Gorky piece on show at exhibit on history of migration in America

PanARMENIAN.Net - American-Armenian painter Arshile Gorky’s "The Artist and His Mother" is currently on view at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, as part of a new exhibition focusing on the history of migration in America, The Guardian reports.

"The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement" features 75 artists from over 15 countries, many who have experienced displacement firsthand.

The exhibition, showing until 22 September at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, features work by American, Mexican, Iraqi, Moroccan and Brazilian artists, among others.

Gorky’s The Artist and His Mother is also on view. The painting is based on a 1912 photo of Gorky at age 16, alongside his mother. It was years before he escaped genocide in Armenia, fleeing for America, but at the time he painted it in 1926, his mother had passed away.

This is not the first refugee-themed exhibition recently, and it likely won’t be the last. There have been a flurry of exhibitions centered around the refugee crisis, from Ai Weiwei’s sculpture of migrants shown in Sydney to Yoko Ono’s artwork in downtown Manhattan. This one, however, looks to American history and how it may repeat itself.