Cleveland Collects Contemporary Art
November 8, 1998 - January 10, 1999
 The energy, ambition, scale, and impact of the art of our time highlights the exhibition Cleveland Collects Contemporary Art, which surveys key artists and trends that have defined contemporary art over the past 15 years. Seventy works of art--large paintings, sculpture in a variety of media and scale, and photo-based images created from 1982 to
1997--chronicle the diverse approaches taken by 60 artists working locally, nationally, and internationally. The exhibition, drawn from 30 area private and corporate collections, embraces an array of talented artists ranging from young and emerging to established and world renowned. Despite their individuality, they share an acute awareness of and responsiveness to today's
society.
The show is organized according to four distinct themes: figuration, abstraction, words and images, and landscape.
After three decades of abstract, minimal, and conceptual approaches, renewed interest in figurative art appeared during the 1980s, becoming a new focus for cutting-edge innovation. Using inventive methods and unconventional media, today's artists have transcended traditional modes of representation to discover the pictorial and narrative possibilities
in the human form.
Many contemporary artists, however, have remained committed to abstraction throughout their careers. Approaches vary, ranging from the emotionally expressive to the controlled and logical, with some works combining the two. Abstraction presents the opportunity for visual and psychological explorations that reach beyond the confines of reality.
In addition to the human figure and abstraction, much of today's art is based on written words and actual objects from daily life rendered in two- or three-dimensional
form. Artists engage us both visually and intellectually by employing such devices as repetition, exaggerated scale, double meaning, and contradiction.
 Last is the time-honored theme of landscape, interpreted through contemporary eyes in an variety of styles. From an abstraction that suggests the microscopic to a seascape of panoramic naturalism, artists respond to the natural world around them, infusing their own dreams, experiences, and concerns with the environment.
Through exhibitions presented in 1972, 1980, and 1986, the museum has surveyed the holdings of both modern art (pre-World War II) and contemporary art (after 1945) assembled by private collectors who either live in Cleveland or have ties to the area. The current presentation, however, differs significantly from its predecessors.
Cleveland Collects Contemporary Art focuses exclusively on very recent art, recognizes the breadth and impact of corporate collecting, and includes work by artists residing in northeast Ohio. Indeed, the lenders to this exhibition demonstrate a true passion for contemporary art. One quickly recognizes their commitment to intellectually, visually, and often physically challenging
new work. Through their generosity, visitors to the museum have access to a wonderful local resource not ordinarily available for public viewing.
Extensive programming accompanies the show, most notably a morning conference on Saturday, November 14, in Gartner Auditorium, examining the re-emergence of the figure in contemporary art. Distinguished critics and artists, including Alex Katz and Davis Salle, will participate in a lively and enlightening program co-sponsored by the Contemporary Art Society of
the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Tom E. Hinson, Curator of Contemporary Art and Photography
The exhibition is sponsored by Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP and Ernst & Young LLP.
Captions
Sandro Chia's surreal Sight Knight
Plight, an oil painting on canvas from 1987 (220.9 x 274.2 cm, Eugene Stevens), is dominated by a brilliant red-orange horse that gallops out of the picture, a small nude figure astride its back. Disembodied eyes follow in pursuit. The design derives from Futurism, a pre-World War I movement that stressed the idea of simultaneous vision, metamorphosis, and motion.
The act of painting is a vital part of Brice Marden's evocative and reductivist abstract works. In
Epitaph Painting 2 from 1996-97 (oil on linen, 238.7 x 237.4 cm, private collection), traceries of lines in muted tones wind their way in a circuitous route over a ground of thin, gray pigment. Pentimenti are visible, revealing Marden's changes of mind as he carefully arranged the spaces between the lines,
balancing and distributing them over the entire canvas.
Since the early 1980s, April Gornik has been one of contemporary art's most prominent landscape painters.
Pulling Moon from 1983 (oil on canvas, 193 x 203.2 cm, Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer) is a vast, nocturnal seascape. "I want something you can take a step into, literally, physically, and metaphorically," says Gornik of her large-scale works. "It's meant to be a draw, an invitation, a seduction."
Nancy Dwyer is interested in the colloquial qualities of language, and looks for ways to give it new associations and impact.
Some Nerve (Risk) (acrylic on canvas, 198.4 x 152.7, The Progressive Corporation, Cleveland, Ohio), commissioned in 1988 by an area insurance company, presents the viewer with the dramatically rendered, three-dimensional word "nerve" delicately balanced, each letter
slightly askew, on a thin black line suggestive of a tightrope. The view from below heightens the impact of the dizzying spectacle.
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