The Optical Edge
March 7, 2007- April 14, 2007
Reception: March 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
144 W 14th St
Curated by Robert C. Morgan. A catalog will be available for this exhibition.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery’s latest exhibition, “The Optical Edge” is sure to be one of New York City’s most innovative and provocative shows of the season. Curated by internationally renowned artist, critic, historian and author, Robert C. Morgan, Ph.D., “The Optical Edge”, surveys four decades and two generations of painters whose experimentations with color, light and form have helped shape the influential Optical Art Movement beyond its early interpretations in the 1960s. A full-color catalog with essay by the curator will be available.
“The Optical Edge” exhibition will guide gallery visitors through the historical evolution of optical painting from its emergence in the early 1960s to the present, as a serious mode of painterly investigation that exceeds the limits of popular culture. The exhibition is one of several new international exhibitions in Europe and the United States signaling a resurgence of interest in optical painting and the significance of the Op Art Movement. During February, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in Germany will be presenting an exhibition entitled, “Op Art” and The Columbus Museum of Art will be presenting the first major survey exhibition on Optical Art in over 25 years, “Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s,” a major survey exhibition.
“The Optical Edge” exhibition is organized into three sections:
• The first section represents a selection of artwork by five artists who were included in The Museum of Modern Art, New York’s 1965 seminal exhibition, “The Responsive Eye”, curated by William Seitz, including Victor Vasarely,
Josef Albers,
Julian Stanczak,
Bridget Riley, and
Richard Anuszkiewicz.
• The second section includes another generation of painters, working primarily in New York City, whose paintings have developed, extended and formalized the principles of concrete form in relation to the phenomenon of color, shape, and surface. Artists in this group include, Sanford Wurmfeld,
Robert Swain,
Gabriele Evertz,
Gilbert Hsiao, and Rakuko Naito.
• While functioning at various stages and levels in their careers, the third group of painters represented in “The Optical Edge” are Soonja Han,
Michelle Hinebrook,
Ryszard Wasko,
Beverly Fishman, and
Jon Groom. According to the curator, “These artists continue to evolve through a kind of allegorical opticality. In general, they exceed the limits of formal content as optical information challenges them to pursue unstable realms of representation that include surveillance, information media, irony, displacement, and multicultural forms of de-institutionalized spirituality.”
Robert C. Morgan is an artist, curator, art historian, international critic, and lecturer. The author of several books and essays, in 2005, Dr. Morgan was a Fulbright Scholar in the Republic of Korea where he did research on the traditional arts as a source for the Korean avant-garde. Among the many exhibitions he has curated are the retrospective exhibitions of Allan Kaprow (1979) and Komar and Melamid (1979 - 80) at the Ulrich Museum of Art, Kansas; "Six Artists and the Visual Score" (1985) at the Pyramid Art Center, Rochester, New York; "Samadhi" (2002-03) at the Chelsea Art Museum; and "The Sign of Paradise" (2005) at the Mike Weiss Gallery, New York. In 1999, the Municipality of Salamanca, Spain awarded Dr. Morgan the first Arcale prize for international art criticism. He is Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Fine Arts Department at Pratt Institute.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show| Location | map | | Gallery | Pratt Manhattan Gallery | | Address | 144 W 14th St, 2nd Fl New York (Chelsea) NY, 10011 United States | | Phone | 212-647-7778 | | Hours | Tue-Fri 10:30-5:30, Sat 12-5 | |
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