Sept. 201958 was the first day the Ackland Art Museum opened its doors. Fifty years later" art from that period of American history is on display at the same museum.
""Circa 1958: Breaking Ground in American Art"" which opened Sunday, is the Ackland's largest and most ambitious exhibition to date and features works from some of the most influential artists of the 1950s and '60s.
I wanted to know what was going on in the art world in 1958" when we opened our doors" said Emily Kass, director of the museum.
And as America changed, a lot was also going on in the art world. New styles of painting and sculpting emerged as NASA formed, the space race heated up and the Cold War kept going.
A lot of the work in the exhibition is early emerging work by early emerging artists who created mature work and went on to evolve their ideas in the '60s"" Kass said. But these are some very rare and seminal pieces by artists.""
One of these pieces is an interactive art piece by Yoko Ono" where visitors are encouraged to hammer a nail into a reflective surface mounted on a mirror.
Rare" early works by a pre-Campbell's Soup Andy Warhol and a pre-Pop Art Roy Lichtenstein are also on display.
""Just as these artists were breaking ground in American art" we were also this kind of new uncasted unformed museum and our direction has ultimately been that" Kass said.
Kass said the exhibition explores how 1958 was a cross section of American culture — when many ideas were percolating and germinating in the American psyche.
These new ideas, like the peace movement and other political and social ideas, later came to the forefront in 1960s America.
Post-Painterly Abstraction and Assemblage, two styles on display in the exhibition, emerged in 1958 in conjunction with these new ideas. Both styles rebelled against the established and nearly 20-year-old style of Abstract Expressionism, made famous by Jackson Pollock.
Barbara Matilsky, curator of exhibitions at the Ackland, said there was a point in 1958 when people thought the forms and formulas of Abstract Expressionism didn't express the new age and new ideals in America.
Nic Brown, Ackland director of communications, described Post-Painterly Abstraction as impersonal"" — a style that uses clean" simple lines based in color theory.
Assemblage Brown said" ""is Robert Rauschenberg making art from trash"" literally.""
The paintings"" the sculptures and the pile of balled-up newspapers are all seen as objects.
""It's just a flat canvas with paint and color and forms and lines" so it's an object and (with Assemblage) the art is all about working with objects" Matilsky said.
The exhibition, which occupies four of the museum's galleries, flows from one room the next. While each room explores different styles of art emerging in 1958, the Ackland threads a cohesive theme that connects all rooms of the exhibition: art for art's sake.
Crisp edges" separating colors line composition — art for art's sake so that the art becomes an object" said Matilsky.
It's not a window into the artist's emotions; it's not a window into a landscape or a portrait — it's just beautiful and appreciated for all those different elements that make up a painting.""
Experiencing art as just art is the ultimate goal.
""Frank Stella said" ‘What you see is what you see""" she said.
VISIT THE EXHIBIT
Time: Various times through Jan. 4
Location: Ackland Art Museum
Info: www.ackland.org
Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
