Loving Father (Primary Title)
Joseph Nechvatal, American, born 1953 (Artist)
Fifty Works for Fifty States: In 2008, in a unique partnership with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels distributed twenty-five hundred works across the country, giving fifty works to one art museum in each of the fifty states. This exhibition, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, showcases the fifty works VMFA received as part of that initiative, which bears the same title. As a diverse and rich body of work, the Vogels' generous giftattests to their passion and commitment to sharing contemporary art with the public.
Joseph Nechvatal Nechvatal's dense drawings require close viewing before figures and shapes emerge from the thick web of graphite lines. A tension develops between the seemingly uniform gray surface and the fragmented assortment of images interspersed throughout. Interested in the information overload of a media-saturated culture, Nechvatal traces appropriated images of easily recognizable symbols-includingrockets, globes, and skulls-that, in Violent Revolution, suggest an apocalyptic landscape. Loving Father, on the other hand, reveals fewer images, contrasting a stiff, distant image of a male figure of the 1950s with both the emotive title and Nechvatal's frenetic mark making.
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.