Color into Light: Selections from the MFAH Collection

• Official web site

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

December 13, 2008-April 5, 2009

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents the exhibition Color into Light: Selections from the MFAH Collection. On view December 13, 2008 - April 5, 2009 at the Caroline Wiess Law Building.

Color into Light focuses on the various ways in which artists use color as a liberating force, ranging from the high modernist era of the 1940s and 1950s to today´s digital revolutions. Drawn from the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibition is made up of approximately 50 works embracing all media.

The exhibition opens with a series of watercolors and three major canvases by Hans Hofmann, whose explorations of the "push-pull" dynamics were to shape color theory and expression in American painting at mid-century. Additionally this section addresses the theme of genesis, explored by Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, and Clyfford Still, artists who found in color and abstraction a means into the sublime.

The second section of the exhibition opens with the work of Mark Rothko, introducing the generation of Color Field artists, who in the words of Clement Greenberg, pioneered a new "post-painterly abstraction ... [stressing] contrasts of pure hue rather than contrasts of dark and light."

Characterized by a fusion of color and openness, major canvases by Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland are included; additional artists featured in this section include Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, and Friedl Dzubas.

Complementary currents in Latin American and European art are charted in the works Lucio Fontana, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Abraham Palatnik, among others. Their investigations into the physical properties of space and light offer a radical alternative to Color Field aesthetics, as the physicality of their installations literally intrudes into the viewers´ environment.

James Turrell´s Acro, 1968, an installation new to the MFAH collection, introduces the next segment of the exhibition. Using projected light to create the illusion of tangible form, Turrell´s work explores the phenomenology of perception. Also featured in this section will be Jo Baer´s Stations of the Spectrum, 1964-1974, and Marcius Galan´s untitled room environment.

The final section of the exhibition explores the ways in which artists exploit the subjective nature of color, both celebrating and questioning the associations tied to particular colors and moods. Concluding this segment is the interactive We Feel Fine project, created by Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar.

Pictured: Hans Hofmann, Sparks, 1957, 2004.24. Bequest of Caroline Wiess Law © Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.