Outside Lines: Selections from AEIVA's Permanent Collection

September 13 – December 7, 2024

Outside Lines explores the dynamic relationship between color and line in works from AEIVA’s permanent collection ranging from the 1950s to the present. In dialogue with ideas explored in concurrent exhibitions by Manjari Sharma and Odili Donald Odita around how color, even in abstract form, can carry social and political significance, Outside Lines brings together works in which color takes on a primary role in shaping meaning and narrative.

As David Batchelor argues in his book, Chromophobia, throughout art history, color has been considered subordinate to line, relegated to the realm of the superficial or inessential, often through associations with femininity, foreignness, queerness, infantilism, or pathology. But from roughly the middle of the 20th century to the present, there’s been a shift — color is now embraced and celebrated in art. Outside Lines explores how artists’ use of color in this period reflects broader shifts in society and technology and in visual and material culture more generally. It challenges the supremacy of line and likeness, and celebrates color’s associations with the everyday, from popular culture and mass media to femininity and kitsch.

Artists included are Joseph Albers, Willie Cole, William Cushner, Tomory Dodge, Howard Finster, Sam Gilliam, Peter Halley, Pamela Jorden, Sharon Louden, Sally Mann, Jiha Moon, Odili Donald Odita, Sheila Mae Pinkel, Letitia Quesenberry, Sonja Rieger, Bob Thompson and Juan Uslé.

Outside Lines is one of a series of exhibitions highlighting works from AEIVA’s permanent collection and past exhibitions in commemoration of AEIVA’s 10th anniversary year.

Cover image: Peter Halley, Core, 1991. Silkscreen with lithography on Coventry Rag paper. Collection of the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, UAB.