The Fantabulous 50s Weekend, Part 7: All Around the CMA

Foreground: Jeff Koons, One Ball Total Equilbrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J Series), 1985. Background: Anselm Kiefer, Tutein’s Tomb, 1981-83.

[EDITORS’ NOTE: The following entry knowingly contains Art. Viewer discretion is advised.]

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

I’ve just now lived to see 50, and after weeks of research and indecision, we planned an overnight journey to the next state over, to the capital city of Columbus, Ohio, which had cool stuff that this now-fiftysomething geek wanted to see. Columbus, then, would be the setting for our first outing together as quintagenarians…

The Columbus Museum of Art had drawn me in with their big exhibit celebrating the pre-1960 works of hometown legend Roy Lichtenstein, but other rooms commanded our attention as well. A sampler of those works, many by Big Names, seems in order as a companion piece.

Among the surprises in store: a special section called “We Stand with Ukraine”, devoted to artists from its storied past as well as its painful present. It was an awesome offering on the CMA’s part on behalf of a country that deserves support and then some.

Iryna Fedorenko, Lost Childhood, 2022

Petr Belenok, Exodus, 1986.

Ukrainian-American artist Abraham Manevich, Drab Day, 1935-36.

Kandinsky, Sketch on White II, 1922. The most well-known artist in this collection (whom we’ve also featured in past MCC entries), he grew up in Odesa and taught in Germany till he fled the country in 1933 as the Nazis rose to power.

The remaining samples from the CMA’s other galleries are presented in approximate chronological order from “ye olde-tyme traditional” to extremely present-day, a mere fraction of the total photos we took that Saturday morning.

Peter Paul Rubens and Studio, Christ Triumphant Over Sin and Death, circa 1615-1620.

Rodin, The Age of Bronze, 1875-76.

Cezanne, Victor Chocquet Seated, 1877.

Pissarro, The Stone Bridge and Barges at Routen, 1883.

For the TMBG fans out there: James Ensor (Belgium’s famous painter!), The Assassination, 1890.

Picasso, Female Nude (I Love Eva), 1912.

Marsden Hartley, Pre-War Pageant, 1914.

Monet, Weeping Willow, 1918.

Lyonel Feininger, The Cathedral, 1920.

George Bellows, The White Hope, 1921.

Guy Pene du Bois, Woman Playing Accordion, 1924.

Jackson Pollock, Composition with Flames, 1936.

Emerson C. Burkhart, Man Is Man (Portrait of Roman Johnson), 1946.

Norman Rockwell, Morning After the Wedding, circa 1957.

Hurray for more Pop Art! Andy Warhol’s Coca-Cola [3], 1962.

Benny Andrews, The Watchers, 1969.

Richard Anuskiewicz, Dual Red, 1979.

Frank Stella, La vecchia dell’orto, 1986.

Dale Chihuly, Isola di San Giacomo in Palude, 2000.

Nick Cave (not the singer), Soundsuit, 2010.

Each year the museum awards a Columbus Comics Residency with numerous perks. The current recipient is LAAB Magazine, a forward-minded publication organized by Columbus’ own Ron Wimberly (Prince of Cats, She-Hulk), whose curation adorned an entire CMA hallway.