사진작가 남편 로버트 프랭크(Robert Frank, 1924-2019)에 가려졌던 뉴욕 미술가 준 리프(June Leaf, 1929-2024)의 특별전 'Shooting from the Heart'가 9월 9일부터 12월 13일까지 뉴욕대학교 그레이미술관(Grey Art Museum)에서 열린다. 

 

준 리프는 표현주의와 원시주의, 그리고 어린이같은 놀이 감각과 결합시킨 조각, 잉크 드로잉, 풍자적인 사회풍경, 캔버스나 양철에 그려진 섬뜩한 해골 등이 비평가들의 주목을 끌었다. 

 

시카고에서 태어난 준 리프는 발레를 배우다가 모델로 활동한 후 일리노이공대 디자인연구소에 입학했다. 대학을 중퇴한 후 파리에서 1년간 체류한 후 돌아와 루즈벨트대에서 미술교육, 디자인연구소에서 미술교육으로 석사학위를 받았다. 1960년 뉴욕으로 이주, 재즈 뮤지션 조엘 프레스와 결혼했다. 이혼 후 로버트 프랭크와 결혼해 함께 로어이스트사이드에서 작업했다. 프랭크는 2019년, 리프는 2024년 세상을 떠났다. 1978년 시카고현대미술관에서 회고전, 2016년에는 휘트니뮤지엄에서 'June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite'를 열었다. 

 

이 전시는 매사추세츠주 앤도버 필립스아카데미의 애디슨미국미술관(Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy 3/15-7/31, 2025)에서 뉴욕대 그레이미술관(9/ 9-12/13, 2025), 그리고 오하이오주 오벌린대 알렌메모리얼미술관(Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1/27-5/24, 2026)으로 이어지는 순회전시다. 

 

*Image: June Leaf, “Woman Theater” (1968), oil on canvas with wood, nylon rope, tin, and chain (© June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation; courtesy the Smithsonian American Art Museum)

 

 

 

June Leaf

Shooting from the Heart

 

September 9–December 13, 2025

Grey Art Museum: 18 Cooper Square, New York

 

Across a career that spanned some 75 years, June Leaf (1929–2024) produced a remarkable body of work that revels in the human experience in all its banality and sublimity. Armed with indefatigable energy, an inventive mind, and a wry, closely observing eye, Leaf nimbly navigated the planes of the real and the imagined, holding a mirror up to essential truths while reminding us of our shared humanity.

 

Born in Chicago and trained at the New Bauhaus, Leaf experienced two formative stints in Paris before relocating to New York. The artist’s career took off here in 1968 with her carnivalesque, breakout exhibition Street Dreams at Allan Frumkin Gallery. In the 1970s, living part­time in a remote fishing village in Nova Scotia, Canada, Leaf began creating the densely layered drawings and paintings and the expressive tin and wire figurative sculptures for which she is best known.

 

Perpetually rearranging both complete and in-progress works in microcosmic configurations, Leaf created a recurring cast of characters, compositions, and stories that synthesized outside influences with symbols drawn from her own self-mythology. Her figures wobble, jostle, climb, and spin as they engage in a timeless struggle for agency within metaphysical chambers—some evocative of Leaf’s studios, and others of seedy bars, dollhouses, and theater stages.

 

Arranged thematically rather than chronologically to honor the artist’s cyclical returns to a core set of motifs, this exhibition locates Leaf in the artistic legacies of the Chicago and New York milieus to which she contributed. Playful and dark, ecstatic and esoteric, the mythic aspects of Leaf’s artistic vision defy categorization into any particular art movement, though her works display shared preoccupations with her contemporaries—including a passion for drama and urban streets, an expansive idea of the feminine, and a fascination with kinetic movement. In her studio every day to weld, draw, and paint, Leaf was an epic poet of human relations and experiences.

 

Accompanied by a significant scholarly publication published by the co-organizers and Rizzoli Electa, the exhibition debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy (March 15–July 31, 2025) before traveling to the Grey Art Museum at New York University (September 9–December 13, 2025) and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College (January 27–May 24, 2026).

https://greyartmuseum.nyu.edu

 

 

*로버트 프랭크 다큐멘터리 'Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank, 2019)' ★★★☆

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/?mid=Film2&document_srl=3813931

 

*준 리프 휘트니뮤지엄 회고전 June Leaf: Thought is Infinite, 2016

https://www.nyculturebeat.com/?mid=Art2&document_srl=3446492