Jennifer Bartlett’s Rhapsody

Last chance

Through Oct 9

MoMA

Jennifer Bartlett. Rhapsody (detail). 1975–76. Enamel on steel, 987 plates, each plate 12 × 12" (30.4 × 30.4 cm); overall approximately 7' 6" × 153' (228.6 × 4663.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Edward R. Broida. © 2023 Jennifer Bartlett. Photograph: John Wronn
  • MoMA, Floor 2 The Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium

When Jennifer Bartlett first showed Rhapsody in 1976, it was a revelation. Visitors responded enthusiastically to Bartlett’s painting which, in the artist’s words, “has everything in it.” The monumental work consists of 987 small panels that invite close looking. From left to right, there are seven thematic sections: Introduction, Mountain, Line, House, Tree, Shape, and Ocean. Bartlett described these parts as “drifting” from one to another; the work was “supposed to be like a conversation... in which people digress from one thing and maybe come back to the subject, then do the same with the next thing.”

Bartlett died in 2022 at the age of 81. Like Rhapsody, her life’s work was “like a conversation,” engaging subjects ranging from topographical maps of the world to her immediate surroundings. Throughout her career, the artist added color and figures to the orderly grid formations prominent in the art of the 1960s—infusing them with fluidity, freedom, and emotion. Repetition—both as a concept and an action—became essential to Bartlett’s practice early on. She was intrigued by the ability of a mathematical series to build upon itself infinitely, and emulated this continuous growth by combining dozens, or hundreds, of plates—baked in enamel, silkscreened, and then painted—in large-scale installations.

Organized by Cara Manes, Associate Curator, and Lydia Mullin, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

Support for the exhibition is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Leadership contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund, in support of the Museum’s collection and collection exhibitions, are generously provided by the Sandra and Tony Tamer Exhibition Fund, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Eva and Glenn Dubin, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Kenneth C. Griffin, Alice and Tom Tisch, the Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund for Exhibitions, Mimi Haas, The David Rockefeller Council, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art. Major contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund are provided by The Sundheim Family Foundation.

The Bloomberg Connects digital experience is made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Artist

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].