Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego | La Jolla
700 Prospect Street, La Jolla, California
San Diego Museum of Art
1450 El Prado - Balboa Park, San Diego, California
Timken Museum of Art
1500 El Prado - Balboa Park, San Diego, California

press:
Behold, America! SDMA Exhibit Review by Mark Murphy

On view from November 10, 2012 through February 10, 2013, Behold, America!: Art of the United States from Three San Diego Museums is a groundbreaking collaborative exhibition that brings together the finest American works from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The San Diego Museum of Art, and the Timken Museum of Art.

Bartolomé by Hugo Crosthwaite will be on view at SDMA.
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The exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to view the full sweep of American art history—from colonial to contemporary—as told through the visual art of three San Diego institutions. Internationally known for their permanent collections and scholarly exhibitions, these institutions together provide a three-museum venue for Behold, America!, which will be grouped into three sections, Figures, Forms, and Frontiers, with each venue showing works from all three collections.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego exhibits Frontiers, emphasizing landscape painting by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Georgia O’Keefe and including important installations by artists like Vito Acconci, Ann Hamilton, and Robert Irwin. This portion of Behold, America! opens early on September 16, giving visitors an opportunity to get a preview of the exhibition.

At The San Diego Museum of Art, early American portraiture by Thomas Sully is seen in concert with contemporary works by Cindy Sherman and John Currin in the Figures component of the collaboration.

The Timken Museum of Art presents Forms, which includes examples of traditional still-lifes by Raphaelle Peale, early American modernism by Morgan Russell and Manierre Dawson, and a minimalist work by Agnes Martin. The San Diego Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego will also both show components of Forms.