The Abstract Impulse: Selections from the Modern and Contemporary Collections February 3–May 5, 2013
Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2011, found rugs and mixed media, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Barbara and Michael Gamson in memory of Peter C. Marzio. © Nick Cave, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Linda Conner, January 22, 1898, 1995, gelatin silver print, the MFAH, Manfred Heiting Collection, gift of Carey C. Shuart. © Linda Conner
Kenneth Noland, Half, 1959, acrylic on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase. © The Kenneth Noland Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
William Baziotes, Trance, 1953, oil on canvas, the MFAH, museum purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © Estate of William Baziotes
Julio González, Cactus Woman, 1939–40 (cast posthumously), bronze, the MFAH, museum purchase. © 2012 Julio González / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Roberto Matta, 26, from the series The Space of the Species, c. 1963, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of D. and J. de Menil. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Bruce Metcalf, Wood Brooch #109, 1995, 23K gold leaf, paint, maple wood, copper, and brass, the MFAH, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, gift of the Caroline Wiess Law Foundation. © Bruce Metcalf
Works of art in a variety of media, selected from across the museum's modern and contemporary collections, come together in this exhibition devoted to abstraction. Paintings, drawings, photographs, ceramics, sculpture, and jewelry span categories associated with Europe, the United States, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Painter and theoretician Joaquín Torres-García, one of the most influential 20th-century artists to have emerged from Latin America, proposed that human beings have a basic tendency to abstract from nature. In his view, this “abstract impulse” is not limited by time or place but is universal.
However, beginning with the Renaissance, that approach toward art was replaced by a desire to imitate realistic aspects of human life. Notions of anatomy and perspective prevailed. Then in the 20th century, artists fought to regain the primal impulse and to render it in novel ways.
The Abstract Impulse offers a fresh perspective on a broad range of works from the museum’s extensive holdings of 20th- and 21st-century art. Among the many artists represented are William Baziotes, Lynda Benglis, Lygia Clark, Julio González, Joseph Havel, Roberto Matta, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock, Andres Serrano, Philippe Starck, Jean Tinguely, and Edward Weston. This exhibition is the first in a series envisioning the kinds of displays to be installed in the museum's new building, now in the planning stage, dedicated to art after 1900.
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.