The Fluidity of Time Selections from the MCA Collection

About

Borrowing its title from that of a painting in the MCA Collection by artist Yves Tanguy, this exhibition surveys works by several generations of artists who have made defining contributions to the panorama of recent art. It interweaves art of the recent past with that of the evolving present to reveal how the “fluidity of time” animates and recontextualizes our responses to the art of our own time.

Beginning with important early pieces by Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Rene Magritte, Leon Golub, and others, the exhibition builds on these pieces with key works from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, by such artists as Lee Bontecou, Christo, Chuck Close, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, Barbara Kruger, Bruce Nauman, George Segal, Cindy Sherman, Robert Smithson, and Andy Warhol, as well as major recent works by Ellen Gallagher, Andreas Gursky, Jim Hodges, Alfredo Jaar, Luisa Lambri, Donald Moffett, Kerry James Marshall, Damien Ortega, and Lari Pittman, among others. Several of these works are recent acquisitions.

In addition, the exhibition incorporates some key loans to amplify and extend the selection of works from the collection. These include a major new installation by artist Sarah Sze, titled Proportioned to the Groove, 2005, to be installed adjacent to Dan Flavin's 1967 alternating pink and “gold,” also on extended loan to the MCA. Flavin's is one of the first and Sze's is one of the most recent major examples of installation art—a genre which has been of crucial importance in contemporary art of the past few decades. Of further significance to their inclusion is that both artists had early, important shows at the MCA.