Contemporary Art Galleries Reinstallation

Step inside the Contemporary Galleries this summer and you will see the return of several favorites. A new installation of major works from the late 1970s through the 1990s from the Museum’s Collection. “The Museum’s Collection is so rich, the works off view deserve a fresh look,” notes Chief Curator Brady Roberts, who is organizing the comprehensive reinstallation. “This will be a lot of fun, highlighting some of the Museum’s brilliant post-war works.”

Complementing the rich selection of Abstract Expressionist, Minimal, and Conceptual art currently on display will be exceptional paintings by Francesco Clemente, Anselm Kiefer, Ed Paschke, and Gerhard Richter; powerful figurative sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz and Kiki Smith; and a significant screenprint by Glenn Ligon, among other works.

Robert Gober’s Untitled and Cornelia Parker’s Edge of England will also be coming back on view. Gober’s piece, a seemingly prosaic suitcase on the floor, reveals a portal to a surreal, subterranean vista with the legs of a man and a child wading in the shallow water of a subconscious realm. The ethereal curtain wall of Parker’s Edge of England, comprised of chalk from the celebrated cliffs of Dover, is in essence an abstract symbol of England. The striking white cliffs of Dover form a natural barrier at the narrowest point of the English Channel that protected the country from foreign invasion for centuries. Yet in Parker’s installation, the light, otherworldly aspect of the chalk in suspension belies a darker reference: the Edge of England is also a location where many people have jumped to their demise.