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"Alex Katz: Theater and Dance" A comprehensive museum presentation of Katzʼs work with the performing arts
New exhibition demonstrates how the central qualities of Katzʼs art have been reflected across dance and theater productions
Dates: August 21, 2025 – January 4, 2026
(San Diego, June 25, 2025)— The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is pleased to present its newest exhibition Alex Katz: Theater and Dance. This exhibition is the first comprehensive exploration of Katz’s playful and inventive collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and members of avant-garde theater ensembles over six decades. The touring exhibition showcases nearly 90 rare archival materials, major sets and paintings, and previously unexhibited sketches from more than two dozen productions. In addition to presenting a range of works by innovators across the performing arts and poetry, it spotlights sixteen productions that Katz produced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, exploring the creative partnership that produced some of the most significant postmodern dance of the twentieth century. It reveals how Katz’s singular creative sensibility lies in his spirited, iterative approach to theater and dance design and in fascinating crossovers between the artist’s studio and the stage.
Alex Katz is a New York based painter and printmaker, specializing in boldly simplified portraits and landscapes. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally. He is widely regarded for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and heightened colors are considered to be precursors to Pop Art.
The exhibition, presented in collaboration with the American Federation of Arts, was organized by the Colby College Museum of Art. Artworks from the show are drawn from their comprehensive Alex Katz holdings, which is home to a collection of nearly 900 works by the artist. These are complemented by unpublished, never before exhibited sketches from the artist's collection, major sets and paintings, and rare archival materials from the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Other key loans attest to the intertwined histories of painting and production design in Katzʼs career. This broad range of material, together with the insights of many Katz collaborators past and present, provides an innovative kind of retrospective: that of an artistic sensibility.
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance debuted in Fall 2024 at Artis–Naples, The Baker Museum in Naples, FL. The show traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA, before arriving in San Diego.
“By including a historical range of paintings and rarely seen sketches and support material, this exhibition provides visitors a view into the creative ferment of one of America’s most lauded painters. From a 1964 monochromatic backdrop to the high-keyed color in his recent series, Dancers, the exhibition reveals how Alex Katz continued to find inspiration and energy in the words of poetry and the movement of dance.” –Kathryn Kanjo, Director & CEO, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance offers an unparalleled opportunity to experience Katzʼs designs and creative processes. It demonstrates how the central qualities of Katzʼs art—his radical sense of scale and cropping, his unrivaled study of light and color, his eccentric imagination and sense of humor—have taken shape and been reflected across two dozen or more dance and theater productions in New York and beyond.
“I’d never seen anything like it,” Katz recalls of his first encounter with the work of dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor, whom he first painted in 1959, “Paul was the greatest dancer on the planet.”
The exhibition is accompanied by an exhibition catalog produced by Rizzoli. Contributors include Charles Reinhart, a champion of modern dance; David Salle, an acclaimed painter, writer, and set designer; and Diana Tuite, a curator of modern and contemporary art. The publication not only yields original scholarship on Katz but also enriches histories of mid-twentieth century theater and dance in its deep research and comparative focus. Entries for each production are supplemented by first-hand accounts of performances by Jennifer Tipton, an award-winning lighting designer and stalwart of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, as well as by Alex Katz himself. Catalogs will be available for sale at The Shop @ MCASD.
Media Opening: Aug 20, 2025 (9:30-11AM) featuring tour and remarks by Kathryn Kanjo, David C. Copley Executive Director and CEO, MCASD and Curator Katharine Wright, Ph.D., American Federation of Arts.
CURATOR
Levi Prombaum is the former Katz Consulting Curator at the Colby College Museum of Art, where he presented Alex Katz: Theater and Dance alongside All in One: Selections from the Alex Katz Foundation Collection. He has recently served as an American Council of Learned Societies Leading Edge Fellow at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and as a Getty Postdoctoral Fellow.
EXHIBITION CREDIT
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance is organized by the American Federation of Arts and Colby College Museum of Art. This exhibition is curated by Levi Prombaum, former Katz Consulting Curator, Colby College Museum of Art. The 2022 presentation of Alex Katz: Theater and Dance was organized by the Colby Museum with curatorial guidance from Robert Storr.
https://www.amfedarts.org/alex-katz-theater-and-dance-2/
ABOUT THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS - The American Federation of Arts is the leader in traveling exhibitions internationally. A nonprofit organization founded in 1909, the AFA is dedicated to enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishing exhibition catalogues featuring important scholarly research, and developing educational programs.
ABOUT MCASD - The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is the region’s foremost forum devoted to the exploration and presentation of the art of today. Open since 1941, we welcome all audiences to reflect on their lives, communities, and the ever-changing world through the powerful prism of contemporary art. We showcase an internationally recognized collection. MCASD’s dynamic exhibition schedule features a vast array of media in an unprecedented variety of spaces, along with a growing dedication to community experiences and public programs. As a cultural hub, MCASD seeks to catalyze conversation in our region. www.mcasd.org
VISIT: MCASD La Jolla, 700 Prospect St, La Jolla, 92037
High-resolution images can be found here. Additional details are available upon request.
Media Inquiries:
Toni Robin, tr@trprsandiego.com, 858.483.3918
Caroline Hale, chale@amfedarts.org
Top: Alex Katz, "Last Look," 1986. Collection of the artist. Photo by Paul Takeuchi. © 2024 Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Courtesy American Federation of Arts.