Carol Bove’s Rotunda exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum may be billed as a retrospective, but it’s not a solo show in the traditional sense: it’s also interspersed with works by a range of artists. In fact, the show’s crown jewel is not Boff’s sculpture but a mural by Joan Miró that has been on display at the Guggenheim—even though it is generally invisible to the general public.
Composed of 190 tiles, the work is a 19-foot-long mural titled Alicia (1965-67) was produced in collaboration between Miró and ceramicist Josep Llorens Artigas. It can now be seen near the ramp leading to the second level, for the first time in more than 20 years.
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According to text in the exhibition, the mural was commissioned in 1963 by Harry F. Guggenheim, then president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, as a tribute to Alicia Patterson. news daily The editor who married Guggenheim and died the same year. Most of the time, murals are hidden behind false walls.
When viewed in its entirety, the mural appears to contain the name “Alice” rather than “Alicia,” with letters created from Miró’s signature black forms. The director of the Guggenheim Museum informed Miró of this strange name. Regardless, he refused to change the work.
It is impossible to see all of the murals in the Bough exhibition, as the work is mostly trapped behind gray partitions. But Bove offers partial views of the work through diamond-shaped holes she carved into the wall.
The mural’s existence is an open secret—it’s part of Guggenheim lore that remains largely undisclosed to the public. In 2003, when the Guggenheim Museum displayed the mural as part of an exhibition of works from its permanent collection, new york times The museum’s website doesn’t even note that the institution owns the work, the report said. (Things have since changed: The Guggenheim does have a page Aliciaalthough it is difficult to access it from the Collection Center. )
on her era In the report, journalist Carol Vogel noted that the mural “had been covered up for years because curators felt it interfered with the artwork on display.” Bove seems to disagree: She included the mural in her exhibition list along with about 100 of her own works.
Furthermore, as exhibition curator Katharine Brinson notes in the catalog, “Miró’s signature palette of blues, reds, yellows and blacks complements some of the most distinctive colors in Boff’s collage sculptures.” The sculptures, made from brightly colored rectangular steel that can be bent and transformed, are also featured in the exhibition, which opens to the public tomorrow.
