By HOLLAND COTTER
Published: December 28, 2003
| 1. DIVINE "Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art From Korea and Japan" at the Japan Society was perfection: ideally scaled, art historically innovative, with some of the most beautiful sculptures on earth, most of them just a few inches high. | 6. OVERDUE A small show of work by women, "Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art in the 1970's," at White Columns was a reminder of the audacity of early feminist art, the continuing influence and the abiding need to have its history documented in full-scale exhibitions. | |
| 2. EXCEPTIONAL BEAUTY Since the Met closed its Islamic galleries for an overhaul, the Asia Society has carried the banner for classical Islamic art. "Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Iran, 1501-1576" does so exquisitely through Jan. 18. | 7. ABOUT MEN A new generation of gay artists is reshaping sexual identity and art. Their work was included in three important group shows: "Today's Man" at John Connelly Presents and "My People Were Fair" at Team, both in Chelsea, and "DL: The `Down Low' in Contemporary Art" at the Longwood Art Gallery in the Bronx. A serious problem, though, and a common one: lesbian voices were almost completely missing. | |
| 3. OUT OF TOWN African art attracts adventurous souls, so it's no surprise that exhibitions tend to be unlike any others. "A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal," at the Fowler Museum of the University of California, Los Angeles, blurred the lines between art history, anthropology and ethnology to present a vibrant contemporary culture — Islamic, as it happens — and a stunning, living art. | 8. OUTDOORS Some of the season's more inventive sculptures and paintings were on the street last spring in antiwar protests. Professional artists lent their expertise, but a lot of the most fanciful agitprop was by amateurs, including kids. There was more zappy color and snappy wit on the move in one afternoon than could be seen in most galleries in a year. | |
| 4. REVOLUTION "The Black Panthers 1968: Photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones," at the University of California, Berkeley, caught the visionary street-smart zeal of a grass-roots political movement when it was young, hopeful and strong. With luck, these pictures, taken by a husband-and-wife team and recently turned into a fine book with the same title and published by Grey Bull Press, will help pass that energy on to a new generation. | 9. THE FUTURE NOW K48, an art collective masterminded by the painter and curator Scott Hug, produces a magazine and peripatetic group shows in patched-together thematic environments. This fall a cavernous Brooklyn space became K48 Klubhouse, a labyrinthine network of grungy improvised rooms with work by more than 60 artists, as well a place for playing music, talking politics and creative hanging out. | |
| 5. MAESTRO The season's glut of drawing shows seemed to suggest that every art school graduate who put pen to paper had virtuosic draftsmanly skills. But when a superstar shows up, everything falls into perspective, as it did when "Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman" arrived at the Met for an all-too-brief stay. | 10. CLASSICS Galleries lined with paintings by Manet and Velázquez at the Met. Minimalism on regal parade at Dia:Beacon. Matthew Barney. There's nothing quite like the Big experience, and this is what Big was about. | |