Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts

Breaking Down Modern Art: BYU’s Exhibition Offers an Entry Point

Art installation featuring abstract circular patterns in bold red, yellow, and black on a textured canvas. In the foreground, a geometric red sculpture is displayed against a white backdrop with three colorful square cutouts.

Installation view of Counterpoint: Selections from the MOA Collection from the 1960s and Beyond, featuring abstract designs and sculptures. Image by Shawn Rossiter.

“I could do that in five minutes.”

It’s a common refrain, frequently and flippantly said, usually while looking at a Pollock-esque paint splatter worth an amount north of your mortgage, but, really, it’s said of any kind of modern art.

Which is unfair, because “modern art” can mean so many things at once that it often ends up meaning hardly anything at all.

When you say “modern art,” are you referring to Pop art with its plays on recognizable commercial and cultural symbols, or to the migraine-inducing optical illusions of Op art? To the color explosion of Abstract Expressionism, the gentle seeping of Color Field, or the strict boundaries of Hard Edge? Are you referring to Dada or to  neo-Dada? Minimalism or post-Minimalism? Comic or cosmic? Or are you referring to body art, conceptual art, installation art, video art, sound art, kinetic art, land art, new media art, activist art?

You get the idea.

Perhaps the initially dismissive approach to modern art we often take is a form of fight or flight. Modern art is so much to take in that it may feel easier to dismiss it entirely. But what a shame to miss out on such an interesting, expansive universe of art.

Maybe you’re not ready to dive in, but how about a dip? If you’re ready to be introduced to the packed, productive, paradoxical world of modern art, then the Brigham Young University Museum of Art has just the thing for you.

Sculpture of the word 'LOVE' in bold red letters displayed on a white circular platform in a modern art gallery. The walls feature text and framed artworks related to an exhibition titled 'Counter Point.'

The joint exhibitions, Off Kilter, On Point and Counterpoint, provide a stirring survey of art since the 1960s. Robert Indiana’s “Love” (1975) is at center. Image by Candace Brown.

It’s a double exhibition hosted by BYU (Counterpoint: Selections from the MOA Collection from the 1960s and Beyond) and Colorado State University (Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from Colorado State University). It’s a sampling of works from well-known artists (Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein) and lesser-known artists (Albert Kotin, Agathe Sorel, Lee Lozano). It’s a cross-section of Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Op art, and more. It’s the modern art equivalent of Billy Joel stuffing 119 historical references into five minutes of music.

If that sounds like more of the deep end than I promised, fear not: there is a road map. Actually, it’s a flow chart, right at the entryway, there to help you begin making simple distinctions among the dozen artistic movements you’ll encounter. Make sure to read the disclaimer: “Many artists do not fit in a neat category, and some even resist being placed in one.”

If it makes you feel better, it’s a tool. Use it.

But remember, modern art isn’t about the category it fits in. So take it as it comes.

And you will come across treasures.

Gallery hallway featuring a large red and white textile artwork with the word 'BUGATTI' prominently displayed on the right wall. The adjacent room showcases a series of colorful abstract framed prints arranged in two rows, with additional framed artworks visible further down the hallway.

Works from the Counterpoint exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art, including a series of serigraphs by Betty Gold, left, portraits by Andy Warhol, center, and Dorothy Grebenak’s “Bugatti” (1964), right. Image by Shawn Rossiter.

You’ll find a classic example of pop art in a wool rug by Dorothy Grebenak. Grebenak’s hooked rug is a painstaking recreation of the Bugatti logo, perfect down to the exact number of red dots circling the emblem’s perimeter. In contrast to the chrome, metal and glass associated with the luxury car brand, Grebenak’s rug is cozy, the kind of thing you’d want to warm a cold, tile floor or brighten a sterile room.

You’ll find a humming electromagnetic sphere by Greek artist Takis (born Panayotis Vassilakis). Like a baby’s mobile, it hangs from the ceiling and moves in small circles, pulled by its magnetic base. The more you listen, the more you’ll hear the music being made from invisible electromagnetic waves.

You’ll find a disposable paper dress, inspired by Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup Can prints. The dress is one of many that the soup company made and distributed as part of a promotional campaign. Wrinkles and creases disrupt the regular pattern of soup can labels and remind you that this dress is meant to be lived in.

You’ll find a selection of contributions to the affordable art subscription service, the S.M.S. (So Much Shit) portfolio, from more than a dozen artists. Their contributions include a print of Leonardo da Vinci smoking a cigar, a burned bow tie, and a small booklet with the wry thesis, “All men are hardly created equal.”

You’ll find shaped canvases, optical illusions, a tribute to the moon landing, and a ginormous charm bracelet.

 

Close-up of an intricate metallic chain-like sculpture adorned with various items, including a cross, a rosette, and a picture labeled 'La Larme Rouge.'

Jann Haworth, “French Charm Bracelet” (2007) is part of Counterpoint, an exhibition featuring works from the collection of the BYU Museum of Art. Image by Shawn Rossiter

 

Exhibit featuring a colorful 'American Dream' print, a mannequin wearing a Campbell's soup can dress, and a large abstract wall sculpture with yellow, blue, and red curving shapes.

Works in BYU Museum of Art’s Off Kilter, On point including, from left, Robert Indiana, “American Dream 1928-1963,” Andy Warhol “The Souper Dress,” (1966), and, far right, Charles Hinman’s “Cascade” (1965). Image by Shawn Rossiter.

Finally, you’ll find that the art scattered throughout this exhibition representing a vast array of art movements are united in exemplifying what may be the core tenets of modern art.

Art can be anything. It can be a pattern of repetitive lines and shapes creating a hypnotic visual effect in the Op art of Bridget Riley and Edna Andrade. It can be the pure, vibrant spectrum of colors on display in Herbert Bayer’s “Spectral Gate and Two Chromatic Corners.” It can be a hand, dabbing a foot with a cotton swab in Roy Lichtenstein’s “Foot Medication.”

Art can be anywhere. It can be in a signature scrawled across a liquor store receipt, as in Andy Warhol’s “Paris Review Poster.” It can be in the letter N, painted bright red and marched in straight rows and columns across a board by Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali. It can even be in Robert Motherwell’s rough sketch of a three-sided rectangle on blue paper.

And most of all, art is for everyone. It’s for Marilyn Monroe and Queen Margrethe II, and it’s for Wilhelmina Ross, a transgender model and drag queen photographed by Andy Warhol in Manhattan, around the same time he appropriated images of Marilyn and the former Danish queen. It’s for the patrons who commissioned the sculptures designed and sketched by Anthony Magar, and the Central American weavers who fixed Anthony Calder’s swirling patterns into fibrous mats. It’s for the person who drives a Bugatti, and the person who wears a paper dress.

It’s for the artists who dedicate their lives to creating something meaningful, and it’s for each of us who makes a rough sketch of a three-sided rectangle. Even if it only takes five minutes.

Gallery room showcasing Andy Warhol's iconic pop art prints of Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth, with a visitor sitting on a bench observing the artworks.

Portraits by Andy Warhol, center and right. Image by Shawn Rossiter.

Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from Colorado State University and Counterpoint: Selections from the MOA Collection from the 1960s and Beyond, BYU Museum of Art, Provo, through Dec. 7.

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