This exhibition, which inaugurates a series of newly opened galleries on the Museum’s second floor, surveys the widespread and recurring impulse toward geometric abstraction in modern and contemporary art. Artists representing various movements and geographical backgrounds are featured: Cubist, Dada, and Russian avant-garde artists of the 1910s and 1920s, with their images of flat, intersecting planes and floating shapes; artists associated with Minimalism, Op art, and hard-edge abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s, whose primary interest lay in the investigation of reductive form and color; and contemporary artists who continue to exploit the infinite potential of simple geometries. Among the exhibition’s highlights are several recent acquisitions, including major projects by Lyubov Popova (Russian, 1889–1924), Sol LeWitt (American, 1928–2007), Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, b. 1962), and Mark Grotjahn (American, b. 1968).
Organized by Starr Figura, The Phyllis Ann and Walter Borten Associate Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, with Kathy Curry, Assistant Curator for Research and Collections, Department of Drawings.
