Selected works from Meghann Riepenhoff’s Littoral Drift, a series of cyanotypes created using ocean waves and other natural elements.

Riepenhoff on her work:

This work stems from my fascination with the nature of our relationships to the landscape, the sublime, time, and impermanence. Entitled Littoral Drift, a geologic term describing the action of wind-driven waves transporting sand and gravel, the series consists of camera-less cyanotypes made in collaboration with the landscape and the ocean, at the edges of both. The elements that I employ in the process—waves, rain, wind, and sediment—leave physical inscriptions through direct contact with photographic materials.

Leonard Cohen has died at eighty-two. Less than a month ago, David Remnick profiled him for The New Yorker, and Cohen knew his time was near: “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.” There’s so much to be said for this: he was ready. “Poetry is just the evidence of life,” Cohen said once. “If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective | MoMA

Our 1980 Pablo Picasso exhibition was the first time we dedicated our entire building to the work of a single artist. The museum loaned some 230 works from its permanent collection to other institutions in order to make room in the galleries for nearly 1,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, prints, ceramics, and costume and theater designs drawn from 152 public and private collections all over the world. The exhibition attracted more than a million visitors—requiring the museum to nearly triple its security staff and construct an additional water tower to maintain climate control—and ushered in a new era of blockbuster exhibitions. Reflecting on the scale of the exhibition, curator William Rubin reasoned, “More than a great artist, Picasso was a phenomenon… There is virtually nothing in modern art that Picasso has not invented, practiced, or at least influenced.” See images of this museum-wide installation and more as part of our online exhibition history project.