Agnes Martin

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

October 7, 2016—January 11, 2017

There couldn’t exist a better environment than Frank Lloyd Wright’s colossal monumental building to honor Agnes Martin’s transformative, meditative body of work. While blanketing Martin’s decade-spanning career in a single exhibition poses a challenge, where is a better venue to take the chance at than The Guggenheim? The Canadian-born artist who passed away in 2004 left behind one of the most impressive bodies of works in painting. Stripped from excessive depiction of the reality, Martin’s paintings find tranquility in the power of colors and lines. 

Agnes Martin, On a Clear Day, 1973

Her powdery pinks, absorbing grays and mesmerizing grids will magnify each rotunda while the visitors climb through the pioneer painter’s stunning body of work. “You think it would be easy to discover what is blinding you, but it isn’t so easy. It’s pride and fear that cover the mind,” said the artist in an interview with ARTnews in 1976, about leaving her bright career in New York to settle to New Mexico in the late ‘60s. Stemming from her subliminal and impulsive hand gestures and contemplative vision, Martin’s serene yet potent paintings stand amongst the epitomes of American Modern art. The exhibition is co-curated by Tracey Bashkoff and Tiffany Bell.