Some Chromes

With works drawn almost entirely from the collections of the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museum collections, Some Chromes explores relationships between works acquired by the Harvard University Art Museums at different times and for different reasons. Focused around the Fogg’s holdings of work by Morris Louis and several recent acquisitions of monochrome painting, the installation features two splendid, intensely colored paintings by Joseph Marioni, a subtly sensuous blue monochrome by the Swiss artist Rudolf de Crignis, and a folded cloth piece by the German artist Franz Erhard Walther.

Also included are several of Louis’s surprisingly dense, colored gouache paintings on paper; a more conceptually determined painting by the Italian artist Rudolph Stingel; a video projection of Dereck Jarman’s AIDS memorial film, Blue; a powdered pigment drawing by Roni Horn; and a poured color floor piece by the American artist Lynda Benglis.

While the link between Louis’s experiments with color and its application to the canvas and those of Marioni has been directly addressed by art historian Michael Fried, the other works in the installation are more loosely selected. The common denominator is simply an emphasis on color and surface: each of these artists explores some of the affective potential of color and the ways in which it can be embodied.

Organized by Linda Norden, associate curator of contemporary art, Fogg Art Museum.