Leslie Ovalle/Staff Writer
The University’s Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum will host a New York University Modern Art professor for its Green Critic’s lecture series.
Kenneth Silver, adjunct curator of art at the Bruce Museum, will be speaking and inaugurating the museum’s latest exhibition, “Walls of Color: The Murals of Hans Hofmann”.
Silver will be speaking about Hans Hofmann, a German-born American abstractionist painter and scholar, according to the museum’s website ,
“The unique thing about this exhibition is that it showcases something [Hofmann] is not very well known for, which are his murals,” said Klaudio Rodriguez, Frost Museum curator.
Hofmann, who was praised in an essay published in American Heritage Magazine called “The Artist of the Century”, was regarded as a great player in the development of Abstract Expressionism by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In the early 20th Century, Hofmann spent time in Paris, where he immersed himself in the art scene and met artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Georges Barque.
One of his works, located on the exterior of the High School of Graphic Arts Communication, is a tall mosaic, which Hofmann referred to as “the bowtie of the building”.
“He uses a great dynamic approach to color,” said Dina Mendez, a senior majoring in communication arts and a volunteer at the Frost.
Hofmann’s emphasis on color is also present in one of his most famous quotes: “the whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.”
One of his most famous theories is called “Push and Pull,” which according to PBS is shown in how he used shapes and colors to create the feeling of not only space, but of movement. This theory’s objective is to create the illusion that the composition is “breathing.”
The exhibition will showcase tall, framed works. It also features pieces from SilverHofmann’s collaboration mural project with Architect Jose Luis Sert.
Sert was the designer of the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair in 1937. He worked on this project as a redesign for the Peruvian City of Chimbote.
But the project was never finished.
“I actually invited my family to this event,” said Mendez. “I’m of Peruvian descent so I would like to know why the project in Peru wasn’t finished, and I hope that is a question the curator for that night can answer.”
Rodriguez said Hofmann was one of the masters of modern art and is excited about this “unique” exhibition. These exhibitions aren’t common in Miami and are usually seen in New York and Washington, according to him.
The exhibition will commence with a lecture from Silver on Oct. 10 at the Frost Museum from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
It will be free and open to the public until Jan. 3.
“It’s a treat to have this caliber in the museum for our students and for the public,” said Rodriguez.
leslie.ovalle@fiusm.com
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