The Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by architect Renzo Piano and located between the High Line and the Hudson River, houses one of the largest permanent collections of modern and contemporary American art, alongside a dynamic program of temporary exhibitions.
It’s here that Fondazione M-Cube engages with the work and storytelling of Amy Sherald, featured in American Sublime. Sherald focuses on a population that has historically been excluded from art history and visual representation. The skin of her subjects, rather than being depicted in natural tones, is rendered in shades of grey—an artistic device through which light brings forward “the wonder of what it means to be Black in America,” casting a vibrant technicolor lens on a rich, unbound Black world.
In this space, everyday Americans appear alongside iconic figures such as First Lady Michelle Obama (in a dress by Michelle Smith) and Breonna Taylor (portrayed posthumously in a powerful tribute featured on the cover of Vanity Fair after her death at the hands of police). Together, they form a resonant ode to the multiplicity and complexity of American identity. Modern myths, too—from manga to Barbie—find their place in this narrative.
Though Sherald considers herself a successor to the American realist tradition of artists like Edward Hopper, those figures primarily centered white, everyday American life. Sherald goes beyond the traditional portrait to create the images she wishes to see in the world.
Il Whitney Museum of American Art, progettato dall’architetto Renzo Piano e situato tra la High Line e il fiume Hudson, offre una delle più grandi collezioni permanenti di arte americana moderna e contemporanea ed una rosa di interessanti mostre temporanee.
