Off the Grid

The grid—a geometric form of intersecting vertical and horizontal lines—has for more than fifty years been recognized for its iconic presence in twentieth-century art. This exhibition surveys the High’s diverse collecting areas, offering unprecedented juxtapositions of works by artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds and artistic practices, unified conceptually by their engagement with grids.

Art critics such as Rosalind Krauss and Jonathan Elderfield began writing about the prominence of grids in the 1970s, referencing the ubiquity of the form in the work of artists such as Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Ad Reinhardt, and Frank Stella. This exhibition highlights works on paper in the collection by those artists, presenting them alongside artists from across the collection who also played “off” notions of the grid over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, including quilters such as Agatha Bennett, photographers such as Harry Callahan and multimedia artists such as Howardena Pindell.

Off the Grid not only confirms the grid as a dominant force in twentieth-century art but also expands this notion beyond canonical Minimalist and abstract artists to include a more diverse group of artists working in a wide array of media.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website