Performance/Art

In celebration of the opening of Dallas’s new AT&T Performing Arts Center, the Dallas Museum of Art is proud to present the work of six international and American artists who have used the forms and ideas surrounding theater, opera, and performance as starting points for an exciting array of paintings, sculpture, films, and installations.

Drawn from Dallas Museum of Art and important private collections, this extensive presentation will include British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s film Un ballo in maschera, based on Giuseppe Verdi’s opera of the same name that is a brilliant reimagining of dance, costume, and narrative; Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s quietly intense and atmospheric evocation of an ill-at-ease mind, the three-screen film work Talo/The House; a new installation work by Dallas-based artists Frances Bagley and Tom Orr based on the spectacular sets and costumes they designed for a 2006 Dallas Opera production of Verdi’s Nabucco; a selection of Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca’s powerful paintings and drawings based on album covers and seating charts of major theaters and opera houses; and David Altmejd’s spectacular sculpture The Eye, which he created in conjunction with a recent Metropolitan Opera production of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic.

Of particular interest are the studies for the curtain for the Winspear Opera House designed by Guillermo Kuitca. This major commission marks the first time Kuitca has designed a curtain for a performing arts venue.