In The Shape of Shape, Amy Sillman—an artist who has helped redefine contemporary painting, pushing the medium into drawing, installations, video, and zines—has created a revelatory Artist’s Choice installation drawn from the Museum’s collection. “Even though shape is everywhere,” she reflected, “we don’t talk about it much; it’s not a hot topic in art, like color or systems. So I decided to look for works in MoMA’s collection in which shape does prevail over other considerations…. Often eccentric, poetic, or intimate, these works are like bodies that speak, operating at the hub of language and matter, signs and sensations.” The Shape of Shape features works that span vastly different time periods, places, and mediums, many rarely seen. Here, Sillman presents a highly personal exploration of shape—the ever-shifting boundaries that define what and how we see—in modern art.
The Shape of Shape is the 14th installment of MoMA’s Artist’s Choice series, in which a contemporary artist organizes an installation drawn from the Museum’s collection. Recent participants in the series, which was inaugurated in 1989, include Peter Fischli (2018), David Hammons (2017), Trisha Donnelly (2012), and the architects Herzog & de Meuron (2006).
October 21, 2019
