Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring, 1891 - image via the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Among all of the really great current shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the James Ensor exhibition is one of my favorites. The show features 120 works "examining Ensor's contribution to modernity, his innovative and allegorical use of light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance, and his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty, and role-playing".
I have always loved Ensor's work, and this is the first time I got to see such a large collection of the haunting, yet comedic images. As Jerry Saltz says in his review of the show, Ensor "let his freak flag fly."
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