On November 12, Hollis Taggart will open Figure as Form, a group exhibition that explores the ways in which artists, from the post-war era to the present day, have used the human form as a compositional device. Grounded in the 1909 text, 鈥淎n Essay in Aesthetics,鈥 written by British art critic Roger Fry, the presentation highlights the ways in which artists use line, gesture, light, and color to convey emotion and sensation, pushing beyond the creation of naturalistic human likeness to achieve broader imaginative effects. By bringing together works by modernists such as
Romare Bearden,
Richard Pousette-Dart,
William Scharf, and
Idelle Weber with contemporary
artists like Alex Kanevsky,
Joshua Hagler,
Kenichi Hoshine, and
Aubrey Levinthal, the exhibition captures the ongoing relevance of these formal dialogues and considers how formalist interpretations of the body continue to convey narrative and socio-political content and also enhance awareness and engagement with lived experience.