Kevin Appel

XL: Large-Scale Paintings from the Permanent Collection

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Vassar College

30 January - 29 March 2015

The ever-expanding measurments of paintings has been a topic of interest since the mid-twentieth century when New York School painters first pushed the boundaries of museum walls to ehir limits.  In 1947, at the height of the Abstract Expressionist era, the Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibition called Large-Scale Modern Paintings; to qualify for inclusion, paintings had to measure at least six feet in one direction.  Today, a similar set of criteria has been applied to the Art Center's permanent collection to arrive at a group of monumental paintings that are at once impressive and daunting.  These larger-thank-life canvases invite an extraordinary visual experience in which the viewer is immersed in the field of painting.  XL, which includes work by Kevin Appel, Roger Brown, Nancy Graves, Joyce Kozloff, Alfred Leslie, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Jules Olitski, is a testament to the enduring visual power of mural-sized painting.

http://fllac.vassar.edu/exhibitions/2015/xl-large-scale.html