Mike Bidlo in “Diverse Works” at The Brooklyn Museum

Diverse Works: Director’s Choice, 1997-2015

Contemporary Art Galleries, 4th Floor

Since taking the helm of the Brooklyn Museum in 1997, Arnold L. Lehman has expanded our collections to include exceptional works from around the world and across the centuries. To honor his vision, and to mark his retirement as Shelby White and Leon Levy Director in the summer of 2015, this installation highlights the scope of the Museum’s collecting accomplishments, underscoring our commitment to diversity in all its forms, under his leadership.

Diverse Works: Director’s Choice, 1997–2015 includes a selection of one hundred works from the nearly ten thousand acquired during Dr. Lehman’s tenure, including objects that range from an ancient Chinese mythical carved figure (5th‒3rd century B.C.E.) to contemporary works by Kiki Smith and Chuck Close. Additional highlights include Kara Walker’s Keys to the Coop (1997), a linocut that depicts an African American woman in silhouette, holding the severed head of a chicken; a silver Song dynasty reliquary (986) inscribed by the artist Li Lingxun; and the biomorphic Spacelander bicycle (1960), one of the rarest and most sought-after industrial designs of the mid-twentieth century.

Diverse Works: Director’s Choice, 1997‒2015 is organized by the curators of the Brooklyn Museum in honor of Arnold L. Lehman.

The Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
718 638 5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Pictured:

Mike Bidlo (American, b.1953)
Convergence (Not Pollock)
1983
Oil on canvas
93 1/4 x 156 in. (236.9 x 396.2 cm)
Collection of the Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Hal Bromm, 2001