What Makes a Year?
Our lives are made up of incremental moments, one easing into the next, crawling, sometimes careening into the next. Occasionally we notice a moment pass, usually we don’t. Piling up like mail, they collect until we sort through them when we’re ready. There’s the junk - waiting in line at CVS, sitting in traffic, unloading the dishwasher; and the forgettable - scrolling, swiping, liking, unliking. But some, the best moments, hold our attention and surprise us and make us glow and overflow with warm, intoxicating joy. Soup delivery when we’re sick, an instant connection with a new friend, a positive review of our work, an awe inspiring landscape in a foreign country, family time. Those moments are the essence of gratitude, the pearls, the diamonds, the magic. They make us soar, they make us laugh, they make us fall in love with life.
Memories take shape around the remarkable moments; nutritional, they feed us and make us strong.
I’m grateful for the magic moments I had this year. Proud moments like my middle daughter graduating from college and becoming a fifth grade teacher, my youngest getting accepted to college, my oldest moving out to San Francisco and my hubbie launching another new business venture. There were exciting moments like touring the epic El Anatsui installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern with curator Osei Bonsu, and witnessing the success of Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece of postmodern feminism: Barbie. There were devastating moments that we all shared and I join and applaud those of you who stood up for what you believe, raised money for important causes, raised your voices against atrocity and worked to keep hope alive. Let’s keep standing together for justice and peace.
This year brought a lot of memorable art moments. Below is a list of the shows and events that stood out to me this year. If you have some favorites, share them in the comments. These shows made a lasting impression on me, taught me about being a maker, about storytelling, about how to make the invisible visible, the ineffable effable.
Art is a guide through an endlessly complex world. What makes a year? Indelible moments.
Here are some of my favorite shows this year, in no particular order:
Making Past Present: Cy Twombly at the MFA Boston, curated by Christine Kondoleon..
A World in Common, Contemporary African Photography, Curated by Osei Bonsu at the Tate Modern, London.
Marina Abramović at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Simone Leigh “Sovereignty” reinstalled at the Hirshorn in Washington DC.
Focus, curated by Candace Hopkins and Platform, curated by Eva Respini, at the Armory Show, NYC.
Sheila Hicks “Infinite Potential” at Alison Jacques Gallery, London.
The brilliant Jeffrey Gibson was the first indigenous artist chosen to represent the U.S. in a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
Anselm Kiefer, Exodus, Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles.
Yu-Wen Wu, the Foster Prize at the ICA Boston.
Alex Katz “Gathering” at the Guggenheim, New York.
Lauren Halsey’s Cantor Roof Garden Commission the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I) at the MET, NYC.
Dyani White Hawk in Conversation about Creation and Connection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Gabrielle Chanel, Fashion Manifesto at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
The Encounter, Barbara Chase-Riboud / Alberto Giacometti at MOMA, NYC.
The Artists Voice, Teresita Fernández in dialogue with Jeffrey De Blois at the ICA Boston.
Zainab Sumu in the studio.
Gio Swaby, “Fresh Up” at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA.
“The Land Carries our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans” at the National Gallery of Art in DC, curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith.
Sarah Lucas, “Happy Gas” at the Tate Britain.
El Anatsui, “Behind the Red Moon,” Hyundai Commission at the Tate Modern, London.
We will never have a perfect world. We just get to enjoy belonging in this broken world together. We will never have a perfect world, but we can have perfect moments. The art that moved me, the books that floored me, the friendships that sustained me, those are the elements that make a year a year. Those are the moments that matter.
*Cover image: Rose B. Simpson (Pueblo of Santa Clara, New Mexico), Tonantzin, 2021, ceramic and steel, leather, brass, Tia Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico. © Rose B. Simpson. Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. Photography courtesy Chiaroscuro Contemporary, photo by Addison Doty.