It’s officially that part of winter where we start to crave color. The Currier is here for you with a March full of color.
Up first is the new exhibition Spray: Jules Olitski in the 1960s, which opens to members on March 5 and to the public on March 7. To say that artist Jules Olitski was obsessed with color is an understatement. Olitski sought new ways to depict the possibilities of color – its textures, its saturation, its light. Spray puts you right at the heart of this luminous journey. You will see a modern master – one of the pioneering founders of the Color Field movement – innovate with materials and mediums, from pastels to sculpture, getting closer to realizing his vision.
One day, Olitski wandered into a Vermont hardware store and purchased an industrial spray gun. Finally, with this unlikely tool, he could communicate some essential truth about color, render it as something atmospheric and pulsing with life. The exhibition offers this experience of awe to visitors. You don’t need to understand anything about modern art to appreciate it; you just need to slow down, look, and let the colors unfold before your eyes. It might even remind you of your own journey with color. That early giddiness of a new 64-pack of crayons, making your own waxy mark on a fresh sheet of paper.
If Spray is an invitation to experience color in new ways, Bloom: A Floral Palette is a celebration of the colors all around us. It’s a new signature event at the Currier, bringing people together by telling stories with flowers and art from March 12 through 15. Join us in reclaiming mud season as a season of blooms and color.
Members of the New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs chose works from the Currier collection to inspire their own works of art: custom floral designs. Whether it’s your first visit to the Currier (welcome!) or your 100th (welcome back!), seeing floral arrangements in conversation with museum masterpieces will unlock rich connections and prompt deeper looking. In this ecosystem of inspiration, you will notice colors, textures, and shapes – the many ways a composition comes to life.
Then, keep exploring. Participate in artmaking rooted in nature. Keep learning on unique tours and in a lecture in the auditorium. Put on your favorite floral fashions and sip botanical cocktails at the Bloom Bash!
From bright flowers to bold Sprays, color tells a human story that reaches beyond language. This March, let the Currier be your antidote to gray. No matter the season, art is here – for you, for me, for all of us.
Spray: Jules Olitski in the 1960s opens with a ticketed reception on March 5. This exhibition is generously supported by Dr. Emily Leff, with additional support by The Wolf Kahn Foundation, and the Currier’s Susan E. Strickler Exhibition Fund in partnership with the Jules Olitski Art Foundation.
Bloom: A Floral Palette is a ticketed event from March 12 through 15 sponsored by Bank of America with additional support provided by Shaheen & Gordon, Patricia Wentworth & Mark Fagan, and RiverWoods Manchester.
Purchase a weekend pass to Bloom at Currier.org for the best value and make the most of every colorful moment.
Ali Goldstein is a writer who first fell in love with art museums on a French class field trip to see a Degas exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Today, she is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Currier Museum of Art, where she helps others take their first step into the arts. She can be reached at agoldstein@currier.org.