Color Meets Conceptualism in MoMA’s Upcoming Polychromatic Exhibit

When you think of the Museum of Modern Art, walking on the art is probably not the first thing that springs to mind—but that’s precisely what you can do at the upcoming exhibit “Color Chart.” Featuring work from 40 contemporary artists, the exhibit includes a Jim Lambie installation, which consists of a huge amount of colored tape covering the entire front entrance to the museum.

“Color Chart” officially opens on March 2, but the works of Lambie and others are in various stages of installment, and a trip down to MoMA in the next few days means witnessing art—if you choose to call it that—in the making.

The Lambie installation in the entryway to the museum is eye-catching, due to its bright colors and parallel lines, and appealing on the most basic level. At first glance, it appears as if the floor has been covered with a huge, colorful carpet. But upon closer inspection, when the materials are discovered and the tedium of their application is realized, the artwork gains a new level of interest.

The strong lines and borders of Lambie’s work echo another artist featured in the “Color Chart” exhibit, a man who has a painting hanging not too far away from the lobby—Frank Stella, whom the repeated shapes and patterns undoubtedly reference. Yet Lambie manages to transcend Stella’s influences by transposing his work onto the floor and under our feet.

The reaction of MoMA visitors on Thursday afternoon was mixed. Elyse Newbert, visiting from Toronto, said the piece reminded her of colorful Sol LeWitt wall drawings moved from the wall to the floor. Indeed, the colors selected by Lambie strongly echo the vibrant, saturated colors often employed by LeWitt. Lambie also follows in LeWitt’s tradition of conceptualism, wherein the artist is fairly detached from the artwork. This explains why the men who will be hard at work over the next several days—dragging rolls of tape across the floor and meticulously lining them up in an pattern almost too perfect to have been made by humans—are not Lambie himself.

Newbert also marveled at the technical work going into the installation, wondering how the installers managed to curve the tape in certain places. Eva Gal and her daughter Anna, visiting together from Sweden for the week, also wondered at the logistics. They watched for an hour or so as the men continued the slow process, and reported that in that time, the girth of the pattern had only increased by two rows of tape.

The piece is so disconnected from the artist that its appearance in a museum was met with some confusion. Some onlookers, indifferent, took no notice of the floor decoration, merely traipsing over it on their way back out into the cold winter day.