From Pop to Now
Wexner Center off-site, Colombus
November 3, 2002 – February 2, 2003
From Pop to Now showcases works from the private collection of gallery owners Ileana and Michael Sonnabend, including such artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gilbert & George, Rona Pondick, Bruce Nauman, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Elger Esser, and Christian Boltanski. Nearly 70 works—painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed-media installation—by about 50 artists are on view. Together, this selection sheds light on the intersections of pop, conceptualism, minimalism, postmodernism, and other major experimental art movements of the last century, in a show that is “brimming with important pieces” (The New York Times, June 30, 2002).
From Pop to Now was organized by the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. The presentation in Columbus coincides with the Wexner Center’s gallery renovations. All exhibitions in the upcoming season will be presented off-site, with three presented in downtown Columbus.
THE SONNABEND COLLECTION
Ileana Sonnabend—who became known in the ’60s as “The Mom of Pop Art”—has been a seminal force in the contemporary art world for 40 years, identifying young, emerging artists and introducing their work to wide audiences in both Europe and the United States. Her enthusiasm for collecting began in the 1950s during her brief marriage to art dealer Leo Castelli, and continued with her marriage to Michael Sonnabend, with whom she ran galleries in Paris and New York. The Sonnabends introduced new American artists—such as Robert Rauschenberg and Dan Flavin—to Europe, and brought European artists to the attention of New York audiences (e.g., Ileana was the first to bring the new German art to New York in the early 1980s). The vast Sonnabend Collection includes contemporary paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and works in new and nontraditional media, collected over the decades.
From Pop to Now is the most comprehensive survey to date of the Sonnabends’ legacy. The exhibition includes key works originally shown at their galleries, along with rarely seen pieces from their private collection. “I’m particularly interested in works that are by now ‘classical’ and still keep their provocation,” Ileana Sonnabend told The New York Times earlier this year. Recently widowed, Sonnabend continues to actively collect.
From Pop to Now premiered at the Tang in June; the Wexner Center marks its first stop on a national tour, and additional venues will be announced.
THE ART
The exhibition features a range of works reflecting the Sonnabends’ taste over the years, including early pop art by then-emerging artists, contemporary photography, and multimedia sculptural works. Major art movements include pop, minimalism, conceptualism, arte povera, and abstract expressionism. The earliest work in the show is from 1956 (a Cy Twombly); the most recent is from 2002 (a chromogenic print by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher).
Among the highlights from the exhibition: Roy Lichtenstein’s Aloha (oil on canvas, 1962), plus three other Lichtensteins; Andy Warhol’s White Brillo Boxes (1964), plus five other Warhols; Jasper Johns’s Figure 8 (1959); Jeff Koons’s stainless steel Rabbit (1986); Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photographs Water Towers (1972); Rona Pondick’s Dog (yellow stainless steel, 2000); Dan Flavin’s “Untitled (To the ‘Innovator’ of Wheeling Peach Blow),” featuring fluorescent lights, from the late 1960s; Sol LeWitt’s Arcs from Four Corners (1971); Gilbert & George’s They (1986); and Bruce Nauman’s neon
My Name as Though It Were Written on the Surface of the Moon: Bbbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuucccccccccceeeeeeeeee (1967).
EXHIBITION'S LOCATION: The Belmont Building, 330 West Spring Street, Colombus, OH
WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1871 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210
www.wexarts.org
