CHRYSSA

First Major Survey Of Artwork By Chryssa In North America Since 1982 At The Menil Collection

BY SABRINA BERNHARD

This fall The Menil Collection presents a captivating exhibition featuring the remarkable works of Chryssa. For far too long, this Greek-born artist has remained under-recognized despite her groundbreaking use of signage, text, and neon, effectively bridging the realms of Pop, Conceptual, and Minimalist art.

Titled Chryssa & New York , this exhibition marks a significant moment as it is the first major showcase of the artist’s work in the United States since 1982. Delving into Chryssa’s artistic journey during her time in New York from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the exhibition presents a splendid array of her creations, featuring major loans from esteemed American and European museums and collections.

Following its premiere at Dia Chelsea in New York in early spring, the exhibition “Chryssa & New York” graced Houston with its grand opening at the Menil Collection in September 2023. This highly anticipated exhibition is a celebration of art, innovation, and the enduring impact of an artist who dared to push the boundaries of her craft.

“Though celebrated in her time, Chryssa’s work is now rarely seen. The art on view will represent her prescient use of neon and industrial processes in sculpture and demonstrate some of her key concerns: abstraction, language, and technical innovation,” said Jessica Morgan, Dia’s Nathalie De Gunzburg Director. “I am delighted that Dia and the Menil Collection, institutions with a rich history of collaboration, are mounting this important exhibition for audiences across the United States.”

“Dia Art Foundation and the Menil Collection are connected through the patronage of the de Menil family,” said Rebecca Rabinow, Director, the Menil Collection. “The institutions share a commitment to artists whose work emerged in the 1960s and ’70s and have partnered on exhibitions of work by Joseph Beuys, Brice Marden, and Blinky Palermo. We are proud to now turn our joint focus to Chryssa’s work.”

Chryssa & New York brings together the artist’s deeply formal concerns with her critical interest in exploring post–World War II America. At the centerpiece of the exhibition is the large-scale work The Gates to Times Square (1964–66), considered Chryssa’s magnum opus. Restored for this presentation in partnership with the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which owns the work, this towering interplay of neon, plexiglass, and metal pays homage to the signage and dazzling lights of New York’s most famous intersection. Displayed alongside The Gates will be works detailing Chryssa’s process in realizing this monumental sculpture, including transitional pieces combining metal and neon.

Other key early works include the enigmatic Cycladic Books (1954–57), a series of plaster and clay reliefs that highlight her interest in the interplay of light and shadow. This series nods to both commercial culture and ancient Mediterranean art. Additional reliefs in plaster and metal also deftly capture the phenomenon of shifting natural light. Experimenting with different formal approaches, Chryssa explored typography from a variety of angles and made work using the newspaper printing plates and discarded signs and metal fragments she found in her frequent visits to Times Square.

“ Chryssa & New York assembles major works from nearly a dozen museum collections within the United States, demonstrating that, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, American institutions collected her work in depth,” said Megan Holly Witko, External Curator, Dia. “Because few of these pieces have been exhibited in recent years, this project has been realized through collaboration with numerous lenders to conserve and treat these fragile works, allowing them to be seen, once again, by the public.”

“Chryssa was a leader within avant-garde circles while she lived in New York,” said Michelle White, Senior Curator, the Menil Collection. “Her fascination with the sparkling and text-filled urban space of Times Square led to work that not only addresses but also radically deploys the phenomena of this commercial environment. It therefore constitutes some of the earliest art that critically incorporated these then-new material forms of communication.”

Chryssa & New York is co-organized by The Menil Collection, Houston, and Dia Art Foundation, New York. The exhibition is co-curated by Michelle White, Senior Curator, the Menil Collection, and Megan Holly Witko, External Curator, Dia Art Foundation.

For more info visit: www. menil.org

Chryssa, Times Square Sky , 1962. Aluminum, steel, and neon, 60 × 60 × 9 1/2 in. Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Gift of T.B. Walker Foundation. © The Estate of Chryssa, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens R i g h t p a g e : Chryssa, The Automat, 1971. Neon and plaster, 37 × 29 × 6 3/4 in. Abrams Family Collection. © The Estate of Chryssa, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens.

THREE NEW EXHIBITIONS DRAWN FROM MFAH COLLECTIONS OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEMES

BY SABRINA BERNHARD

This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, proudly presents the second suite of thematic exhibitions for the Kinder Building, showcasing modern and contemporary art from their collections. Titled Contested Landscapes, Hidden Histories, and Love Languages, these diverse exhibitions grace the third floor of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, which opened in November 2020. The art forms on display range from painting, sculpture, photography, prints, and drawings to decorative arts, craft, and design. Delving into profound environmental, social, and political themes, these exhibitions offer a captivating exploration of the exceptional collections.

Gary Tinterow, Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the MFAH, said “When the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building opened in November 2020, we considered it a triumph – not only for completing the Fayez S. Sarofim campus during the pandemic but for allowing us to showcase for our public, for the first time, the incredible depth of our modern and contemporary collections. With just over one million visits to our campuses this past fiscal year, our community appears to agree. I am very pleased to announce this next series of installations in the Kinder Building, which highlight the strength of our modern and contemporary holdings, the fastest-growing segment of our collection.”

Contested Landscapes

Contested Landscapes brings together a selection of contemporary artworks that reexamine the traditional genre of landscape through an ecological lens. By using diverse materials and innovative techniques, the featured artists, including Teresita Fernández, Richard Long, Radcliffe Bailey, Edward Burtynsky, Kent Dorn, Harry Geffert, Soledad Salamé, Jennifer Trask, Zana Briski, Studio DRIFT, and Dawoud Bey, reshape representations of geography, topography, and the environment to critically examine humans’ interaction with the natural world. In their works, landscapes become contested sites of power, acting as indices of larger cultural concerns, movements, and residual traumas, specifically as issues such as climate change and environmental justice stem from the social, political, and economic motivations of establishing control over geographic territories. Through September 8, 2024. Organized by Rachel Mohl, Assistant Curator, Latin American Art.

Hidden Histories

Hidden Histories explores the notion of anti-monuments through the work of several generations of artists from Europe, the United States, Asia, Africa, and Latin America who use innovative artistic practices to memorialize aspects of the lives of ordinary citizens or places that have been ignored, sidelined, or deliberately obscured by official accounts.

Unlike traditional monuments, these works do not rely on fixed narratives, celebratory gestures, or grandiose materials. Instead, they employ a variety of unconventional means and strategies aimed at encouraging viewers to think critically about the past and its relevance for the present and future. Featured artists include Allora & Calzadilla, Michael Armitage, Paul Briggs, Jamal Cyrus, Gilbert and George, Zhang Huan, Tom Huck, Kahlil Joseph, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, Oscar Muñoz, Vincent Valdez and Adriana Corral, Kukuli Velarde, and Marie Watt. Through September 27, 2025. Exhibition organized by Alison de Lima Greene, Isabel Brown Wilson Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Mari Carmen Ramirez, Curator, Latin American Art.

Love Languages

Love Languages considers how artmaking itself is a type of love language, exploring conceptual concerns and narratives beyond reductive perspectives that center eros as the ultimate form of attachment. Works by artists including Dawoud Bey, Francesco Clemente, Nicole Eisenman, Louis Fratino, Ron Nagle, Anna Park, Joyce J. Scott, and Billie Zangewa are brought together to engage the question, “How do we prioritize tenderness against debilitating social conditions?” Through September 27, 2025. Organized by Anita N. Bateman, Associate Curator, Modern & Contemporary Art.

Ron Nagle, The Puddle of Love from the series Snuff Bottles, 2003, porcelain, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection. © Ron Nagle