into established works. So too, is the visual art at Lincoln Center created and reconsidered collaboratively. Many of the performances in Lincoln Center venues bring new ideas to time honored work. Much of the newly commissioned campus art puts a new lens on the original permanent art collection. It is a spirit of collaboration that is manifest in aesthetic exploration.

After you read Art at Lincoln Center, take the tour of the visual art installations on the Lincoln Center campus by yourself or with your students, before or after a performance. While you look at the works, remember that while each piece retains its own individual genius, it is connected, through an aesthetic idea that honors a vision of shared imagination.

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