Return to overview

Figures in the Field

September 11, 2017

Today, figurative art has re-emerged with a very strong presence while non-representational abstract painting is less emphasized in the discourse of contemporary art. Figures in the Field is an exhibition that aims to reinvigorate the dialogue between these two different languages and traditional modes of creative production while questioning how they create meaning today.

With works dating from 1960s to the present and based on the MCA Collection, Figures in the Field will include works such as Jeff Koons’s Pink Panther, Matthew Barney’s The Cabinet of Frank Gilmore, Yinka Shonibare’s Alien Obsessives: Mum, Dad and the Kids, Tom Friedman’s Untitled, David Hammons’s Praying to Safety, as well as several important loans from other Chicago collections including figurative sculptures by Maurizio Cattelan, Ron Mueck, Marc Quinn, Stephan Balkenhol, and Charles Ray, among others. These will be interspersed with non-objective paintings by artists such as Jules Olitski, Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Kenneth Noland, Brice Marden, Imi Knoebel, Gary Hume, Gaylen Gerber, Judy Ledgerwood, and paintings by a younger generation of artists including Mark Grotjahn, Carrie Gundersdorf, Marie Krane Bergman, and Rebecca Morris.

The exhibition is co-curated by Manilow Senior Curator at Large Francesco Bonami and Assistant Curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm.