Katz’ Ada — xxx

Fashion x Art Edit #10

**A few weeks back, I visited the Alex Katz retrospective at the Guggenheim and was struck by the portrait of his wife Ada in The Black Dress (1960).**

In this painting, the model is painted in several evolving positions as if she was moving. But contrary to the pop artists of the same period who repeated the exact same image in an industrialized style, like Warhol and his stenciled portraits, each iteration was entirely painted from scratch and is therefore unique.

This process bears more similarities to the Italian Futurism of the early part of the 20th century, aiming at representing the several steps of mechanical movement in one 2D painting, amazed by the dynamism and energy of the modern world. At the same time, the simplicity of his model’s outfit, dressed to go to a cocktail party, blurs the contemporaneity of the painting and encourages a form of identification with the modern viewer. Personally, it made me look forward to my next outing in the City!