"The show sports no theme or thesis, has no underlying ordering principle, shares only the most basic criteria for selection and inclusion, offers no statements or biographies of the artists, and presents only brief introductory texts to orient viewers. 50 Paintings is what the title states: a selection of 50 paintings by 50 artists. The show is a disrobing — void of explication and thus devoid of the things museums tend to do. But rather than undermining institutional authority, it seems to clarify the way museums frame experience. The missing context of this show, the curators suggest, sprawls outside its doors throughout the permanent collection. If you want context, go wade in it.
The criteria for the exhibition was defined in the press release as work made in the past five years, either with oil or acrylic, on a rectilinear surface, roughly easel size. The curators said they each made lists of artists, then parsed a selection based on size, availability, and diversity. What might appear free-form, however, is actually tied to the invisible filament of primarily Grabner’s history. She knows or has worked with most of the artists and, like herself, they are primarily mid-career and around her own age (born in the late 1950s through the 1970s)."
