“A Copernican revolution changed the course of 20th-century art,” writes Ken Johnson for The New York Times. “The human figure, once the center of the known artistic universe, became just another planet more and more distantly orbiting the twin stars of Abstraction and Conceptualism. Today an ability to draw live nude people is no longer the primary measure of artistic competence. It’s an elective, not a requirement.”

“You may regard this as one of the great losses of modernity or as a paradigmatic shift opening art to expansive new vistas. Those in the first camp will not be reassured by Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009 at the National Academy Museum. An uneven hodgepodge of paintings, drawings, sculptures and a video, the exhibition occupies the whole museum and includes some compelling works but on the whole does not make a persuasive case for a figurative revival.”

“What is striking about the exhibition as a whole is how provincial it seems. That is the fault not of its curators but of the museum’s collection, which reflects the historically conservative attitudes of its membership, especially in the 20th century. Of course, in terms of artistic culture, the United States was a pretty provincial place until the end of World War II, so it makes sense that most of the paintings and sculptures from the 19th and early 20th centuries by artists like Kenyon Cox, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Will H. Low and others resemble watered-down European academic art. You won’t find much by Modernists like Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe or even Edward Hopper.”

“The 10 new works grouped under the title Next: The Figure Now look backward more than forward. Jenny Dubnau’s subtly photorealistic Self-Portrait With Striped Shirt (2008) has the vivid presence of an Eakins. Kehinde Wiley’s Design for a Stained Glass Window With Wildman II (2007), which pictures a black youth in jeans, a T-shirt and a flat-brimmed cap against a field of floral patterning, combines Renaissance style and Pop-inflected Social Realism.

“Is the future of the figure in video? Hard to say, but Shannon Plumb’s faux-antique film of a fashion show in which she plays all the characters with delightful comic verve is a refreshing departure from this exhibition’s mostly fusty traditionalism.

Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009 is on view through Nov. 15 at the National Academy Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street; (212) 369-4880, nationalacademy.org.

Read the full article from The New York Times here.