exhibitions
Neo-Abstraction: Celebrating a Gift of Contemporary Art from John and Sara Shlesinger July 17 – December 5, 2021
At the end of 2019, John and Sara Shlesinger donated 110 works of global contemporary art from their personal collection to the Georgia Museum of Art, transforming the museum’s ability to teach and exhibit cutting-edge art of the past 25 years.
This exhibition celebrates their gift by showcasing a selection of works by emerging and established artists from it. “Neo-Abstraction” highlights the resurgence of abstract art among contemporary artists, including an early spin painting by Damien Hirst and a photographic abstraction by Walead Beshty. Their works vary in method. Some em- ploy traditional forms of painterly abstraction. Others use technology to remove bodily gesture from the equation. Still others investigate the
boundary between the representational and the abstract. But, for each artist, abstraction offers a way to make visible materiality, process, expression and chance. As a result, their works bring us as viewers back to a real, physical and emotional encounter with the objecthood of our world.
Curators: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art
Damien Hirst (English, b. 1965), “Beautiful primary, childish, pale blue, sneezing pepper painting (w/ explosive intent),” 1998. Gloss household paint on canvas, 60 inches (diameter). Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; The John and Sara Shlesinger Collection. GMOA 2019.416.
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