The showcasing of 22 private works celebrates the art advocacy and philanthropy of the late, prolific collector.
In a tribute to a “dynamic San Diegan who made his mark on the global art world while supporting his local community,” the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has opened its latest exhibit, “An Artful Life: A Tribute to Matthew C. Strauss,” said MCASD David C Copley Director and Chief Executive Kathryn Kanjo.
The exhibit “celebrates the collecting acumen and the philanthropic leadership” of Matthew Strauss, a longtime museum supporter and former MCASD board president who died in August, Kanjo said.
The show’s 22 works are borrowed from the Strauss family collection of about 175 pieces and are a glimpse into the Strauss legacy and a “portrait … of recent art history,” she added.
Matthew Strauss and his wife, Iris Strauss, began collecting in the 1980s, wanting to focus on “the art of the now,” Kanjos said, art that 10 to 40 years later “allows us to recognize how the Strausses truly identified significant artists … and key artworks” of their time.
The works are displayed in the prominent Iris and Matthew Strauss Entry Gallery, so named for the couple’s support for the museum.
The new exhibit would make Matthew “proud to see,” said his son, Steve Strauss, who himself has been president of the MCASD board of trustees for the last few years.
“My folks were … passionate and prolific collectors,” Steve said; the couple donated vastly to local institutions including UC San Diego.
“Dad’s objective was to collect the best examples of contemporary art from the best artists,” Steve said, following Matthew’s personal philosophy to ask “‘how does it move your molecules?’”
According to Matthew, looking at art is an experience that creates a different reaction in each person, Steve said.
The show’s pieces feature some by Takashi Murakami, Elizabeth Murray, Al Held and more who play with dimensions, whether flat but “suggesting space” or containing bent canvas and other plays on spatial assumptions, Kanjo said.
The mostly-painting exhibition also provokes “thinking about the international character of the collection,” she said, as “the art world [became] more global and more intertwined in the post war period, increasingly through the 90s.”
As Matthew was in a position to build a collection, “he paid attention, he listened to what ‘moved his molecules,’ and he acted upon it,” Kanjo said. “He has been able to chart this art history.”
“An Artful Life” runs through Sunday, Aug 3.
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