The Speed Art Museum opens Inside|Out, an exhibition on view April 21 – September 23.
Deborah Butterfield (American, born 1949), Danuta, 2008. Bronze, Museum Purchase. Photo courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.
Inside|Out is an exhibition illustrating how art and nature will connect at the “New” Speed when the Museum reopens after its unprecedented $50 million renovation and expansion project. Several new acquisitions premier in Inside|Out, including two bronze horses by artist Deborah Butterfield. Also on view are never before seen large-scale works by Richard Serra and Roy Lichtenstein.
Inside|Out is organized into three themes, each of which occupies a separate gallery. The first gallery features a focus exhibition on the well-known American artist Deborah Butterfield. The centerpiece of this installation is the pair of bronze horses, Danuta and Burnt Pine that are being acquired by the Museum. Having now achieved iconic status in the art world, Butterfield’s profoundly beautiful horse sculptures are in the collections of the America’s most important museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In the second gallery visitors encounter a space dedicated to the new Elizabeth P. and Frederick K. Cressman Art Park and Cressman Piazza. Old favorites from the collection like Mark di Suvero’s Pollock’s Indians (1976), Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure: Angles (1979) and Juan Muñoz’s Piggy-Back (1997) are included, as will images of several sculptures that the Museum has recently acquired but not yet received.
Foremost among these new works are Jeppe Hein’s Modified Social Bench C (2008) and Mark Handforth’s enormous Silver Wishbone (2010). Silver Wishbone is an impressive 29-feet-long and was the centerpiece of the exhibition the artist’s retrospective exhibition Mark Handforth: Rolling Stop on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, during the 2011 Miami Basel Art Fair. Modified Social Bench C is an interactive piece, where the viewer climbs over or under the rail to sit on the artwork. Visitors will be able to envision these great sculptures within the context of the landscape design though large photos and a giant landscape plan that covers the entire floor of the gallery.
The third and final gallery in Inside|Out brings the theme indoors with a look at interior sculptures and prints made by sculptors. Among the works on view are two new, large-scale acquisitions: Roy Lichtenstein’s Wallpaper with Blue Floor Interior (1992) and Richard Serra’s Double Transversal (2004). This gallery will also feature loans of artworks by Tony Cragg, Jim Dine, Martin Puryear, Joel Shapiro, and Kiki Smith from a Louisville private collection.
This exhibition has been made possible by the generous support of the Rev. Alfred R. Shands III, Mrs. Owsley Brown II, Mr. Todd P. Lowe and Mrs. Fran C. Ratterman, and Mr. and Mrs. Brook Smith.
The exhibition is included with Museum general admission.
Speed Art Museum
2035 South Third Street Louisville, Kentucky 40208
502.634.2700
speedmuseum.org