Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly: Currency
29 January 2004 - 6 March 2004
This exhibition juxtaposed Ellsworth Kelly’s most recent suite of lithographs [published in 2001 by Gemini G.E.L] and currency forms from West Africa dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, their authors unknown.
Though ostensibly pure abstractions, all Kelly’s works have a basis in reality, stemming from his unique observations of the material world we each inhabit; he notes the shape of a shadow in a doorway, or beneath an open trap door, or the curve of a snowy hill and these simple forms find their way into his works.
The metal African currency forms – once objects with a real symbolic, ritual purpose but reinterpreted in present times as sculptural objects – echoed the lines and forms of Kelly’s prints beautifully.