c>log
Color Chart Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today is an exhibition on a current run at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition started March 2 and will end on May 12 and features the works of forty-four artists. The MoMA staff has made available a series of discussions by curators and art historians regarding the works contained in the exhibit in a podcast format. The c>log will highlight several of the works in the exhibition and the appropriate podcasts will be available for listening here. Color Chart is the first major exhibition devoted to this pivotal transformation by contemporary artists.
Color Chart celebrates a paradox: the lush beauty that results when contemporary artists assign color decisions to chance, to a readymade source or to an arbitrary system of color. Midway through the 20th century, long-held convictions regarding the spiritual truth or scientific validity of particular colors gave way to an excitement about color as a mass-produced and standardized commercial product.

The romantic quest for personal expression instead became Andy Warhol's "I want to be a machine;" the artistry of mixing pigments was eclipsed by Frank Stella's "Straight out of the can; it can't get any better than that." Persistent beliefs regarding the spiritual or emotional power of colors gave way to the embrace of color as an ordinary commodity.

The first and arguably the most significant work in this exhibition is Marcel Duchamp's last oil painting Tu m' (pronounced "toom"). This work is explored in a short discussion by Ann Temkin, the Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art.

Download | Duration: 00:02:02

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