Step into the mind of Alex Katz
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego exhibit showcases 60 years of theater sets, costume designs, dance portraits and appreciation for performing arts.
Written by Brittany Cruz-Fejeran, Edited by Lauren J. Mapp
Resting on a white platform on the floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego are two white dogs with large black spots painted on aluminum sheets.
The two-dimensional painted sculptures were a part of a pack of 35 scattered on stage during choreographer Paul Taylor’s “Diggity,” a ballet where dancers skillfully weaved between them. Now retired from future performances, the dogs represent the production's legacy at the Alex Katz: Theater and Dance exhibition, which will be on display at the MCASD through January.
The exhibition is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Colby College Museum of Art, and curated by Levi Prombaum, former Katz Consulting Curator at the museum. The collection — which started at the college with more than 900 pieces — includes 88 works of art unveiling Katz creative process and participation in more than a dozen productions and projects.
Although Katz is most well known in the east coast, he’s no stranger to San Diego.
Walking into the exhibit, attendees are greeted with “Bill 2,” a mural commissioned in 2017 by the La Jolla Community Foundation and originally installed on a 48-foot wide, 15-foot tall billboard on Fay Avenue. The mural includes four consecutive closeup portraits of Bill T. Jones, a postmodern dancer, over a light yellow background on a single canvas.
The second room introduces Katz’s paintings so that those who have never seen his work can familiarize themself with his style, said Amy Crum, MCASD associate curator. It also opens the dialogue about his contributions to stage set design, which dates back to the 1950s.
Most of the set pieces Katz made were in collaboration with choreographer Paul Taylor, whom he’s partnered with for more than 60 years.
In the center of the room is a 9-foot metal frame used in a show called “Polaris,” a set piece dancers moved in and out of.
Looking through the frame, museum guests can view two portraits side-by-side: a printed black and white lithograph and a cutout painted in color. Both are portraits of a man wearing a red beret and military khakis embracing a woman with short brown hair, wearing a midcentury shirtdress.
Katz was inspired by seeing military soldiers and women strolling together along the boardwalks of Spain. He later convinced Taylor to choreograph a scene depicting this in “Sunset,” a dance exploring love and mortality. One critic called the scene, “a deeply moving meditation on war,” according to a panel at MCASD.
Katie J. Wright, a curator with the American Federation of Arts said it's special to have this traveling exhibit of a historically prominent artist who is still alive.
“It's been great to see venues, including San Diego, really spotlight contemporary dancers in their galleries and tap into ways the performing art scene and the visual art scene overlap in their community,” Wright said.
The exhibit spans decades of Katz’s work with theater and dance. Best known for his large-scale painting and portraiture, the exhibit offers a rare dive into his costume and set design. It is also the first collection to highlight Katz’s contributions to the performing arts, Wright said.
“I think what’s interesting is thinking about the ways in which the visual art world of painting and two dimensions can sort of infiltrate and get feedback from the theatrical world and dance world,” Crum said.
Moving deeper into the space, the work transitions to never-before-seen sketches of costume and set designs, illustrating how Katz weaves together every aspect of a production.
Portraits are featured throughout the exhibit, including a dancer series giving a close look at a performance from the dancer’s hands to the slight turn of their head and their hair following movements.
The collection revisits Taylor’s 1984 production “Last Look,” a ballet about an apocalyptic world where everyone has gone mad. Dancers performed the piece for Katz at his studio in 2022 while in costume so he could produce the series.
“This reinforces their creative impact and legacy, reanimating fertile moments of creative collaboration while reimagining their results using new representational techniques,” the description at the museum reads.
The collection at MCASD also includes portraits of other choreographers like Karole Armitage, dancers and friends.
Wright said that with some of these pieces and their inspirations being more than six decades old, many of the people Katz collaborated with have passed on, so the exhibit is a living memorial for them.
“Honoring that with an ambitious show like this has been really rewarding,” she said. “I hope [people] can walk away learning something about this exciting artist and how much he’s still doing, even as a nonagenarian.”
Alex Katz: Theater and Dance is co-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.
