Twelfth exhibition of Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture [antikvár]

Circles, Men, and Others An art exhibition is an individual thing, a unique event. It is not only a collection of a number of specific works, but by bringing all of these works together it forms a new composition which exposes many separate parts yet allows an individual work to react with and to others, as well as reveals something of the point of view of those people who are responsible for the selections involved. In addition, if it is one of a series of a continuing program, it invites comparison with earlier exhibitions and may suggest stylistic developments which would not immediately reveal themselves from a study of the exhibition as an isolated event. The University of Illinois exhibitions have by this time acquired a certain continuity which makes it useful to think of this show in context with the eleven which have preceded it in the past seventeen years. I think of it particularly in two relationships. These are purely arbitrary, but may bring into focus certain qualities and preoccupations which help to define the characteristics which belong to our moment in history, and may suggest lines of future developments. What does this show look like in comparison with the works which we chose to exhibit just ten years ago? What has happened to American art and artists in the two years since we last brought together a large cross-section of comparable work?