The Montclair Art Museum Presents "Look Now: Modern and Contemporary Art from Private Collections"

Jan. 23, 2012 - PRLog -- The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) presents "Look Now: Modern and Contemporary Art from Private Collections," offering a rare opportunity to view nearly 40 works by 31 20th- and 21st-century artists who have extended the boundaries of art making. The exhibition includes works from 17 lenders, from northern New Jersey and Manhattan. The New Jersey lenders are from Montclair, South Orange, Summit, Verona, Watchung, and West Caldwell. The exhibition is on view from February 12 through June 17, 2012. Look Now is co-curated by Gail Stavitsky, chief curator, and Alexandra Schwartz, curator of contemporary art.

The exhibition displays a variety of media—including painting, sculpture, video, photography, drawings, and prints—and a diversity of artists in both style and age, demonstrating the range of what is collectible and highlighting the personal visions of the individual collectors.

"Look Now" features such early 20th-century masters as Andrew Dasburg and Morton Livingston Schamberg; midcentury innovators such as Louise Bourgeois, Roy Lichtenstein, Alex Katz, and Andy Warhol; and cutting-edge contemporary artists such as Rachel Harrison, Ryan McGinness, and Bill Viola. Their works and those of the others explore many of the major themes and preoccupations within modern and contemporary art, from the development of abstraction in the early 20th century, to the impact of popular culture on the art of the midcentury, to the influence of globalism on contemporary art.
   
In the first decades of the 20th century, modernists such as Hilla von Rebay and Emil Bisttram developed visual languages of form, color, and line to create abstract compositions, communicating universal aspects of modern life that could not be conveyed through realistic treatments. Beginning in the 1960s, many artists privileged the ideas behind making art over the creation of physical objects, resulting in the pioneering conceptual work of artists such as Joseph Kosuth, who used verbal language to question what art can be and do. Reflecting radically shifting gender roles over the past century, many artists have explored issues of gender and sexuality, as in the work of Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas, and Rachel Perry Welty. Issues of cultural identity also play an important role in modern and contemporary art, as in the work of Mark Bradford, Jacob Lawrence, and Winfred Rembert. Since the 1980s, large-format photography has emerged as a major medium for contemporary art, as can been seen in the work of Louise Lawler and Michael Eastman, among others in the exhibition. Recently, contemporary art has become increasingly global in scope, and this exhibition features several artists who live and work internationally, such as A. Balasubramaniam, Yayoi Kusama, and Jim Lambie.

ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION

A. Balasubramaniam (b. 1971)
Emil Bisttram (1895–1976)
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010)
Mark Bradford (b. 1961)
Amy Cutler (b. 1974)
Andrew Dasburg (1887–1979)
Michael Eastman (b. 1947)
Nancy Graves (1939–1995)
Rachel Harrison (b. 1966)
William Henry Johnson (1901–1970)
Alex Katz (b. 1927)
Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945)
Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929)
Jim Lambie (b. 1964)
Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000)
Louise Lawler (b. 1947)
Sol LeWitt (1918–2007)
Roy Lichtenstein (1923 –1997)
Ryan McGinness (b. 1972)
Lillian Orlowsky (1914–2004)
Hilla von Rebay (1890–1967)
Winfred Rembert (b. 1945)
Alexis Rockman (b. 1962)
H. Lyman Sayen (1875–1918)
Morton Livingston Schamberg (1881–1918)
Cindy Sherman (b. 1954)
Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971)
Bill Viola (b. 1951)
Andy Warhol (1928–1987)
Rachel Perry Welty (b. 1962)
Steve Wheeler (1912–1992)

GROUP TOURS
Group tours may be booked by calling 973-259-5136 or by emailing tours@montclairartmuseum.org.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
MAM is offering a variety of education and public programs for all ages in connection with the exhibition. Please consult the calendar at http://www.montclairartmuseum.org for complete information.

ONLINE PRESS SITE
The Museum will maintain a site dedicated to the exhibition for journalists seeking further information, including a checklist and images. Please visit http://www.montclairartmuseum.org/press and click on For the Media.

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The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) presents exhibitions and programs that reflect its collection of historic and contemporary American and Native American art. MAM's Yard School of Art offers classes for people of all ages.