Ellsworth Kelly, “Blue Curves,” oil on canvas, 2009 (photo courtesy Mnuchin gallery)
Matthew Marks Gallery, 502 West 22nd St., 522 West 22nd St., 523 West 24th St., through June 29
Mnuchin Gallery, 45 East 78th St., through June 8
Museum of Modern Art, through September 8
On May 31, one-of-a-kind artist Ellsworth Kelly turned ninety as his home state of New York honored him with a series of wonderful exhibits across the city. The thoughtfully curated shows celebrate Kelly’s unique perspective on line, form, and color, giving his hard-edge paintings and sculptures room to breathe and allowing visitors to experience their many simple pleasures. At Mnuchin Gallery on the Upper East Side, “Singular Forms 1966-2009” (extended through June 8) features the former WWII Ghost Army soldier’s first shaped canvas, 1966’s “Yellow Piece,” which has a playfulness to it that is hard not to smile at. But even more enjoyable is the smart placement of the 2009 oil painting “Blue Curves,” which greets visitors as they enter Mnuchin, the “B”-like canvas immediately visible through an opening and hanging on a wall between two doors; unsurprisingly, the show was curated by Kelly himself. The nine works at Mnuchin also include the weathered steel totem “Curve XI,” the painted aluminum “Red Panel,” and the oil-on-linen “Green Panel,” an engaging group of works that cover five decades.
Ellsworth Kelly’s “Chatham Series” is back together for the first time since 1972 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
At MoMA, “Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series” (through September 8) comprises the artist’s first suite of paintings following his 1970 move from New York City to upstate Spencertown, where he is still based. The exhibit brings together all fourteen canvases, each of which consists of two panels in different colors and slightly different sizes, forming an inverted “L.” Laid out across rooms that allow each piece its own wall, the show exemplifies the very essence of Kelly’s oeuvre, as form and color combine in substantive ways without feeling repetitive or boring. Around the corner from “Chatham Series” is “Ellsworth Kelly: Line Form Color,” a collection of forty works on paper Kelly produced in Paris in 1951 that serve as a kind of primer to the artistic vocabulary he would expand upon over the years.
Ellsworth Kelly, “Curves on White (Four Panels),” oil on canvas, four paintings, each composed of two joined panels, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Matthew Marks dedicates all three of its Chelsea spaces to “Ellsworth Kelly at Ninety” (through June 29), focusing on works created in the last two years. The highlight is 2011’s spectacular “Curves on White (Four Panels)” (at 523 West 24th St.), a dazzling quartet that can be seen at the end of a long hallway, evoking geometric Matisse cutouts in red, blue, yellow, and green on white backgrounds; one can spend hours drinking in its glory. Also on view are “White Relief over Black,” which plays with negative space; “Two Curves,” in both black and white; “Black Form II,” which approximates the shape of a goofy letter “C”; and the Donald Judd–like “Four Panels,” which can be deceptive. At all of these shows, there’s no clutter or excess anywhere — not in the works themselves, not in the way they’re displayed, not even in their titles, which get right to the point, leaving the rest up to the viewer. Matthew Marks’ space at 502 West 22nd St. provides a fitting finale, as “Gold with Orange Reliefs” resides there by itself, a gold canvas — the first time Kelly has used a metallic color — joined by a pair of orange wood reliefs that resemble open quotation marks, as if Kelly is telling us he still has plenty more to say and do.