Jack Whitten
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will host artist Jack Whitten, who will lead a gallery talk about his current exhibition, Evolver at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 4.
He will be joined by exhibitions director Richard Klein .
Mr. Whitten, who was born in 1939 in Bessemer, Ala., began his career in New York in the 1960s, combining influences as diverse as Abstract Expressionism, the Civil Rights Movement, Surrealism, and psychedelia. The talk will touch on Whitten’s long and rich artistic practice, including the important role he played in the museum’s founding decade, when Larry Aldrich purchased two of his works in 1971, marking the first time the artist’s work entered a public collection.
Evolver is the first solo museum exhibition of the Mr. Whitten’s painting since 2007. It focuses on new works from 2013 to 2014, a period that has proven to be one of ambitious experimentation with, and reinvestigation of, a range of familiar Whitten motifs. However, also included is Whitten’s 1971 painting Shadows, one of the works once in the museum’s collection, which provides a touchstone from a seminal stylistic period.
The exhibition is part of a year-long series to mark The Aldrich’s 50th Anniversary that features artists whose work played a significant role in the museum’s early history.
The talk is free for Aldrich members and children 18 and under; free with paid admission for non-members. For more informatio contact Tracy Moore at tmoore@aldrichart.org.