Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art
Through April 8, 2007
Barrel Vault, Hanley, Lamont, Rachofsky, and Stoffel Galleries, and Sculpture Garden
The Dallas Museum of Art presents a special two-part exhibition of more than 300 works from the modern and contemporary holdings of the Hoffman, Rachofsky and Rose families, who together gifted their private collections and future acquisitions to the Museum in 2005. Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art offers a preview of the Museum's future modern and contemporary holdings and is the first opportunity for the public to view these exceptional, once-private collections in a comprehensive manner. This landmark exhibition will be enhanced by additional promised gifts from Gayle and Paul Stoffel and other local patrons, as well as by works from the Museum's collections.
Organized by guest curator Maria de Corral, Fast Forward surveys the vast wealth of ideas and forms that characterize the art of our time, including abstract expressionist, minimalist, pop, conceptual and postmodern works. This monumental exhibition features both established and emerging artists whose work ranges from paintings and sculptures to installations, video, sound, and new media. The 200 paintings on view were culled from a body of more than 1,500 objects by approximately 500 different artistsincluding more than 900 works from the three collections and other private collections, and 650 works from the Dallas Museum of Art's permanent collection. Comprehensive in scope, Fast Forward is presented in two parts, with the first chapter remaining on view as the second is unveiled on February 11, 2007.
On view through April 8, 2007, the first part of Fast Forward is presented in the Museum's distinctive Barrel Vault, Quadrant Galleries, and Sculpture Garden. Organized thematically, the first chapter of the exhibition presents abstract expressionist paintings by Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko, among others; masterpieces of the Italian Arte Povera movement, including works by Mario Merz and Giulio Paolini; and minimalist sculpture and paintings by such artists as Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly.
Among the iconic and rarely displayed works to be featured are:
Lucio Fontana's Concetta Spaziale, La fine di dio ( 1964 ), a work from the Rachofsky Collection that has never before been on view at the Museum. The work belongs to a series of paintings that Fontana produced during the early 1960s and depicts a brilliant yellow
"egg" that has been punctured multiple times in the artist's signature effort to deconstruct and transcend the surface of canvas. The Rachofsky Collection, noteworthy for its rich assembly of Italian postwar art, will allow the Museum to become a center for the viewing and study of this often-overlooked yet significant period of art history that is just beginning to be explored on a deeper level in the United States.
Michael Heizer's Untitled #2 (1975), an unusual work marking the artist's transition from small-scale painting to larger-scale sculpture and earthworks. The work, which can be classified as both painting and sculpture for its large size and irregular form, will be exhibited alongside other minimalist-inspired works from the Rose Collection.
Mark Rothko's Untitled (1961 ), a stunning masterpiece in orange and red from the Hoffman Collection that has never before been presented at the Museum. The large scale and saturated colors of Rothko's work were intended to envelop the viewer and encourage introspection. The addition of this painting to the Dallas Museum of Art's contemporary collection strengthens its holdings.
The second part of Fast Forward, which is on view through May 20, 2007 in the Museum's Chilton Galleries, explores such movements as pop art, conceptual art, and post-modernism, and will provide a broad survey of the work of younger artists grouped by stylistic affinities. This section includes large-scale installations and sculptures by artists such as Matthew Barney and Tom Friedman, and media, video, and sound works by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Cardiff & Miller, and Bruce Nauman, among others. This chapter also features distinct monographic presentations of individual artists such as Janine Antoni, Jasper Johns, and Thomas Struth.
Among the iconic and rarely displayed works to be featured are:
Bruce Nauman's Shadow Puppet Spinning Head (1990), an installation that was jointly acquired by the Rachofskys and the Dallas Museum of Art that has not been previously presented at the Museum. The installation was created during an important period in Nau man's career when he was fully exploiting the use of video and sound to expand the idea of sculpture, and is indicative of Nauman's more existentialist work.
Gerhard Richter's Stadtbild Mii (1968), a painting jointly acquired by the Hoffmans, the Rachofskys, and the Museum that is based on an aerial photograph of Munich's city center. With its rough application of black and white paint, the work is a powerful artistic response to the Second World War, a theme that continues to pervade the artist's oeuvre. This painting, along with the others given by the collectors, adds depth to the Museum's already exceptional collection of Richter works, which includes over 120 prints and limited-edition objects from 1965-2005. Combined, the Museum's and patrons' holdings encompass nearly 150 of Richter's enigmatic works and distinguish Dallas as one of the foremost centers for viewing and studying Richter's art in the world.