LACMA's Communication department
Ross Bleckner
Eric Fischl
Susan Rothenberg
David Salle
Julian Schnabel
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Hans Haacke
Marcel Broodthaers
Anselm Kiefer
Jasper Johns
Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein
Jeff Koons
Cindy Sherman
Charles Ray
Stephanie Barron
Lynn Zelevansky
Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections. Featuring key works by 24 leading artists of the 1960s through the present, such as Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Charles Ray, and others, Jasper Johns: more than 100 paintings, sculptures, and photographs. These works exemplify important trends from the second half of the 20th century, including American Neo-Dada and Pop art, conceptually based work, U.S. painting from the 1980s, German Neo-Expressionism, and current art from Los Angeles.
Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four
Decades of Art from the Broad
Collections is the first large-scale
exhibition of works from the collections of
Eli and Edythe Broad. Based in Los
Angeles, the Broads have amassed one of
the finest collections of contemporary art
internationally, and the exhibition seeks
to capture the breadth, depth, and
exceptional quality of their holdings.
Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons highlights
significant groups of works by 24 artists
represented by more than 100 paintings,
sculptures, and photographs. These
works exemplify important trends from
the second half of the 20th century,
including American Neo-Dada and Pop art,
conceptually based work, U.S. painting
from the 1980s, German
Neo-Expressionism, and current art from
Los Angeles.
The exhibition draws from the Broads'
personal collection and the holdings of
The Broad Art Foundation. Developed
over the past 30 years, these collections
span four decades and include some of
the most emblematic works in the history
of postwar art, among them classic
examples by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol,
and Roy Lichtenstein. The exhibition
features paintings such as Johns's
Watchman (1964), Flag (1967), and
Untitled (1975), his first crosshatch
painting; Warhol's iconic depictions of
Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, and
Elvis Presley; and Lichtenstein's I -I'm
Sorry (1965-66), as well as his five-part
Rouen Cathedral, Set III (1969). An
important aspect of the collections is
their concentration on major figures from
the 1980s, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Jeff Koons, and Cindy Sherman. This
exhibition offers an opportunity to begin
to assess the achievements of that
decade from an art-historical
perspective.
The exhibition is organized in five
sections, beginning with the work of
Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose
assemblage pieces are shown alongside
Cy Twombly's canvases covered with
graffiti-like marks. Seen together, these
works illuminate the artistic dialogue that
helped shape the development of these
artists. Growing out of Abstract
Expressionism, which dominated the New
York art world in the 1950s, they
employed an expressive style of painting
but focused attention on subject matter
drawn from the immediate physical world
rather than on the transcendent qualities
inherent in paint. Through their
incorporation of found objects and use of
vernacular forms, Johns and
Rauschenberg laid the foundation for Pop
Art - in which the Broad Collections have
outstanding holdings.
In the early 1960s, Pop Art burst upon
the scene. The second section of the
exhibition includes the full range of
Lichtenstein's oeuvre, from his
comics-inspired images to the works
rooted in the history of art. It also
showcases the Broad Collections'
impressive breadth of Warhol's
silk-screened canvases. Warhol utilized
Pop toward an entirely different end than
did Lichtenstein. By conceptually and
literally reframing events and their
documentation, and by recontextualizing
mass cultural icons, he formed a critique
of American society. Ed Ruscha's
L.A.-based Pop, also represented in this
portion of the exhibition, views its
particular milieu through a distinct lens.
Devoid of figuration, Ruscha's paintings of
words force the viewer to reexamine their
meanings, while his images that map the
city question the way that we
understand and navigate our immediate
surroundings. Like Ruscha, John
Baldessari is one of California's most
renowned artists. Conceptual at its base
and utilizing imagery from mass culture,
his work forms a bridge within the
exhibition between U.S. Pop and
European Conceptualism.
The third section of the show presents outstanding examples of German
art from the past 30 years. Conceptual artist Hans Haacke is represented
by a politically charged installation piece, Oelgemaelde, Hommage a
Marcel Broodthaers (Oil Painting, Homage to Marcel Broodthaers) (1982),
which was a gift to LACMA from the Broad Art Foundation. The room-size
installation typifies Haacke's critique of social systems in the world of art
and politics. Rounding out this section, mixed-media canvases by Anselm
Kiefer, which are deeply rooted in German history, are shown alongside
Stephan Balkenhol's wood sculptures, creating a somber and nostalgic
mood. Kiefer's monumental paintings deal with themes of German
nationalism, culture, and history, bringing to light issues surrounding World
War II that were banished from public discourse in postwar Germany.
The fourth section of the exhibition is dedicated to U.S. art of the 1980s.
Following in the tradition of Pop art, Jeff Koons transforms banal - even
kitsch - subject matter into seductive objects that raise questions about
cultural values and the commodification of art. The show offers the first
U.S. viewing of his monumental Balloon Dog (1994-2001) sculpture. The
work of graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat addresses issues of race and
marginality in the politicized, overheated art world of New York in the
1980s. Cindy Sherman, whose photographs form a significant focus of the
Broad Collections, explores questions of female representation and
violence of various kinds, using familiar visual conventions from
Renaissance painting to contemporary mass media.
As economic prosperity skyrocketed throughout the 1980s, so did the art
market. With painting as the medium of choice, many young artists
became overnight sensations and art world stars. In addition to Basquiat,
the exhibition features works by New York painters Ross Bleckner, Eric
Fischl, Susan Rothenberg, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel. Bleckner's
quasi-abstract canvases deal with loss and remembrance during the AIDS
epidemic that swept the United States in that decade. Fischl's
psychologically charged, stage-like scenes depicting fragmented but
highly suggestive narratives seem to belong to the realm of dreams or
fantasy. Schnabel is represented by one of his signature plate paintings,
The Walk Home (1984-85), in which he uses fragments of china plates to
create a dramatic, sculptural canvas.
Curators: Stephanie Barron, vice
president of education and
public programs and senior
curator of Modern and
Contemporary Art; Lynn
Zelevansky, curator of Modern
and Contemporary Art; and
Kristin Walker, exhibitions
associate
Credits: This exhibition was
organized by the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art.
Accompanied by a major catalogue, the exhibition tours the
United States and Europe through 2003.
LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90036
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