Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective March 19, 2007

Sam Gilliam's 'A Retrospective' highlights the evolution of Sam's work through approximately 40 works from 1967 to the present. In 1968, Gilliam revolutionized painting by discarding the wooden stretchers that had always determined a painting's shape to instead drape and suspend his rich, lyrical, color-stained canvases from the floor and ceiling. While not the first to abandon the traditional stretcher, his reconfiguration of canvas and paint into a three-dimensional installation was a precursor to the blurring of boundaries between painting, sculpture and space that characterized much of the art of the 1970s. 'A Retrospective' includes his revolutionary draped paintings as well as his 40 years of innovative uses of space, color and light in complex multimedia work ranging from conventionally-shaped paintings with beveled edges to multi-dimensional installations and sculpture.