David Hammons, "KOOLAID DRAWING," 2004. Kool-Aid and pencil on paper, 43 x 29 in. (© The artist, courtesy James Cohan Gallery)

Now another Hammons Kool-Aid piece has gone on view, and this time no appointment is necessary. It's hanging in "Everyday Abstract - Abstract Everyday," the summer group show that Matthew Higgs organized at the James Cohan Gallery, and is filled with quick splashes of pale peach, rich blood orange, pale lime, yellow and blue. In contrast to the relaxed, soothing and mediative feel of MoMA's piece, Cohan's offering is violent, raw, almost wild. The thin pools and specks of liquid look, in places, like patches of just-dried blood.

Here the cloth hangs off the side of the terrycloth frame, cloaking only a sliver of the work. The rotund and ever-jovial Kool-Aid Man is just barely visible near the lower-right corner, sporting his huge grin and ample eyebrows. Last time he looked out of place but oddly benevolent. This time, he's faintly menacing.

Every Friday, Don't Miss It! looks at a single artwork on view in New York.

After the unveiling: David Hammons's 'Untitled (Kool-Aid)' (2003) in "Printin'" at MoMA. (Photo by Andrew Russeth)

Though it is hanging on a wall in a gallery at the Museum of Modern Art right now, one work is strictly off limits for all but a few minutes each week. It’s obscured with a white silk cloth, through which a faint pink glow emanates, and it has an electric-blue terry cloth frame. A wall label advises that the work may be viewed only by appointment, at the request of the artist. An email address is listed.

That artist is David Hammons, who’s known for shunning public exposure and stylistic consistency. He’s painted Jesse Jackson as a Caucasian, sold snowballs and had a show that consisted of a pitch-dark gallery. For MoMA’s 2003 piece, he used Kool-Aid to make “an absolutely delicious abstraction with a little stamp of the Kool-Aid man,” according to MoMA curator Sarah Suzuki, who compared it to Buddhist sutras and ancient texts that are sometimes covered for spiritual or conservation reasons.

Gallerist had yet to see the work when we spoke with Ms. Suzuki, who, along with artist Ellen Gallagher, organized “Printin,’” the show that includes it. But we had made—or rather accepted—our appointment: Friday at 3 p.m. (No other options available.) “You kind of just want to lick the thing, it’s so beautiful,” the curator told us, tantalizingly.

On Friday afternoon, we met curatorial intern Lotte Johnson at a back entrance—return viewers need not wait in line or pay. Ten people made inquiries, she said, and so we waited for stragglers, but none came. In the gallery, she put on white gloves (as Mr. Hammons requires), lifted the silk, and there it was: gorgeous waves of pink blown across the paper, the mascot hovering in a corner.

“We’re such a culture now of immediate gratification,” Ms. Suzuki had said. “What [Mr. Hammons] does is to counter that and deny it. If you want to see this, you need to make a little bit of effort. It’s not an arbitrary thing.” But it is worth it.

arusseth@observer.com

David Hammons performing his "Bliz-aard Ball Sale" piece outside Cooper Union in 1983. (Courtesy the artist)

Today the College Art Association released the winners of its annual awards, and there are some exciting picks. The reliably reclusive David Hammons nabbed the Distinguished Artist Award, Lucy Lippard was named Distinguished Feminist and David Antin was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award, which is presented for art criticism.

The awards will be presented at the CAA conference in February. Given Mr. Hammons's general refusal to appear at public events, it's anyone's guess if he'll show up to accept his award.

We're particularly excited about Ms. Lippard's win here at the Gallerist office, since it lets us link to this old New York magazine article, from 1985, that recalls a rather timely episode involving New York Times critic Hilton Kramer. Kay Larson and John Leonard wrote that Mr. Kramer once:

"... hissed the critic Lucy Lippard as she gave a testimonial to advances by women artists, and ... then quickly glanced to his companions like a small boy begging peer approval for putting a tack on a teacher's table."

The complete list of award winners, courtesy of Artforum, is as follows:

David Hammons, Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement
Adrian Piper, Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work
Lucy R. Lippard, Distinguished Feminist Award
Allan Sekula, Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art
David Antin, Frank Jewett Mather Award
Alexander Nagel, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
Maryan W. Ainsworth, Stijn Alsteens, and Nadine M. Orenstein, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
Roy Flukinger, Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions
Jacki Apple, Distinguished Teaching of Art Award
Gabriel P. Weisberg, Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
Francesca G. Bewer, CAA/Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation
Rebecca Molholt, Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize

An installation view of David Hammons' show at L&M Arts. (Courtesy the artist and L&M)

As 2011 grinds to a halt, it’s time again for the ol’ “top of the pops” list. Here are five great shows, some special mentions and my personal New Year’s resolution, which I hope you will read while drinking a tall glass of eggnog.

1. David Hammons at L&M Arts

Back in February, I wrote that Mr. Hammons’s exhibition was an instant contender for best of the year, and over the past 11 months no other gallery show could catch him. The idea of “homeless” paintings—canvases wrapped in tattered tarps and garbage bags—being offered to wealthy collectors in L&M’s Upper East Side townhouse turned out to be the perfect metaphor for all the conflict of the moment. The show was misunderstood by some, but was nevertheless an instant hit, and the biggest piece in it now hangs at MoMA. Mr. Hammons is often referred to as the leading African-American artist of our time, and we need to drop that qualifier: Mr. Hammons is simply one of our best.

2. “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” at the Grand Palais, Paris

This show, which began its tour in San Francisco in the fall before arriving in Paris, is coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in February, and a good thing too, because it’s fascinating. Leo Stein and his sister Gertrude (the writer and Paris salon doyenne) were patrons and friends of Picasso and Matisse and had amazing collections of both artists. The exhibition brings it all back together and lets you dream about what it must have been like to inherit a modest Pittsburgh fortune right after the turn of the century and become an ex-pat in Paris, hanging out with Hemingway, Ezra Pound and Guillaume Apollinaire (did you see the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris?). After a few years Leo had a change of heart, and flipped all of the artworks he’d amassed, deciding to move to Italy and focus on Renoir. Even still, he goes down as one of the great collectors of modernism.

3. The Ronald S. Lauder Collection at the Neue Galerie

This private museum is always worth a visit, in part because it has the best museum restaurant in town: I recommend the Austrian sausages with spaetzle and the hot wine. Many of the shows have been great too, but the current one, featuring works from Mr. Lauder’s personal collection, is the Neue at its best. Mr. Lauder’s amazing Cezannes, his sensual wall of Egon Shiele drawings, and the blockbuster portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer by Gustav Klimt are all on view. There are also beautiful suits of armor, and the most amazing corner of Brancusi sculptures you’ll find almost anywhere (outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art). His Kandinsky painting is arguably the showstopper, but it’s one of many marvels this exhibition offers. It’s up through April 2—don’t miss it.

4. “Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alisa La Gamma, the curator of African Art at the Met, is a strong and fresh voice in a fascinating field that feels sleepy and foreign to far too many art viewers. But African art has been a source of inspiration for modern artists like Brancusi and Picasso, and serves as a touchstone for artists to this day. It’s hypnotic, it’s powerful, and it’s magic. The show combines beautiful 19th-century postcards that show us the last glimpses of tribal kings and queens combined with the most amazing Bangwa figures, Tchokwe chiefs and Hemba sculptures you will ever see. This field can feel tense, because the objects exhibited were taken out of Africa during colonial times and they reside in European museums and private collections as spoils of century-old exploitation, trophies of adventurers and explorers. But that’s sadly the case in many fields—it is part of each object’s history. What counts is that the Met has brought together the finest examples from public and private collections all over the world, with a wonderful sensitivity and respect for the history of African culture. This inspiring show is only up through Jan. 29, so hurry and have a look.

5. “Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism,” at Acquavella Galleries

Dieter Buchhart, who curated the Basquiat show at the Beyeler Foundation two summers ago and the Beyeler’s Edvard Munch show before that, curated for Acquavella a Braque exhibition that was, for myself and many others, a revelation. This beautiful show challenged the prevailing notion that Braque was good only in the early years when he was a Fauvist, and when he developed Cubism with Picasso (or perhaps Picasso stole it from him). Though Braque suffered a head injury in the World War I and for the rest of his career was lost in the shadow of Picasso, this show proved that there’s a lot more to Braque than most of us ever knew. The best revelations to me were his late paintings, where early Cubism’s monochromatic bent turns into colorful shapes and variations in scale and perspective that make us see him and his world in a whole new way.

Award for Best Comeback Story

George Condo’s “Mental States” at the New Museum. For some, the painter never went away, but the New Museum show puts Mr. Condo center stage. He’s back in a bigger way than ever.

Award for Mettle

Maurizio Cattelan’s “All” at the Guggenheim. Amid the barrage of criticism and misunderstanding surrounding this artist’s show one thing was missing: an appreciation for the risk and the real mettle it took to hang 20 years’ worth of artwork from the ceiling. Say what you will, this is a show we’ll still be talking about in 20 years.

Award for Fresh Promise

Tauba Auerbach, “Tetrachromat” at the Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway. Ms. Auerbach is a leader of the “neo-op-art” movement, of young artists creating optical illusions on the canvas through various automatic and semi-automatic techniques. She’s ahead of the pack and this show proves why: each painting is more beautiful than the last.

A New Year’s Resolution

Art is for all of us to enjoy and celebrate and though I love parties as much or more than anyone, the “scene” of today feels more and more like it has overwhelmed the art we’re seeing. Everyone in the art world knows it, whether they admit it to themselves or not, and they feel uneasy about it: it’s the monkey on their back. The social events surrounding art fairs have turned them into party carnivals, supplanting connoisseurship, sophistication and knowledge with the trendy and the trivial. This isn’t news. Dealers participating in the fairs know this and many of the collectors know it too. On the occasion of Art Basel Miami Beach a few weeks ago, I spelled it out in plain English, and received a barrage of ad hominem attacks, many behind my back. But why should anyone react so strongly to mere words unless they feel threatened by the truth in them? I called for the absurd, a boycott of the fair, but I still went to Miami Beach, as I always do, because I’m not different or better than anyone else there. We are all complicit in this “scene.” The only hypocrites are the ones who deny this. This theme in the art world of today will not go away, and like it or not, it will be addressed in the coming year, which brings me to my New Year’s resolution: to be who I am and to say what I feel, because as Dr. Seuss once said, “… those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

editorial@observer.com