An Art of Inner Necessity: Expressionist Works from MMoCA's Permanent Collection

n Art of Inner Necessity examines the expressionist tradition in modern and contemporary art through paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the permanent collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. It is the second in a series of exhibitions that focus on the three major styles of twentieth-century modernism in the visual arts: abstraction, expressionism, and realism.

Expressionist works represent their subjects in recognizable form. However, unlike realist approaches, expressionism plays upon the evocative power of exaggerated color, distorted shape, and gestural line. Such transformations proceed from the artist’s personal need, or “inner necessity,” to make tangible his or her feelings–often intense–toward the subject. These alterations of natural appearances, in turn, recreate the artist’s state of mind in the viewer’s own imagination.