Sixties Surreal
Member Previews September 19-22, 2025
Opens September 24, 2025-Jan 19, 2016
Whitney Museum
99 Gansevoort St, NYC
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Walking into weird.”
After missing the opening earlier this week, I was ready to forego the Sixties Surreal experience altogether until I found myself on the newly reopened Whitney rooftop, now with full-time security guard after the late summer tragedy. As I descended the proper way, the elevator happened to open on the 5th floor for member previews. Visually confronted by life scale camels akin to Deborah Butterfield’s horse sculptures amidst a backdrop of in-season wall to wall burnt orange (see Taylor Swifts’s Life of A Showgirl Ophelia-painting-inspired album cover), I delayed my exit and entered a visual wonderland. Upon entry into the first dark cavern, horror music plays as you are assaulted by a “melting” white and cerulean blow up toilet. The Trad-wife motif continues with Jean Conner’s “Are you a Springmaid?” (1960) collages from magazine cutouts and it reaches angry heights with Jim Nutt’s (is this a pseudonym?) “Running Wild” from the 60’s Chicago Hairy Who exhibit with a castration scene characterized as comic. Nudity continues to abound in the Other Pop room along with unfamiliar works from familiar artists such as Ed Rusha’s fantastical “woodpecker,” aptly titled “Give him anything and he’ll sign it”. Clay dildo-telephones courtesy of Kalifornia’s Robert Arneson’s “Klick” and Brooklyn’s own Joseph Rafael’s “Man, Boy Doe”—inspiration for the 2020s women drinking milk meme—round out the 60’s trip.
The theme continues in he next gallery where an early Eva Hesse sculpture upends the ball and chain motif. The next room blends into the big name artists and grants us an Andy Warhol Marilyn because how could the Sixties be Surreal without it? But the best is Edward Owens’ video installation, “Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts” as he transports us amidst the flowing sheer burgundy curtains (again with the fall “it” colors) to the smokin’ flower power era for a wild ride.
As we enter the psychedelic lights of the penultimate room, we are confronted with twists and turns on Americana such as Paul Bunyan and flags by both lesser known and master artists. Jasper John’s fans will not be disappointed.
The final gallery of floor to ceiling windows overlooking Gansevoort Street and the once-upon- a-time scandalous Standard Hotel gives us unadulterated peek into what would otherwise be known as Eyes Wide Shut with a single scintillating canvas spanning the entire room. But anything in the name of Art in the swinging sixties.
