Walter De Maria: Trilogies
September 16, 2011– January 8, 2012
Organized by the artist and Menil director Josef Helfenstein, Walter De Maria: Trilogies is the artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United States. The exhibition includes three series of related works: one painting series and two sculpture series, each comprised of three parts.
The Statement Series, which occupies the museum foyer, consists of three large horizontal, monochrome paintings: Red Painting, Yellow Painting, and Blue Painting. These large paintings (14’ x 20’) create a unified, site-specific installation. In addition to acting as a dramatic spatial ensemble, each painting has a prominent rectangular plate of polished stainless steel at its center that is engraved with a singular statement. The Yellow Painting, originally titled The Color Men Choose When They Attack the Earth (1968), is part of the museum’s permanent collection. Conparable in their large scale, Red Painting and Blue Painting (both 2011) were created for especially for this exhibition.
The exhibition continues in the museum’s vast west gallery. First on view is the Channel Series: Circle, Square, Triangle (1972), a trilogy that resides in the Menil’s permanent collection. The basic geometric shapes in this series are outlined by lengths of metal with squared sides, forming a U-shaped channel. Each channel contains a solid stainless steel sphere equal in width to the passageway. The spheres may be moved to different locations inside the channels at varying times, introducing an element of randomness