11/12 MODERN CONTEMPORARY WORKS AT DALLAS MUSEUM NOVEMBER 19

revised for date

11/12

MODERN CONTEMPORARY WORKS AT DALLAS MUSEUM NOVEMBER 19 W/3CUTS

AVV/JAR SET 6/13 #662430

DALLAS, TEXAS — The Dallas Museum of Art is presenting a special two-part exhibition of 200 works from the modern and contemporary holdings of the Hoffman, Rachofsky and Rose families, who together gifted their private collections and future acquisitions to the museum in 2005.

“Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art” offers a preview of the museum’s future modern and contemporary holdings and will be the first opportunity for the public to view these once-private collections in a comprehensive manner. This landmark exhibition is enhanced by additional promised gifts from Gayle and Paul Stoffel and other local patrons, as well as by works from the museum’s collections.

Organized by guest curator Maria de Corral, “Fast Forward” surveys the vast wealth of ideas and forms that characterize the postwar art world and includes Abstract Expressionist, Minimalist, Pop, Conceptual and Post-Modern works. This monumental exhibition features both established and emerging artists, whose work ranges from paintings and sculptures, to installations, video, sound and new media.

The 200 paintings on view were culled from a body of more than 1,500 objects by approximately 500 different artists — including more than 900 works from the three collections and other private collections and 650 works from the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Comprehensive in scope, “Fast Forward” will be presented in two parts; the first chapter remaining on view as the second is unveiled February 11.

“‘Fast Forward’ is a virtual trip to the future, revealing what the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection will look like years from now. It illustrates the tremendous resource that our local collectors, among the most discerning anywhere, have build for the city of Dallas and the museum,” said John R. Lane, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “Through this extraordinary gift, the Dallas Museum of Art has become one of the few major encyclopedic art museums in the world with a truly significant collection of Modern and Contemporary art.”

The first part of “Fast Forward” is presented in the museum’s distinctive Barrel Vault, Quadrant Galleries and Sculpture Garden. Organized thematically, the first chapter of the exhibition presents Abstract Expressionist paintings by Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, among others; masterpieces of the Italian Arte Povera movement, including works by Mario Merz and Giulio Paolini; and Minimalist sculpture and paintings by such artists as Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly.

Among the iconic and rarely displayed works featured are: Lucio Fontana’s “Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio,” 1964, a work from the Rachofsky collection that has never been shown at the museum before. The work belongs to a series of paintings that Fontana produced during the early 1960s an depicts a brilliant yellow “egg” that has been punctured multiple times in the artist’s signature effort to deconstruct and transcend the surface of the canvas. Michael Heizer’s “Untitled #2,” 1975, an unusual work marking the artist’s transition from small scale painting to larger scale sculpture and earthworks and Mark Rothko’s 1961 untitled masterpiece in orange and red from the Hoffman collection that has never before been presented at the museum. The large scale and saturated colors of Rothko’s work were intended to envelop the viewer and encourage introspection.

The second part of “Fast Forward,” which will be on view through May 20 in the museum’s Chilton Galleries, will explore such movements as Pop Art, Conceptual Art and Post-Modernism and will provide a broad survey of the work of younger artists grouped by stylistic affinities. This section will include large-scale installations and sculptures by artists such as Matthew Barney and Tom Friedman and media, video and sound works by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Cardoff & Miller and Bruce Nauman, among others. This chapter will also feature distinct monographic presentations of individual artists such as Janine Antoni, Jasper Johns and Thomas Struth.

Highlights include Bruce Nauman’s “Shadow Puppet Spinning Head,” 1990, an installation that was jointly acquired by the Rachofskys and the Dallas Museum of Art that has not been previously presented at the museum. The installation was created during an important period in Nauman’s career when he was fully exploiting the use of video and sound to expand the idea of sculpture and is indicative of Nauman’s more existentialist work.

Gerhard Richter’s “Stadtbild Mu,” 1968, a painting jointly acquired by the Hoffmans, the Rachofskys and the museum, is based on an aerial photograph of Munich’s city center. With its rough application of black and white paint, the work is a powerful artistic response to the Second World War, a theme that continues to pervade the artist’s oeuvre.

In February 2005, the Dallas Museum of Art announced an unprecedented gift of modern and contemporary collections from Marguerite and Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky and Deedie and Rusty Rose. The idea behind the joint gift came from the Hoffmans, who at the time co-chaired the Centennial Campaign, which was launched in 2003-04 to ensure the Dallas Museum of Art’s continuing stability and growth.

The joint collection gift is believed to be the first of its kind for museums in the United States and marks an important example of cultural leadership joining together to vest the city with their distinguished collections. Thanks to the enormous generosity of the Hoffman’s, Rachofskys and Roses, as well as other individual and foundation sources, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Centennial Campaign has raised $133.5 million of its $185 million goal to date.

The exhibition was organized by curator Maria de Corral, who was a co-commissioner of the 2005 Biennale di Venezia and the former director of the Reina Sofia museum of modern and contemporary art in Madrid. Accompanying the exhibition will be an illustrated catalog which will include an introduction by Dr Lane, in-depth interviews with collectors and an over view by de Corral.

The museum is at 1717 North Harwood Street. For information, 214-922-1200 or www.dallasmuseum.org.