October 4 - January 3, 2020
A group exhibition surveying abstract painting in the Americas.
To register for the December 15 conversation, Curated Conversations: Argentine Artists in the ’60s, go here.
From the Museum:
“Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958 to 1983 in the Butler Gallery from October 4, 2020 to January 3, 2021. The exhibition explores material, conceptual, and formal innovation in post-war abstract painting through the Blanton’s collection of modern and contemporary art from the United States and Latin America.
“The Blanton is honored to present Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958 – 1983, the museum’s first new exhibition since the pandemic closed our doors in March,” said Blanton director Simone Wicha. “We are grateful to see our community again and to welcome them back by highlighting more than 50 beautiful paintings from formative areas of the Blanton’s own collection. We hope our visitors will enjoy seeing longtime favorites, iconic works, and new acquisitions alike in this vibrant exhibition.”
Abstract painting from the two decades in the exhibition is a strength of the Blanton’s collection—reflecting two early collecting priorities of the museum dating to its founding in 1963. In particular, James Michener and his wife Mari Yoriko Sabusawa Michener’s foundational gifts of abstract paintings are well represented in 15 works in this exhibition. Similarly, early collector and scholar of Latin American art Barbara Duncan’s gifts make up nine works in the exhibition.
“This exhibition examines how artists continued to innovate in painting, even in an era when many were declaring the medium worn out and dead,” said Carter E. Foster, Blanton deputy director for curatorial affairs. “As contemporary avant-garde movements like Minimalism and conceptual art, and new genres such as performance art and experimental film and video, emerged in this time period, boundaries among conventional mediums began to blur more and more. Expanding Abstraction explores this moment of innovation through the lens of the Blanton’s collection—how painters experimented with new materials, especially newly available acrylic paint, and challenged conventions of flatness and rectilinearity—transforming the medium in the process.”
The exhibition has six sections that emphasize several trends and new approaches, many of them with overlapping qualities. They are Emphatic Gestures; Stained, Poured, Sprayed; Material Radicality; Between Painting and Sculpture; Opticality; and Geometries.”
On View: October 4, 2020 | 1–5 pm
Conversation: December 15, 2020 | 5–6 pm
Curated Conversations: Argentine Artists in the '60s. See event for registration.
Martin Luther King at Congress
Austin, 78701 TX
(512) 471-7324
Get directions