Dan Nadel, a curator recently hired by the Whitney Museum as curator of prints and drawings, is opening a new exhibition titled "Sixties Surreal" that aims to rewrite the history of 1960s art. The show, co-curated with Laura Phipps, Scott Rothkopf, and Elisabeth Sussman, features a wide range of artists from Luis Jimenez to Shigeko Kubota, alongside canonical figures like Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama. Nadel, known for championing marginalized and alternative figures in American art, previously curated "What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present" at the Rhode Island School of Design and a Gertrude Abercrombie exhibition at Karma gallery. He is also the author of a recent biography of Robert Crumb.
This article matters because it highlights a growing institutional shift toward reexamining art history beyond mainstream narratives, focusing on artists who worked outside dominant movements like Pop and Minimalism. Nadel's work at the Whitney signals that major museums are increasingly investing in curatorial perspectives that elevate overlooked or "outlier" artists, potentially reshaping how the art world understands the postwar period. The exhibition also underscores the rising visibility of figures like Gertrude Abercrombie, whose first traveling retrospective is currently on view at the Colby College Museum of Art.