Modern Art From 1980s

April 3, 2009 8:10 PM

I am searching for references and especially pictures of two pieces of modern art. Both were displayed at the same time at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the late 1980s.

The first is called "The Rose" or perhaps "The Rows". It was a large piece of white canvas on a frame with red lines drawn on it and it resembled graph paper.

The second consisted of two large pieces of canvas on frames positioned above and below each other. In the gap between the to canvases was a racquetball that, I believe, was used to create the artwork.

I've searched Google (and its predecessors) many times over the years.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

posted by mshellenberger to media & arts (7 comments total)

The Rose by Agnes Martin. Really faint, but the description matches.
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 8:24 PM on April 3

The first one was almost certainly Agnes Martin. PMA's image of the piece is, sadly, pretty bad though (hard to make out detail).
posted by piratebowling at 8:28 PM on April 3

Damn! Beaten By the companion cube. CUUUUUUUUUBE!
posted by piratebowling at 8:28 PM on April 3

The second one sounds a lot like a Jasper Johns to me, but the closest work I actually know about--Gray Painting With Ball--is somewhat different from your description.
posted by neroli at 9:37 PM on April 3

Could it be this?
posted by crazylegs at 4:05 AM on April 4

Thank you!

The Rose online is difficult to make out until you zoom in quite a bit. But that is the correct image. I completely missed the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collection search. That will be of great use in the future.

And the "Two Balls" that crazylegs found is EXACTLY the right one! I had recalled it as one ball but after seeing it the memory flooded back. How did you find it?

Thank you again to everyone. AsKMeFi never lets me down.
posted by mshellenberger at 10:41 AM on April 4

How did you find it?

I work there. I have my ways.
posted by piratebowling at 1:44 PM on April 4