Media Contact: Susan Cipollaro, [email protected], 203-254-4000 ext. 2726 Fairfield University Art Museum Announces Andrew Forge: Limits of Sight The Fairfield University Art Museum announces an art exhibition featuring works by acclaimed artist and critic Andrew Forge. On view September 25 – December 19, 2020. FAIRFIELD, Conn. (July 15, 2020) — Fairfield University Art Museum announces the upcoming exhibition Andrew Forge: Limits of Sight opening in the museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries on September 25 and closing December 19, 2020. Curated by scholar and guest curator Karen Wilkin, the exhibition will feature over twenty-five paintings and works on paper by British artist Andrew Forge (1923-2002). Forge was a painter and an influential art critic, as well professor and then the dean of the Yale University School of Art from 1975-1994. His highly personal abstractions distill his perceptions of place, season, and time of day into subtle orchestrations of pure color. Wilkin writes about Andrew Forge in the exhibition brochure: “We must look long and carefully at these complex sheets of multiple, intermingled hues, if we are to come to terms with their subtlety and richness, but even when we do, we always feel that something has escaped us. Their spatial mobility and their sense of pulsing light combine to make the dot 1 paintings both irresistible and elusive. They appear to test the limits of sight. We yield to the allure of their atmospheric orchestrations of color yet we are not quite certain that we are really perceiving them. Pools and pathways of chromatic harmonies become visible with prolonged looking and then subside into the all-over fabric of dots. When we view the paintings from a distance, hints of imagery—architecture, landscape forms—suggest themselves, but vanish when we come close to the surface of the picture. It’s as if we needed a different kind of visual acuity than we have normally been provided with.” Carey Weber, the museum’s executive director noted, “This is the first museum exhibition of Forge’s work in Fairfield Country and only the second since his death in 2002. We are honored to present these sublime works.” Lenders to the exhibition include numerous private collections, the artist’s widow Ruth Miller, Betty Cunningham Gallery, and the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. The exhibition will be accessible through the museum’s website as a 3-D virtual exhibition with audio tour. Due to COVID-19 precautions, Fairfield University’s campus is closed to the outside community for the foreseeable future, and in-person viewing of the exhibition will not be available. In conjunction with the exhibition, and with the assistance of faculty liaison Suzanne Chamlin, associate professor of studio art, department of Visual & Performing Arts, the Fairfield University Art Museum has organized a full roster of public programs which will be presented virtually. About the curator: Karen Wilkin is a New York-based independent curator and art critic specializing in 20th- century modernism. Educated at Barnard College (1962) and Columbia University, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship to Rome. Wilkin has organized numerous international exhibitions, and is the author of monographs on Stuart Davis, David Smith, Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and Hans Hofmann. Wilkin teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program of the New York Studio School. She is the contributing editor for Art for the Hudson Review and a regular contributor to The New Criterion, Art in America, and the Wall Street Journal. Related programming: Thursday, September 24, 4:00 p.m. Opening Night Lecture - Andrew Forge: Limits of Sight Karen Wilkin, curator of the exhibition Independent curator and art critic Professor, Master of Fine Arts Program, New York Studio School Part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation 2 Wednesday, September 30, 6:00 -7:00 p.m. Gallery Talk: Andrew Forge: An Artist’s Perspective Suzanne Chamlin, associate professor of Studio Art, department of Visual & Performing Arts, Fairfield University Thursday, October 1, 11:00 a.m. Art in Focus: Andrew Forge Michelle DiMarzo, PhD, Curator of Education and Academic Engagement Thursday, October 22, 5:00 p.m. Lecture: How to Look at an Abstract Painting Danielle Ogden, adjunct professor, Art History & Visual Culture Program, department of Visual & Performing Arts, Fairfield University Thursday, October 29, 5:00 p.m. Lecture: The Psychology of Art Jennifer Drake, PhD, professor of psychology, Brooklyn College Presented in partnership with the Departments of Psychology and Visual & Performing Arts All events and programs are free and will be presented virtually, registration is requested. www.fairfield.edu/museum, or www.fuam.eventbrite.com Vol. 52, # Fairfield University is a modern, Jesuit Catholic university rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. and across the globe are pursuing degrees in the University’s five schools. Fairfield embraces a liberal humanistic approach to education, encouraging critical thinking, cultivating free and open inquiry, and fostering ethical and religious values. The University is located on a stunning 200-acre campus on the scenic Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City. 3 .