Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009
Kandinsky
The Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky was one of the founding fathers of abstract painting and a true believer in its power to summon spiritual ecstasies. His work is a keystone of the permanent collection of the Guggenheim, which every few decades gives him the full retrospective treatment. Though it's his full-blown abstractions, pictures he embarked on in the years leading into World War I, that he's best remembered for, this show is a reminder that some of his most powerful works were the semiabstract canvases that came just before.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, on view through 1/13/2010