In honor of Robert Rosenblum (1927–2006), former Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Henry Ittleson, Jr., Professor of Modern European Art at New York University, the Guggenheim is honored to host Irene V. Small, who will present “On the Side of Composition,” as the 11th Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture.

This virtual lecture concerns the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s concept of the “organic line”—an interval of space between entities such as a painting and its frame—and investigates this line’s character as neither made nor unmade but instead as not made. How does this quality implicate the gesture of the mark that undergirds artistic practice at its most elemental level, as well as various efforts to reimagine or resist this gesture in modernist art? Through an analysis of Clark’s organic line, the talk will also consider the compositional and anti-compositional strategies of such artists as Ellsworth Kelly, John Cage, and Julius Eastman.

The program will be made available for virtual screening for 24 hours only, beginning on April 28 at 6:30 pm. Registration is required to receive a link for viewing.