Departments
Arts
|
Week of 11 September 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 5 |
Arts
Ellsworth Kelly Exhibition
Showing old master of modern art adds luster to BU Art Gallery
|
|
|
|
|
|
Prints from The
Mallarmé Suite, 1992, donated by Kelly.
Published by the Limited Editions Club
| |||
Painter, sculptor, and printmaker Ellsworth Kelly is credited with making a critical contribution to abstract art. His most recent contribution, however, is to the collection of art.
Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Prints, an upcoming exhibition at the BU Art Gallery, will feature four color lithographs known as The Mallarmé Suite, which Kelly has donated to the Gallery. When John Stomberg assumed the Gallery's directorship this summer, one of his main objectives was to begin a permanent art collection at BU. Kelly's donation is a gesture of support for that project.
"Since 1950, there have been three artists," says Stomberg, "of this stature: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Ellsworth Kelly. There are very few artists who work in any degree of abstraction who are not in some way influenced by Kelly. He has defined postwar abstraction."
"One of the reasons for our show at BU," says Stuart Steck, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at GRS, "was to celebrate Kelly's return. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston exactly 50 years ago." "The BU show coincides with the opening of the new federal courthouse in Boston, which includes a major new work by Kelly as its centerpiece.
"Kelly provides the only color at the new federal courthouse," according to Stomberg. "The building -- constructed of glass, brick, and steel -- is conceived around his work. It's as though the whole building is a support for his art so that it becomes a monumental Kelly installation. It's quite overpowering."
At BU, the setting is more intimate. "Ours is a pretty understated installation," Stomberg remarks. "We'll have 20 pieces tops."
Among the works included in the exhibition is the 18-foot-wide lithograph Purple/Red/Gray/Orange, which presented an enormous technical challenge to print. It required, in addition to four separate runs through the press, the development of a novel method of rolling the paper to produce the final image. A major component of Kelly's artistry is in his technical achievements.
The exhibition will also contain a recently published edition of 19th-century French writer Stéphane Mallarmé's poem Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard ("A Throw of the Dice Never Will Abolish Chance"), illustrated by Kelly in a series of black-and-white lithographs. Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Prints, a fully illustrated catalog featuring three essays, will also accompany the exhibition.
Kelly's attention to the context in which his art is viewed is also central to his work. The scale is large and he tries, in many of his works, to animate the space around a piece. "He doesn't want a viewer to escape into the isolated space within a painting's frame. Kelly wants viewers to be aware of the art they're seeing as part of their surroundings," says Steck.
Because the space around his work is so important to him, Kelly has taken an active role in designing the layout of the exhibition. "We sent him a floor plan of the Gallery," explains Steck, "and he sent back a scale model of how he thought the show might be designed. He helped choose the works that will be shown, and he's been extremely generous with his time -- more than most artists, and in a way that is not intrusive, but supportive."
Both Stomberg and Steck emphasize the significance of featuring an artist of Kelly's standing at BU. Kelly's participation, according to Steck, "is really a vote of confidence for the Gallery and what we're doing. This man could be having his druthers at any gallery in the country. His support makes clear what a great resource this place is."
As part of the celebration of Kelly's work, the Gallery will host two talks: Not Description, but Suggestion, by guest curator Mary Drach McInnes, and a talk and tour of the exhibition hosted by Steck.
Kelly wants his audience to concern itself with seeing, Steck says, instead of interpreting the artist. He summarizes Kelly's perspective: "At the most basic, we possess the capacity to observe things that are very basic in a visually chaotic world. It's so elemental that we need continually to redeem the joy in seeing, to bring the appreciation of it back to consciousness. Art redeems by creating a moment of pause."
Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Prints is at the Boston University Art Gallery, 855 Commonwealth Avenue, from Friday, September 11, through Sunday, October 25. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The opening reception will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, September 11. Not Description, but Suggestion will be at 7 p.m. Friday, September 11, in the SFA Concert Hall. The Gallery talk and tour will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday, October 13. The exhibition and all Gallery events are free and open to the public. For information, call 617-353-3329 or visit http://www.bu.edu/ART.