Creativity in motion: How painter Alex Katz partners with performers
Jennifer Wolcott, Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 2023
His depictions of joyful family celebrations and pleasant social gatherings, often rendered in flat forms, vivid colors, and on a large scale, are now iconic.
In fact, his portraits of people mixing and mingling are such trademarks that a current retrospective devoted to the still-prolific painter at New York’s Guggenheim Museum is aptly titled “Alex Katz: Gathering.”
Also widely shown and highly recognizable are his numerous paintings of Ada, his wife of 64 years, as well as his luminous plein-air landscapes, often inspired during summers in Maine.
What has somehow slipped under the radar about Mr. Katz is his close collaborations with performing artists, especially avant-garde theater ensembles, choreographers, and dancers, most notably the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
But Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, is changing that with an exhibition focused on this aspect of Katz’s illustrious career, celebrating not only his painting talent, but also his inventiveness as a designer of stage sets and costumes.
“Alex Katz: Theater and Dance,” on display through Feb. 19, is the first comprehensive museum exhibition of his highly collaborative, exuberant, and playful work with performing artists. It features a mix of mediums and materials, showcasing his explorations of dance and choreography in paint, but also with some never-before-seen sketches, collages, photographs, film, and “cutouts” – two-dimensional sculptures that informed his stage sets.