Art News

Ellsworth Kelly shines in new Boston Museum of Fine Arts Contemporary Art wing

BOSTON, MA (REUTERS).- Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts opens a large new contemporary art wing this weekend in what curators say reflects a more forward-looking tilt to the city’s arts scene. Anchoring the launch is the temporary exhibit, “Ellsworth Kelly: Wood Sculpture,” surveying four decades of works by the famous American minimalist painter and sculptor. The Linde Family Wing of Contemporary Art, which includes more than 21,000 square feet of gallery space, is housed in the MFA’s 1981 I.M. Pei expansion. More than 200 pieces from the permanent collection are on show, arranged in seven galleries that range from paintings to decorative arts to video and new media. “Contemporary collectors in Boston have been fired up for a long time, and they’ve been waiting for this,” said Al Miner, an assistant curator at the MFA. Economic jitters notwithstanding, interest in buying contemporary art is “through the roof,” Miner said. Kelly, who