Isabel Bishop (1902-1988), Bending Down,
1945, ink wash on paper,
6 1/2 x 4 inches
| Different Strokes
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Saturday, January 29 - Friday, March 17, 2000
Different Strokes: Selections from the Permanent Collection features work in which the linear component occupies a vital role in describing a variety of forms both abstract and representational. Primarily composed of prints and drawings, the exhibition includes example of work by artists whose reputations rest, for the most part, in other media: Painters such as Dotty Attie, William Bailey, Lester Johnson, and Robert Motherwell; artists well-known for object-based work such as Stephen Antonakos, Dorothy Dehner, and Donald Judd; and those who fluidly move between formats like Bruce Conner, Sol LeWitt, and Mario Merz. Other artists featured in the exhibition are Nicolas Africano, Isabel Bishop, Daniel Brush, Robert DeNiro, Sr., Bilge Friedlaender, Gillie Holme, Chuck Holtzman, Mauro Staccioli, and William T. Wiley.
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Sol LeWitt, Rip Drawing R734, 1977, gelatin silver print with cutout, 16 x 16 inches |
The subjects of the exhibited works cover a wide range as does the employment of line in their depiction. The delicate control of Bailey's1968 portrait of a young girl -- a distinct individual occupying the artist's space -- contrasts to that of the broad-stroked description of a man's head done in1966 by Johnson, a singularly intense interpretation of the human situations that he observed and absorbed on the streets of the Lower East Side of New York. Dehner is largely know for sculptural works composed of sections of irregularly shaped forms that are elongated either vertically or horizontally. Her personal vocabulary suggests an archaic system of writing or primitive architecture, and in The City, an engraving from 1958, Dehner translates her idiosyncratic geometry into a fanciful vista. Holtzman, a generation younger than the above-mentioned artists, works in a number of media including sculpture and painting. His untitled print of 1992 shows a number of printmaking techniques which allow him to explore various personalities of line. Holtzman's forms -- organic and rational, some clearly delineated, others about to disappear -- seem to exist in a space of indeterminate depth.
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