“Formal Matters” explores the cornerstones of visual media that shape how we experience art. Drawing together works from across the modern and contemporary collections, the exhibition focuses on the five essential elements of art — line, shape, value, color and texture — and considers how artists manipulate these basic components to create meaning, movement, atmosphere and emotion.
Rather than organizing works by chronology or movement, “Formal Matters” invites visitors to look closely at the visual decisions that connect artists working across different styles and mediums. Each element is represented by selected works that exemplify its properties and capabilities, from bold experiments with color and geometry to probing investigations of surface and space.
By drawing attention to these building blocks of visual expression, the works on view underline the enduring importance of formal experimentation in art, challenging the familiar and discovering the unexpected.
On view in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries on the second floor.
(pictured) “Birds in Flight,” 1975, Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Lithograph, Gift of the Nachman-Welborn Trust.