{"id":875345,"date":"2026-10-08T16:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875345\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T16:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:54:10","slug":"i-wanted-a-different-betty-parsons-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875345\/","title":{"rendered":"I Wanted a Different Betty Parsons Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <a class=\"gh-article-tag\" href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/tag\/art-review\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gh-article-excerpt is-body\">It might have made a more fascinating exhibition to explore her balancing act as a gallerist, but this show focuses on her less interesting art.<\/p>\n<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/author\/seph-rodney\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-profile-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/seph-rodney-250-d-blank-r-g-s-500.jpg\" alt=\"Seph Rodney\"\/><br \/>\n                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Betty-Parsons-Installation-view-7.jpg\" alt=\"I Wanted a Different Betty Parsons Exhibition\"\/><br \/>\n            Installation view of Betty Parsons: An Expanded World (all photos Seph Rodney\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n<p>ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY \u2014 It feels like a great deal of professional respect and admiration went into the making of Betty Parsons: An Expanded World at the Hessel Museum of Art. But there are also a couple glaring incongruities in the exhibition that make it feel off-kilter, and her work overall is fairly pedestrian.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Still, admiration for Betty Parsons is well-deserved: She directed a gallery that thrust many luminaries of the late 20th century into the limelight. A very abbreviated list includes Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Clyfford Still, Sonja Sekula, Mark Rothko, and Robert Rauschenberg. As the show\u2019s verbiage puts it, her business was \u201cushering in the American avant-garde.\u201d A multi-channel film by G. Anthony Svatek and Kaija Siirala playing in the galleries gives the viewer the nitty gritty of this labor: dealing with a brutally patriarchal art scene and working with limited budgets, all while being drawn to deeply feeling makers. In the film, Parsons says:<\/p>\n<p>I was very critical of the male, because there were so many boring males around me &#8230; athletic &#8230; rich &#8230; regressive, and &#8230; insensitive, and I didn\u2019t like any part of it. I thought they were all bloody horrors. So, when I did find someone who was sensitive and imaginative, well, it was just great.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Betty-Parsons-Early-Morning-1968.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1810\"  \/>Betty Parsons, &#8220;Early Morning&#8221; (1968)<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, we also hear from Agnes Martin, who says: \u201cI hate to tell the truth, but the truth is that she didn\u2019t pay very well. So, I had to leave her in the end.\u201d Parsons subsequently complains: \u201cIt\u2019s tough going because you work very hard and all you get is a kick in the ass for it.\u201d Most of her successful artists eventually left her for other galleries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    Keep reading with your email \u2014 it\u2019s free<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Create a free account to read more articles each month, and get the best of Hyperallergic in your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>      <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" style=\"color:#00AEEE\">Create free account<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review It might have made a more fascinating exhibition to explore her balancing act as a gallerist,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-875345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}