Sam Gilliam in 3-D

October 16, 1998-January 2, 1999

 

"Sam Gilliam should be no stranger to Washingtonians. He is one of the city’s preeminent artists and has been a significant presence here for nearly thirty years. He is also among the nation’s most accomplished abstract painters. Over the decades, he has not wavered in his commitment to a rigorous but exuberant modernist style- even as the various forms of postmodernism have successively seized the attention of the art market. While increasing numbers of contemporary artists have turned to political content or to narratives about race, gender, or sexuality, Gilliam has continued to explore the expressive possibilities of color, pattern, texture, and geometric shape, all the while pushing toward more complex, allusive, even sculptural form."

"This exhibition is akin to a commissioned project, in that it features works made especially for The Kreeger Museum’s sun-lit spaces. As Gilliam’s first solo museum show in Washington since a 1983 installation at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the exhibition enables Washingtonians to glimpse the elaborate forms and adventurous techniques that the artist has mastered in recent years. It features some of the most three-dimensional works of his career to date, including a freestanding sculpture installed on the Museum’s Sculpture Terrace."

-John Beardsley, Guest Curator