At the Galleries
April 28, 2018 - By Karen Wilkin
Colors, at FreedmanArt, 2018
Also on the Upper East Side, through early May, “Colors,” at FreedmanArt, brings together the work of more than twenty-five artists, all known for their inventive, expressive use of color, whether brilliant, raucous, or muted. It’s a notably diverse group of works on paper, paintings, and collages by such luminaries as Josef Albers, Jack Bush, Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Larry Poons, Susan Roth, Kurt Schwitters, and Frank Stella, among others. The gallery has been doing interesting thematic shows for some time—everything from works of art given by artists to their friends and colleagues to prints by painters who devoted a good deal of time to exploring other media. This exhibition takes as its point of departure a poem written by then twelve-year-old Zoe Kusyk, a student in Charlottesville, Virginia, a 2016 winner of “Writer’s Eye,” an annual competition held by the Fralin Museum of the University of Virginia that “challenges writers of all ages to create original works of poetry and prose inspired by works of art on display in the Museum.” Ms. Kusyk’s winning poem, titled “Colors,” was a response to a 1977 painting by Larry Poons, a cascade of liquid hues pulled by gravity into parallel but active rivulets, now remaining distinct, now mingling.