Museums: National Gallery of Art #20

We enjoy viewing modern art.  So, visiting the East Building of the National Gallery of Art is always a pleasure.  

One of our favorite galleries in the East Building is dedicated to a collection called "Bodies of Work".

"The phrase body of work refers to the production of a single artist, writer, or composer. So does corpus (Latin for body) and oeuvre (French for work). Such terms become literal through the artist’s depiction of the body itself. Made over the past 50 years, the works of art in this installation reimagine the human form as a site of fantasy, fear, and travail. As the critic Britt Julious reminds us, 'Art is as much about labor as it is about interpretation.'

"Taken together, these paintings and sculptures suggest just how much contemporary artists continue to grapple with the many different ways that the body has figured in the history of art and broader historical narratives."

One of the entrances to the gallery is covered with strands of silver beads, reminiscent of 1960's beaded door curtains. When we first entered the gallery through the doorway, we did not realize that the beads were part of the exhibition.    

Below are two more works in "Bodies of Work".

Please look at the work below and guess what it represents.

Did you guess what the work represents?  Each panel represents the skin color of a friend of the artist Byron Kim.  Below are the names of some of the friends whose skin color appears in the work.  We think the artist has a lot to say.  

Below is another work that might appear in "Bodies of Work".