Any way you frame it, it’s art

Joining in the birthday spirit, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has launched an exhibition in tribute to the 200th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

"The Academy Goes Modern" runs through the fall in the museum’s American wing and features some 25 works of academy-affiliated artists who are "notable exceptions to this rule." That rule, according to PMA, is that since its beginnings, the academy’s teachers and students "have historically preferred to work in the traditional representational styles."

What goes unsaid is that since the early 20th century, those working in those "styles" have been regarded inferior to artists who are "modern."

The show then provides an excellent example of what the PMA’s curator of modern art, Michael Taylor, thinks might be called "modern."

Curiously enough, the museum notes that the works in the display have not been on view in recent years. Of the more than two dozen pictures, some of the most familiar are those created by artists who studied at the academy during the last two decades of the 19th century. These include works by Robert Henri, William Glackens, George Luks and John Sloan. Clearly then, "modern" does not mean "contemporary" or even of the current time period. Those four men formed half of the group known at the Eight or, later, the Ashcan School, for their depiction of gritty urban life. The others in the group included Maurice Prendergast, Earnest Lawson, Everett Shinn and Arthur B. Davies.

Most texts on modern art give this group only passing notice as their very different styles were all out of sync with the European modern abstractists who dominated the 1913 Armory Show in New York. Thus the new title of "modern" passed on to Picasso and Matisse.

But that was more than 90 years ago. Makes one wonder what the average age is of the works in the permanent collections of any museum with the word "modern" in their title.

According to Taylor, "This installation celebrates the achievements of artistic pioneers who all have roots at the Pennsylvania Academy of [the] Fine Arts. These artists left a powerful legacy that can still be felt in the work of current academy faculty and students, who remain dedicated to the possibilities of painting."

"Modern," then, in the context of art seems to have any number of meanings. And like all generalized categories, it breaks down quickly under inspection. Paul Tillich, the educational philosopher explained it this way: "What modern art tries to do is to move away from the surface, which had nothing to say anymore to men of the 20th century, and to move to the Urelemente, the original elements of reality, which in physical realm are cubes, planes, colors, lines and shadows."

But this show has that also. It displays the work of Morton Schamberg and Charles Sheeler as representatives of American Modernism, and credits such painters and teachers as Arthur B. Carles, Henry McCarter and Hugh Breckenridge as inspiring these early "modernists."

By far the most enjoyable way to enjoy this small gem of a show is to ignore the art world and its weird quirks and language, and focus instead on the individual work of art and the impact it has on intellectual and emotional levels. The alternative is to go along with the late Clement Greenberg, a high priest of art criticism who devoted entire lectures to attempting to define "modernism" just to be able to label something "post-modern." That kind of angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discourse is like explaining how to build a clock to a passerby who asks, "What time is it?"

Ironically those who would define modern as art for art’s sake are mostly those who ignore the art and search for titles. This is an excellent show to not only react to emotionally but also to illustrate the context art is forced to endure .

The Academy Goes Modern
through fall
Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway
215-684-7500
www.philamuseum.org
Adults, $10; seniors (62+), $7; students with valid ID, $7; ages 13-18, $7; 12 and under, free; Sundays, pay what you wish