James Brown
Jeff Gompertz
Callum Innes
Jeff Koons
Julie Trager
Damien Hirst
Starn Twins
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Anselm Keifer
Barbara Kruger
Claes Oldenburg
Louise Bourgeois
Richard Gober
Kiki Smith
Richard Long
Contemporary Art from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection.
An exhibition devoted to new visual experiences, Inner Eye: Contemporary Art from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection presents a visual and intellectual challenge to the definition of a work of art. From this rich and diverse collection, co-curators Budd Harris Bishop, founding director of the University of Florida's Harn Museum of Art, and Dede Young, the Harn's former curator of exhibitions, chose examples of some of the most enigmatic and multi-layered work of our time.
In the 1960s, Marc and Livia Straus, residents of Chappaqua, New York, began collecting contemporary works which, at the time they were made, provoked the response, Is this artNULL The majority of the 36 works in the exhibition were acquired in the 1980s and 1990s. During these past two decades, the Strauses have continued to pursue challenging works, primarily in painting, sculpture and photography. This is the first exhibition of this size and scale to be drawn from the Straus's private collection.
Many of the works have multiple, even contradictory, meanings. While a number of the artists have used unconventional materials for their work, some continue to explore new content in traditional media. James Brown, Jeff Gompertz and Callum Innes are represented with sublimely beautiful paintings in relatively conventional formats, while Jeff Koons, Julie Trager and Damien Hirst appear with works made of unexpected parts, such as basketballs, aquariums, mohair and plastic refuse containers. The exhibition includes work by major contemporary artists including the Starn Twins, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Anselm Keifer, Barbara Kruger, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Gober, Kiki Smith and Richard Long, as well as a number of younger, lesser-known artists.
Marc and Livia Straus have given us the unparalleled opportunity to assemble a challenging exhibition from their large collection that goes to the heart of what characterizes contemporary art. It presents works of art by leading practitioners of new methods, new media, new ideas and new formats of art, says Budd Harris Bishop. This is an interactive exhibition - the works in this show are not complete without the addition of the viewer's own memories, experiences and insights, which lend a dramatic variety of interpretation to the art's meaning.
Inner Eye: Contemporary Art from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection was organized by the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainsville. Presentation at the Neuberger Museum is funded by the Westchester Arts Council and the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art
The Neuberger Museum is located on the 500 acre campus of Purchase College, State University of New York (SUNY). With its 78,000 square foot space, the Neuberger is the eighth largest university museum in the country and is among the ten largest museums in New York State. It was designed by the noted architectural firm of Philip Johnson and John Burgee.
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