Dave Yust, Circular Composition (#11 Round), 1969 UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 1400 Remington Street, Fort Collins, CO artmuseum.colostate.edu [email protected] | (970) 491-1989 TUES - SAT | 10 A.M.- 6 P.M. THURSDAY OPEN UNTIL 7:30 P.M. ALWAYS FREE OFF KILTER, ON POINT ART OF THE 1960s FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION ABOUT THE COLLECTION Drawing on the museum’s longstanding strength in 20th-century art of the United States and Europe and including long-time visitor favorites and recent acquisitions, Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from the Permanent Collection highlights the depth and breadth of artworks in the museum permanent collection. The exhibition showcases a wide range of media and styles, from abstraction to pop, presenting novel juxtapositions that reflect the tumult and innovations of their time. The 1960s marked a time of undeniable turbulence and strife, but also a period of remarkable cultural and societal change. The decade saw the civil rights movement and the Civil Rights Act, the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam conflict, political assassinations, the moon landing, the first televised presidential debate, “The Pill,” and, arguably, a more rapid rate of technological advancement and cultural change than ever before. The accelerated pace of change was well reflected in the art of the time, where styles and movements were almost constantly established, often in reaction to one another. This exhibition presents most of the major stylistic trends of art of the 1960s in the United States and Europe, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. An art collection began taking shape at CSU long before there was an art museum, and art of the 1960s was an early focus. In the late 1970s, the University established a relationship with John and Kimiko Powers, avid collectors of contemporary American art, especially Pop art. John Powers was president of the educational publisher Prentice Hall. The Powers were instrumental in bringing a great many artists and their works to the CSU campus for lectures and exhibitions, including Carl Andre, Willem DeKooning, Sam Francis, Red Grooms, Richard Hunt, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol. The Powers also donated works by many of these artists to the University. The University’s art museum was founded in 2009 with a collection of approximately 1,500 objects, transferred from around campus. Since then, it has grown to more than 3,500 objects. Polly and Mark Addison have also made significant contributions to this area of the collection, in addition to more contemporary works. Mark Addison taught art history at the University of Colorado, Boulder for many years, and has a discerning eye for what makes a particular work of art significant. Other selections in this exhibition were gifts of the artists or their estates, or gifts from other collectors. Museums, and especially university museums, rely almost exclusively on donations to grow our collections, and we are deeply grateful for the generosity that has made this exhibition and this museum possible. Lynn Boland, Director and Chief Curator ART OF THE 1960S: STYLES AND STRATEGIES IN CRITICAL DISCOURSE* BODY ART Art in which the artist’s body is involved as MULTI-MEDIA Art incorporating new technologies both the primary object and subject of the work. in combination, as distinct from mixed media, which refers to art making use of traditional artistic media in CONCEPTUAL ART Art in which the idea presented combination. is more important than the finished product, if there is one. NEO-DADA Art that has similarities in method or intent to earlier Dada works of art, exemplified by the use of HAPPENING An artistic performance featuring contemporary materials and imagery, often banal or audience participation, usually with some degree of found, and sometimes incorporating absurd humor; improvisation and simultaneity. also referred to as proto-pop. HARD EDGE A form of geometrically abstract painting NEW MEDIA ART Art incorporating new technologies, characterized by clearly defined edges, often of a often in combination, especially video art, sound art, limited palette of bright, unvarying colors, in contrast and computer art; also called electronic art when to the usually blurred or soft edges of Color Field using electronics. painting of the 1950s. OP ART A form of geometrically abstract art INSTALLATION Site-specific art constructed within that creates optical illusions, often the illusion of a particular space, usually a gallery, often creating movement, using precise patterns of shape and color. an immersive environment and intended to alter perceptions of the space or to create a conceptual PERFORMANCE ART Art requiring a human presence experience. to enact the work in addition to the viewer(s). KINETIC ART Art that moves; sometimes used to refer POP ART Art appropriating contemporary popular to art in which optical effects create the illusion of culture, often in tandem with other commercial movement (see op art, below). strategies. LAND ART Art involving the manipulation of a POST-MINIMALISM Art following minimalism natural landscape, also known as earthworks and chronologically and stylistically, employing the environmental art; it can be either on site (usually on a strategies and aesthetics of minimalism as a reference large scale) or brought into an artistic venue. point but disrupting minimalism’s meanings, often by incorporating other contemporary trends in art or by LIGHT AND SPACE An artistic style characterized reinvesting an expressive quality. by a focus on perceptual phenomena, such as light, volume, and scale, and by the use of new materials, SYSTEM ART Art created according to a preconceived often forming installations conditioned by the work’s set of rules or guidelines, which is more important surroundings; arose largely from minimalism in than the finished product. southern California. VIDEO ART Art incorporating moving visual images MINIMALISM Art employing extreme simplification from video, distinguished from video entertainment of form and color to emphasize literal aspects of by its artistic intent and its dispensing with the an object, often to investigate the experience of conventions of television, cinema, etc. (e.g., actors, deductive patterns, relationships of viewer and object, dialogue, narrative); sometimes also used to describe or other formal or experiential concerns. works in film. *Disclaimer: artists themselves rarely feel the need to work exclusively within a particular stylistic category. This chart is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Its primary intent is to be humorous—admittedly of a rather specialized sort—but even so, it does correctly identify the relevant style most of the time. STA RT HERE HAPPENING * ADD TO RESULTS AND CONTINUE Is it about certain people being oppressed VIDEO ART Specifically Are you PERFORMANCE by society? ART Mexican-Americans? part of it? Specifically women? Is someone Do you see Specifically Is there CHICANO ART doing or hear African-Americans? something? See? MOVEMENT* something? anything? seconD-wav e feminism* Does it specifically co nc e pt ua l black arts sound ART movement* question the definition ART of art? Is it a Does it use Does it use Is it totally systemS ART recognizable someone’s B O DY A RT clear rules? abstract? image? body? Does it look like Does it have Is it it is moving bright colors and sculpture? when you move? clear forms? Does it use dirt? OP ART Is it Does it Does it have messy? move? a plug? N eo-dada POP ART LAND ART Abstract expressionism Is it Is it made Light s pac e colorful? KINETIC ART NEW MEDIA ART with plastic? Do the form have clear Does it rely on minimalism edges? external associations? color field HARD EDGE post- minimalism content: Lynn Boland | design: Silvia MInguzzi This chart is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Its primary intent is to be humorous—admittedly of a rather specialized sort—but even so, it does correctly identify the relevant style most of the time. STA RT HERE HAPPENING * ADD TO RESULTS AND CONTINUE Is it about certain people being oppressed VIDEO ART Specifically Are you PERFORMANCE by society? ART Mexican-Americans? part of it? Specifically women? Is someone Do you see Specifically Is there CHICANO ART doing or hear African-Americans? something? See? MOVEMENT* something? anything? seconD-wav e feminism* Does it specifically co nc e pt ua l black arts sound ART movement* question the definition ART of art? Is it a Does it use Does it use Is it totally systemS ART recognizable someone’s B O DY A RT clear rules? abstract? image? body? Does it look like Does it have Is it it is moving bright colors and sculpture? when you move? clear forms? Does it use dirt? OP ART Is it Does it Does it have messy? move? a plug? N eo-dada POP ART LAND ART Abstract expressionism Is it Is it made Light s pac e colorful? KINETIC ART NEW MEDIA ART with plastic? Do the form have clear Does it rely on minimalism edges? external associations? color field HARD EDGE post- minimalism content: Lynn Boland | design: Silvia MInguzzi OFF KILTER, ON POINT: Art of the 1960s from the Permanent Collection CHECKLIST Robert Motherwell Acrylic on shaped canvas b. Aberdeen, Wisconsin; active in New York, New York, 1915; d. Provincetown, 42 x 42 x 5 in. Massachusetts, 1991 2006.131 Untitled (Open), 1968 Lithograph on paper Herbert Bayer 9 x 5 1/2 in. Bayer. Haag am Hausruck, Austria, 1900; d. Montecito, California; active in Gift of Polly and Mark Addison 2017.1.17 Dessau, Germany and Aspen, Colorado, 1985 Two Chromatic Corners, 1967 Albert Kotin Screenprint on paper b. Minsk, Belarus, 1907; d. New York, New York, 1980 19 3/4 x 19 3/4 in. Samurai, 1966 Gift of Polly and Mark Addison 2017.1.4 Oil on canvas 18 x 14 in.