Jennifer Packer, A Lesson in Longing, oil on canvas, (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; promised gift of Dawn and David Lenhardt. © Jennifer Packer. Photograph by Ron Amstutz. Image courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Corvi-Mora, London)
Who: Jane Panetta, Jennifer Packer
What: Video tour of “Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied with Seeing”
Where: Whitney Museum of American Art YouTube
When: Exhibition continues through April 17
Why: While everyone else is crowding into the Whitney Biennial, you should break away from the pack and check out one of the best exhibitions in the city over the last six months, the revelatory “Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied with Seeing,” on view at the museum through April 17. The Philadelphia-born, New York City–based artist uses painting and drawing to explore communal and personal memory through dramatic use of color while incorporating art historical tropes associated with portraiture and still-lifes.
In an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist in the catalog, Packer explains, “I like the idea that I’m the only one who can make a certain painting, and I tend to want to push that, whether it’s technically, conceptually, or emotionally. What I also like about painting is, if I say a word, I can make an image that pertains to that word, and that’s my ideal version. I can paint anything and see anything I’d like to see, even things that I’m not sure I want to see. I saw Titian’s The Flaying of Marsyas (c. 1570–1576) when I was in Rome, where he’s strung upside down, and I was thinking about Titian painting this body and deciding how much care to give to Marsyas. I feel the same way: the idea of painting as an exercise in tenderness.”
In paintings such as The Body Has Memory, The Mind Is Its Own Place, Say Her Name, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!), Vision Impaired, and A Lesson in Longing, Packer creates eye-catching imagery that demands careful attention from the viewer, as some mysteries are answered but many remain.
Packer, who had two works in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, continues in the interview, “I feel a kind of responsibility. Painting can go where photography cannot. I think my task as an artist is to be more attentive. Everyone should be attentive, but I ask myself to look and reap the benefits and witness pain with that consciousness. I think it’s impossible not to talk about politics, even in the most casual way. I’m thinking about Black representation in portraiture. I’m thinking about walking through the Met and looking at the Rubens, or any other large paintings of that nature, which are about a decadence that was funded through procuring riches from other parts of the world in questionable ways.”
Even if you can’t make it to the Whitney this weekend, there are several worthwhile videos available on YouTube that delve into the exhibit, including a thirteen-minute walkthrough with curator Jane Panetta and an hourlong conversation between Packer and Panetta from February. The title of the show comes from a quote from Ecclesiastes: “All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” Packer’s extraordinary work goes well beyond both those senses.