“Wall” is an inventive survey of artwork from the permanent collection featuring 30 works by 28 artists, created over a 53-year timespan (1964-2017) anchored in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The exhibition’s namesake, “Wall,” is a nod to Robert Indiana’s large-scale industrial print that is on display. “Wall” is also a reminder that, although ubiquitous and seemingly mundane, walls have multiple sides that represent many things. They construct spaces that literally function but also symbolize the ideas of “inside vs. outside” and “free vs. confined.” Across three gallery spaces, the Appleton curatorial team juxtaposed the works to create dynamic groupings that illustrate how artists push the limits of medium, line, form, texture and color to communicate with audiences.
Born in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist included in “Wall” hail from Belarus, Canada, Cuba, France, Greece, Spain, Ukraine and United States, embracing wide range of media and techniques. Their embrace of previous epochs, art movements and styles is clear, yet simultaneously, they each disrupt and challenge these inherited traditions to distinguish themselves.
(pictured: Robert Indiana (American, 1928-2018), “Wall: Two Stones – One,” 1990, Lithograph, Gift of CVI Art Management and Art for Education.)