installation photo of Ross Bleckner's Unknown Quantities of Light (Part IV) at The Broad
Artist Spotlight

Up Close: Ross Bleckner

Overview

In the latest episode of Up Close, our curator Ed Schad discusses Ross Bleckner's painting Unknown Quantities of Light (Part IV) (1988). Ross Bleckner's painting blends abstraction with recognizable symbols to create meditations on perception, transcendence, and loss. As the AIDS health crisis began to take its toll on society and on many of Bleckner’s friends and colleagues, his paintings became elegies to specific losses suffered. Bleckner’s Unknown Quantities of Light (Part IV) shows how absorptive abstraction can be and how it can take up our concerns and lives.


About Up Close

In this video series featuring The Broad's curators Ed Schad and Sarah Loyer, we take a deeper look at works in the Broad collection, which is notable for the exceptional depth of its holdings and dedication to the full arc of artists' careers.

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