| EN |

Shapes and Color: ABC in 20th Century Art
Events
Written by In the document   
Published: June 11 2012

Wassily KANDINSKY, Klänge (Sounds), 1911, Woodblock on paper

Paul KLEE, Seiltänzer (Tightrope Walker), 1923, Lithograph on paper

“I don’t get it...”

Haven’t you ever felt like that before a painting? Especially graphical works with colorful circles or squares are admittedly pleasing to the eye, but once you are asked what they mean, you might get stuck for an answer. This exhibition is an opportunity to face such works thoroughly. We hope each one of you, from kids to adults, finds many “I got it!”

Paintings are in a two-dimensional world, which does not have depth. However, painted landscapes or portraits look spatial or stereoscopic. This is a result of efforts: over many generations, artists sought how to translate this three-dimensional world onto flat canvases. Yet artists for the last hundred years came to think the reality of translation to be just a semblance. Therefore some artists noticed that forms, shapes and color in themselves should be subjects for a true reality of art.

Nonetheless, works with such attitude speak in a bit different language from the one of the established art. Thus this exhibition helps you listen to the voices of such works, sometimes with words by artists, and with three points of view, A, B and C.

The first keywords, A: Aspect and Abstraction lead us to the issues like appearance of objects, how to depict with lines and planes and the meanings of these fundamental elements of plastic art. And with works in the next theme B: Beyond the Boundary, we will come and go between the two worlds of different dimensions: surface of picture and space around us. This theme also makes us doubt our sense of sight or mind-set. The third, C: Color and Construction, focuses on nature of color which is not absolute, but relative, and construction of shapes or forms in plastic art. Furthermore we will here step into the essential question, “what constructs art?”

The fact that we see shapes and color, rather than depicted objects... Once we turn our eyes on the fact, the door of modern and contemporary art will be open.

[Associated Events]

Curator’s Talk: July 8 (Sun), July 21 (Sat)/ 14:00 (ticket required)
Curator’s Talk for Kids: July 28 (Sat), August 5 (Sun), August 11 (Sat)/ 14:00- (ticket required)
Guest Lecture by Nicholas Fox Weber (Executive Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation)
Josef Albers: A Personal Account of the Man and his Art
July 15 (Sun), 14:00-, at Auditorium


全文提供:The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama
会期:2012年6月30日(sat)~2012年8月28日(sun)
時間:9:30~17:00
休日: Closed on Monday, except for July 16 (closed on July 17, instead)
会場:The Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama
Last Updated on June 30 2012
 

Related Articles


| EN |