Opening in the Winter of 2018, the Neuberger Museum of Art will feature two exhibitions about neon that explore several artists’ use of this exciting medium as well as the close collaboration between the skilled glass-benders and the artists. Stephen Antonakos: Proscenium features a large-scale, site-specific work originally created in 2000 for the Neuberger’s vast Theater Gallery. A pioneer in the use of neon as a fine art material, Antonakos’ (1926-2013) career spanned over five decades, during which time he created numerous illuminated works for indoor and outdoor spaces across the globe. Named for a type of Greek stage, Proscenium will animate the darkened space of Theater Gallery with saturated color, glowing light, and calligraphic line. Bending Light: Neon Art 1965 to Now will provide a selective survey of neon art from 1965 to the present and will feature iconic works from the Neuberger Museum’s permanent collection including Chryssa’s Ampersand V (1965), Otto Piene’s Neon Medusa (1969), and Cerith Wyn Evans’ TIX3(1994) as well as loaned work from public and private collections. It will focus on the often-blurred lines between commercial and fine art, and consider the complicated interplays among light, chemistry, and artistic vision.
A monumental site-specific neon installation commissioned for the Neuberger Museum of Art in 2000 and exhibited for the first time since that date.
Bending Light: Neon Art 1965 to Now
An exhibition of neon works exploring several artists' use of this exciting medium and their close collaboration with skilled glass-benders.
The Samuel Kootz Gallery, 1945–1966
The first exhibition to examine the critical role Samuel Kootz (1898–1982) and his gallery played in establishing modern American art as an international force.
From Motherwell to Hofmann: The Samuel Kootz Gallery, 1945–1966 is the first exhibition to examine the critical role Kootz (1898–1982) played in establishing modern American art as an international force. It will focus on the ways in which Kootz’s New York gallery (operational 1945–1966) was instrumental in promoting the careers of several major Abstract Expressionist artists, including William Baziotes, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, and Robert Motherwell. It will feature works by these artists as well as focus on a selection of important exhibitions that were held at the Kootz Gallery, including a 1946 show of the collection of Roy R. Neuberger, Kootz’s first customer at the gallery. Until now, Samuel Kootz has been underrepresented in the scholarship of the postwar period, despite representing much of the major talent in twentieth-century art. The exhibition and associated publication, with essays by noted experts, recasts Kootz, focusing on his writings, relationships with individual artists, collectors, and dealers, and the trajectories of the artists who showed at his gallery, in order to provide a new perspective on this moment in American art.
