The Phillips Collection Announces 2023–24 Exhibition Schedule
WASHINGTON, DC—The Phillips Collection announces its schedule of exhibitions and programmatic highlights through summer 2024. Featuring an array of international artists, the museum will present exhibitions including African Modernism in America, 1947-67, which presents 50 artists exploring the connections between modern African artists and American patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the postwar period; a major traveling survey reuniting significant works by the French artist Pierre Bonnard; and dynamic installations featuring acclaimed contemporary artists including Jennifer Bartlett, Ugo Rondinone, and more. The upcoming year at the Phillips will also encompass initiatives that continue the museum’s commitment to the DC community through partnerships with the University of Virginia (UVA), THEARC, The Nicholson Project, and DC Public Library.
“Through our exceptional upcoming schedule of exhibitions, visitors will find opportunities to deepen their knowledge of artists in our collection and to discover new contexts for engaging with modern and contemporary art,” says Vradenburg Director and CEO Jonathan P. Binstock. “A central component of our programming is exploring ways to better serve our communities inside and outside of the museum. A growing roster of interdisciplinary collaborations with organizations around DC will help us strengthen our relationships with local artists, scholars, and visitors to the museum.”
This fall, The Phillips Collection will present an unprecedented reinstallation of its renowned Rothko Room. In 1960, museum founder Duncan Phillips designated a specific room for the Rothko paintings in the collection, and today it remains the only existing installation designed in collaboration with the artist himself. Three works from the collections of Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko will be exhibited in the Rothko Room—Rothko’s Untitled (Yellow, Pink, Yellow on Light Pink) (1955), No. 14 (1951), and No. 12 (1951)—temporarily replacing three of the paintings historically on view in the space. Concurrently, the Phillips’s Orange and Red on Red (1957), Green and Tangerine on Red (1956), and Ochre and Red on Red (1954) will be loaned to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris for its upcoming Mark Rothko retrospective from October 18, 2023, through April 2, 2024. The three paintings will be exhibited by the Fondation in a re-creation of the Phillips’s Rothko Room following the artist’s specifications.
“The forthcoming exhibitions invite visitors to engage with creative ideas of the past and present,” says Chief Curator Elsa Smithgall. “Focusing on diverse narratives, expressions of the human experience, and exhibitions shaped by the artists’ perspectives, this year’s programming offers the opportunity to look at broader and exciting developments in art history through the lens of overlooked and understudied artists, while revealing new insights into celebrated figures, like Mark Rothko and Paul Cézanne.”
EXHIBITIONS (FALL 2023–SUMMER 2024)
African Modernism in America, 1947-67
October 7, 2023–January 7, 2024
African Modernism in America,1947-67 is the first major exhibition to examine the complex connections between modern African artists and American patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the postwar period. Featuring the work of 50 African American artists—including David Driskell, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Ben Enwonwu, Jacob Lawrence, Demas Nwoko, and Uche Okeke—the exhibition reveals a transcontinental network of artists, curators, and scholars that challenged assumptions about African art in the United States, and thereby encouraged American engagement with African artists as contemporaries. Additionally, the exhibition includes a newly commissioned work by Ndidi Dike, The Politics of Selection (2022), which investigates the presence and absence of women in the story of African modernity.
This exhibition is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and Fisk University Galleries.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by Monique Schoen Warshaw. Additional support is provided by grants from the Marlene and Spencer Hays Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The presentation at The Phillips Collection is generously supported by Eric Richter and Charles Shoener.
One-on-One: Ugo Rondinone / Louis Eilshemius
November 7, 2023–January 14, 2024
One-on-One: Ugo Rondinone / Louis Eilshemius juxtaposes paintings by Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864–1941) alongside works by acclaimed contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964. Brunnen, Switzerland). Rondinone has long been collecting paintings by American poet and painter Eilshemius, who is known for his expressive and lyrical depictions of landscapes, nature, and nudes. The presentation will feature paintings by Eilshemius drawn from both the Phillips’s collection and Rondinone’s expansive personal collection of the artist’s work. In dialogue with Eilshemius, large-scale forest landscapes by Rondinone will be on view. Redolent of 17th-century Dutch woodcuts, the scenes are based on sketches by Rondinone made in 1989 during walks in the woods surrounding Vienna.
This exhibition is organized by The Phillips Collection.
Jennifer Bartlett: In and Out of the Garden
February 10–April 30, 2024
This focused exhibition of American artist Jennifer Bartlett (1941–2022) will feature a selection of dynamic paintings and works on paper inspired by the garden. In and Out of the Garden serves as a contemporary complement to the concurrent exhibition Bonnard’s Worlds at the Phillips. Both Bartlett and Pierre Bonnard were avid gardeners, and their work reflects strong universal ties to nature vividly expressed through the language of modern and contemporary art.
This exhibition is organized by The Phillips Collection.
Bonnard’s Worlds
March 2–June 2, 2024
Bonnard’s Worlds will reunite some of the artist’s most celebrated works spanning his entire career from museums across Europe and the United States, as well as many less-exhibited works drawn from private collections worldwide. Governed neither by chronology nor geography, but by measures of intimacy, the exhibition will transport the visitor from the larger realms in which Bonnard lived—the landscapes of Paris, Normandy, and the south of France—to the most intimate interior spaces of his dwellings and his thoughts.
This exhibition is co-organized by The Phillips Collection and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX.
Generous support is provided by The Robert Lehman Foundation.
Up Close with Paul Cézanne
April 17–July 14, 2024
The exhibition will unveil two recently conserved works by French Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (1886–87) and Self-Portrait (1878–80), major paintings that are part of The Phillips Collection’s world-renowned holdings by the revered artist. These paintings, together with five other works in the museum’s Cézanne ‘unit,’ will be exhibited together for the first time in decades. The conservation of Mont Sainte-Victoire and Self-Portrait will reveal details previously obscured by aged, discolored varnishes while also providing guests with new insight into the artist’s process.
This installation is organized by The Phillips Collection and sponsored by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.
Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage
July 6–September 22, 2024
Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to exploring collage by contemporary Black American artists such as Mark Bradford, Kerry James Marshall, Tschabalala Self, and Kara Walker. Featuring more than 60 works by over 45 artists, this exhibition celebrates the broad variety and complexity of Black identity in art. Building on a technique that has roots in European and American traditions, the diverse, intergenerational group of artists has created innovative works with pieces of paper, photographs, fabrics, and/or other salvaged materials. The bold compositions, created with an array of experimental techniques, offer poignant expressions of human experience, including fragmentation and reconstruction, shared history and memory, cultural hybridity, gender fluidity, and notions of beauty.
This exhibition is organized by the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN
PROGRAMMING & INITIATIVES
Phillips@THEARC
The Phillips Collection’s workshop and gallery at the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC) in southeast DC provides a space to view, discuss, make, and exhibit art to encourage community participation and action, deepening the Phillips’s social commitment, responsibility, and sustainability to the Washington, DC community. In the upcoming 2023–24 season, Phillips@THEARC will present work by local artists and engage DC community members by exhibiting their art made through the center’s programming.
Phillips Music 2023–24 Season
The 83rd season of Phillips Music offers a characteristically eclectic tableau of music that reflects The Phillips Collection’s spirit as an experiment station. The series opens with celebrated pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason (October 15) and the music of visionary composer, scholar, and pianist Vijay Iyer (with the Parker Quartet, October 22). As part of the upcoming exhibition African Modernism in America, 1947–67, three programs highlight African composers and performers, including the Leading International Composers series (Andile Khumalo, November 12) and jazz superstar Richard Bona with the Asante Trio (December 14). Phillips Music continues its focus on the relationship between music and art with the world premiere of composer Marcos Balter’s Therapy, inspired by the art of Alfonso Ossorio and performed by Anthony Roth Costanzo and the Shanghai Quartet (April 14). Tickets for the full season go on sale at phillipscollection.org/music on Tuesday, September 5 at 12 pm.
CARD Fellowship Program
The Phillips Collection, DC Public Library, and The Nicholson Project have partnered to pilot the Collaborative Arts Resource District Fellowship Program (CARD). The 12-week fellowship connects artists with professional and financial resources to create and bolster sustainable art careers and foster the contemporary art community in the Washington, DC, area. Three awarded fellows, to be selected in August 2023, will receive tangible support to advance their craft, including a stipend, connections to leaders and institutions in the Washington metropolitan area, and the opportunity to publicly exhibit their work at The Phillips Collection, DC Public Library, or The Nicholson Project. The fellowship dates are September 18–December 15, 2023.
University of Virginia Academic Partnership
A new academic partnership between The Phillips Collection and the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, Virginia, will provide rich and meaningful opportunities in education, innovation and research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and diversity and inclusion initiatives—all hallmarks of each institution’s mission. Beginning this year, the collaboration between the museum and university will support two main programs—an annual Predoctoral Fellowship in Modern and Contemporary Art History starting in the fall and a Summer Undergraduate Internship.
Third Thursday and Pay-What-You-Wish
On the third Thursday of each month, The Phillips Collection offers free extended hours from 5–8 pm for guests to explore the galleries and enjoy 15-minute Spotlight Talks from Phillips Educators focused on an artwork within the collection. Beginning August 1, the museum will offer Pay-What-You-Wish admission from 4 pm–close to increase visibility, ease, and accessibility for patrons.
IMAGE GALLERY
High-resolution press images are available upon request. Please contact lcantrell@phillipscollection.org
IMAGES: Peter Clarke (South African, 1929–2014), That Evening Sun Goes Down, 1960, Gouache on paper, 22 x 17 7/8 in., Fisk University Galleries, Fisk University, Nashville, TN, Gift of the Harmon Foundation © 2022 Peter Edward Clarke / DALRO, Johannesburg / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY, Courtesy American Federation of Arts. Funding for the conservation of this artwork was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Conservation Project; Pierre Bonnard, The Open Window, 1921, Oil on canvas, 46 1/2 x 37 3/4 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1930 © 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris; Wardell Milan, Pulse. That’s that Orlando moon, 808 club bass. That’s that keep dancing, that’s that never stop, 2022, Charcoal, graphite, oil, pastel, pastel acrylic, cut-and-paste paper on hand dyed paper; 72 ½ x 53 3/8 in., The collection of Michael Hoeh, New York, courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York © Wardell Milan
ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, was founded in 1921. The museum houses one of the world’s most celebrated Impressionist and American modern art collections and continues to grow its collection with important contemporary voices. Its distinctive building combines extensive new galleries with the former home of its founder, Duncan Phillips. The Phillips’s impact spreads nationally and internationally through its diverse and experimental special exhibitions and events, including its award-winning education programs for educators, students, and adults; renowned Phillips Music series; and dynamic art and wellness and Phillips after 5 events. The museum contributes to global dialogues with events like Conversations with Artists and Artists of Conscience. The Phillips Collection values its community partnership with THEARC—the museum’s satellite campus in Southeast DC. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-governmental museum, supported primarily by donations.