Agnes Martin’s work feels right at home in major retrospective at the Guggenheim (photo by David Heald, courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Friday – Wednesday through January 11, $18 – $25 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday, 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org

“To be an artist,” Agnes Martin once explained, “you look, you perceive, you recognize what is going through your mind, and it is not ideas. Everything you feel, and everything you see — your whole life goes through your mind, you know. I have to recognize it and go with it.” The same can be said for visitors who attend the absolutely lovely, simply titled retrospective “Agnes Martin,” continuing at the Guggenheim through January 11. As you spiral your way up the chronological exhibit, you are not only connecting with Martin’s life but your own as well, giving you a newfound appreciation of your very existence. Born in March 1912 in Saskatchewan, Canada, Martin lived in New York City and New Mexico during her most productive years, working daily up to her death in 2004 at the age of ninety-two. A former teacher (and onetime driver for John Huston), she never married and never had children; she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, living alone her entire adult life. Her paintings defy categorization, which was fine with her; her canvases incorporated Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism but were much more than that. “I would like [my pictures] to represent beauty, innocence, and happiness,” she proclaimed. “I would like them all to represent that. Exaltation.” And it is indeed exalting walking through the exhibition, which includes more than one hundred works that reveal Martin’s expert control of line, geometric form, grids, and color, delivered in spare, understated style.

Agnes Martin, “Friendship,” incised gold leaf and gesso on canvas, 1963 (© 2015 Agnes Martin /Artists Rights Society, New York)

The paintings feel at home in the Guggenheim bays, complemented by the white walls, lighting fixtures, and horizontal vents, which sometimes appear to have been created just for this show, earning bonus kudos to senior curator Tracey Bashkoff and guest curator Tiffany Bell. The first gallery actually begins with the midcareer suite “The Islands,” a group of nearly identical monochromatic paintings that set the tone for the rest of the show. “You see one canvas after another, and they’re similar until you look at them up close and you see how the artist’s hand has moved through the canvas and the marks that she has made,” notes Bashkoff, referring to Martin’s general oeuvre. “It’s by slowing down and looking at Martin’s canvases individually, taking in all of the details — it’s at those moments that you get close to this thoughtfulness and deliberateness.” Other paintings that reward extra attention are “This Rain,” two rectangles reminiscent of Mark Rothko; the kinetic sculpture “The Wave”; “White Flower,” a white grid on a dark canvas that has ghostly images floating in the background; “Little Sister,” composed of rows of dots; “Friendship,” a mesmerizing canvas of sparkling gold; “Happy Holiday,” boasting alternate stripes of white and peach pastel; “Heather,” consisting of rare vertical rectangles; and “Homage to Life,” from 2003, a floating black trapezoid in the center of a gray ground.

Agnes Martin show at the Guggenheim features beautiful works filled with glorious line, color, and form (photo by David Heald, courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)

“I believe in living above the line,” Martin said. “Above the line is happiness and love, you know. Below the line is all sadness and destruction and unhappiness. And I don’t go down below the line for anything.” Those are words to live by, from an artist who approached the world in a unique way, beautifully memorialized in one of the best shows of the year. On January 10 at 6:30 ($15), Quiet: A Poetry Reading for Agnes Martin will feature recitations by poets Ari Banias, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Souvankham Thammavongsa, a reception, and an exhibition viewing, an evening curated by artist Jen Bervin. Martin fans should also make their way to Dia:Beacon, where several rooms of her work are on long-term display.