modern times is a new series of exhibitions at kettle's yard, cambridge, they have invited creative people to trace pathways through the 20th and 21st centuries. exhibition by exhibition, the series will build an informal, accumulative history of the art of our times. ‘responding to chaos’ reflects the predicament of artists addressing a period marked by totalitarian regimes, world wars, the threat of nuclear or climatic extinction, and accelerating technological and social change. theirs is a distinctly urban art, largely uninvolved in the contemplation of nature. as the novelist malcolm bradbury has observed: ‘modernism is our art; it is the one art that responds to the scenario of our chaos.’ lutz becker explores the urge towards abstraction and its ongoing dialogue with figuration, and the conversation between the geometric and the gestural.
while being presented non-chronologically – to explore links across time and geography – the exhibition runs the gamut from italian futurism and russian constructivism via abstract expressionism to minimalism and conceptualism. It includes work by well known artists such as boccioni, malevich, mondrian, grosz, klee, pollock, de kooning, giacometti, bourgeois, beuys, serra, judd and twombly, as well as artists sidelined in the mainstream of art history.
16 January - 14 March 2010
