Color: Theories and Structures

Color: Theories and Structures investigates the ideas and strategies that have informed 20^th-century artistic practices focused on color. By selecting key works by a diverse group of artists, this exhibition demonstrates how color has functioned as a tool to explore ideas about visual perception, emotional states, and scientific discoveries.

Humans are only aware of a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum known as visible light.  In combination, these wavelengths create the colors of the rainbow that constitute our perception of the world around us. For millennia, scholars, intellectuals and artists have investigated how our eyes and brains perceive color. It has only been within the last few centuries that we have begun to understand the complexity of light, color, and the important role they play in our daily lives. Focusing on formal concerns such color and flatness, artists on exhibit such as Milton Avery and Josef Albers, have inspired and influenced the trajectory of post-painterly abstraction.

Color: Theories and Structures features major paintings and works on paper by Josef Albers, Milton Avery, Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Helen Frankenthaler, Julian Stanczak, Richard Anuszkiewicz and Peter Halley.  A special room is dedicated to the science of color perception and a new media installation by artist and designer Mike Bodge.

Curated by Megan Hancock, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Educational Programs, Natasha Ritsma, Curator of Academic Programs, and the Gund Gallery team. Research and writing conducted by Gund Associates Harrison Curley ‘15, Lara Del Piano ‘14, Virginia McBride ‘15 and Hanna Washburn ‘14.

Through May 18