The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art, 1950-2005

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

The exhibition reconsiders the 1960s chapter of colour field art not through critic Clement Greenberg's restrictive formalist lens, but rather opens up the impulse to pure colour and form to comprise a half-century of painting, sculpture and installation work. The exhibition posits Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still as essential precursors, includes the seminal colour field artists Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis and Jack Bush, expands definitions to encompass the work of Dan Flavin, and features numerous contemporary artists such as Monique Prieto and Polly Apfelbaum, who have refracted the legacy of colour field into our contemporary moment. Other artists whose work explores the possibilities through which to understand this fertile, but often overlooked movement include Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, John McCracken, Guido Molinari, Michael Snow and Robert Youds.