Space Is The Place

"Space" is one of those words that doesn't really mean anything. It's a concept that can't really be put into a concise term. You can't define space as boundary-less, because my half-empty Dr Pepper can has space in it. But then you have outer space, which is theoretically limitless. It's complicated. My head hurts. Luckily, smarter folks than me have tackled the issue and have spawned theories of physics, objects of architecture and pieces of art. A new consideration and application of "space" blossomed in the mid-20th century, as the art of the period began to experiment with using canvas, sculpture, photography and more to highlight the interplay of space and color, space and shadow, and space and geometry. Artists such as Mark Rothko, whose works are now catching up with Gustav Klimt in college-dorm pervasiveness, used space as a stage to create a visual suggestion of boundary or infinity. The slashed canvases of Lucio Fontana's pieces focus on what could be beyond the horizon. The abstractions in Barnett Newman's pieces suggest zippers that link different fields, and Yves Klein used monochromatic pieces to great effect as a means to consider the threshold between the finite and the infinite. Like I said—way smarter than me. Explore space and appreciate its physical properties (or lack of physical properties if you're a cup-half-empty kind of person) in the Declaring Space exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St., running Sunday through December 30. The exhibit features works from Rothko, Fontana, Newman and Klein and is included in general admission. For information on the exhibit, or for admission pricing and museum membership, visit themodern.org.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Sept. 30. Continues through Dec. 30, 2007