Yale Bulletin and Calendar

February 9, 2001

Volume 29, Number 18

A new Yale Art Gallery exhibit examines the use of color in works like "Turkey Girl" by Jules Olitski.

Exhibit explores how artists approach use of color

Painter Josef Albers once noted that, "In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is -- as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art."

Works by 36 artists who have explored color as its own entity, freed from representation, are featured in the exhibition "Objective Color," on view through March 25 at the Yale University Art Gallery.

The exhibit's organizer -- Jennifer Gross, the recently appointed Seymour H. Knox Jr. Curator of European and Contemporary Art -- drew works from the permanent collection along with loans of contemporary artists' works in order to present an overview of the way artists have explored color in the past century.

The show features paintings, sculpture and prints, as well as installation and video works. The earliest pieces in the exhibition, from the 1920s, are by Jean Arp and Paul Klee, and the most recent are by such artists as Dike Blair, Bruce Brosnan, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Oliver Herring and Laura Owens.

"Color is a medium with a broad range of effects -- chemical, physiological, psychological and even transcendent," says Gross. "As color is translated in the eye of each viewer through light, the artist's creative endeavor is united with the viewer's experience to realize color as a unique, objective form in time and space."

The exhibition was made possible by the support of Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro '56 B.A.

Two companion installations to "Objective Color" are also on view. A selection of artists' books and other objects from the Faber Birren Collection of Books on Color are on view in the Arts Library, 180 York St. For information on exhibition hours, call (203) 432-2645.

Another show, titled "Subjective Color," is on display through March 17 in the Untitled (Space) Gallery, 220 College St. The exhibition, on view through March 17, features new work by seven artists with close ties to New Haven, whose approach to color "demonstrates unique optic sensibility, experiential interaction and personal narrative." Call (203) 772-2709 for more information.

The Yale University Art Gallery is located at Chapel and York streets. Admission is free for individuals; groups should call (203) 432-8459 for information about fees and to make a reservation. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-6 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. An entrance for persons using wheelchairs is at 201 York St., with an unmetered parking space nearby on York Street. For information, call (203) 432-0606. For recorded general and program information, call (203) 432-0600. The gallery's website is located at www.yale.edu/artgallery.

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