Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue?

Curated by Ellen Hackl Fagan for Long Island City Artists (LIC-A).

"Barnett Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue, created in 1966, was a challenge in response to Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Albee, in turn, was responding to the song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf from a Walt Disney cartoon in the early 1930s. While fear is a constant when approaching new concepts in art, I regularly confront Newman's challenge when entering a new studio space. To familiarize myself with a new environment, I often step outside of my current series to create a related series of paintings using red, yellow, blue, and black. This practice helps alleviate any fears about the new space and allows me to get into the painting groove more effectively.

When jurying this exhibition for Long Island City Artists, I encountered a vibrant enthusiasm for color and the inherent joys and challenges of making art where color is a primary element.

With over five-hundred entries, I had to narrow the selection down to fewer than seventy to fit the space. Judging and selecting these works was a challenging task due to the abundance of innovation, fearlessness, humor, and originality present.

I hope you'll join me in celebrating color and experimentation as you view the exhibition, which features painting, sculpture, and digital prints. I felt a profound sense of belonging to this community of color-loving artists." — Ellen Hackl Fagan

Exhibition Details