Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Artworks from the show are drawn from the comprehensive Alex Katz holdings at the Colby College Museum of Art, home to a collection of nearly 900 works by the artist, and complemented by unpublished, never before exhibited sketches from the artistʼs collection, major sets and paintings, and rare archival materials from Paul Taylor Dance Company, among other key loans attesting 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 offers an unparalleled opportunity to experience Katzʼs designs and creative process. 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.

The exhibition is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue produced by Rizzoli on the occasion of the presentation of Alex Katz: Theater and Dance at the Colby College Museum of Art. The publication not only yields original scholarship on Katz, but enriches histories of mid-twentieth century theater and dance in its deep research and comparative focus. Contributors include Charles Reinhart, a champion of modern dance, who writes about the textures of the Paul Taylor-Alex Katz creative partnership; David Salle, an acclaimed painter, writer, and set designer, who discusses the image and communication-focused design strategies that Katz adopted in distinction to his dance and theater design contemporaries; and Diana Tuite, a curator of modern and contemporary art who provides original research and indispensable context for Katzʼs varied engagements with theatrical productions. Entries for each production are supplemented by first-hand accounts of performances by Jennifer Tipton, an award-winning lighting designer and a stalwart of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, as well as by Alex Katz himself. The American Federation of Arts will produce an exhibition brochure featuring an essay by Levi Prombaum and the exhibition checklist, alongside select illustrations. This brochure will be free to visitors at each venue.