Paul Taylor Dance Company, 1963-64
Information about the artwork
- MaterialOil on canvas
- Dimensions228.7 x 274.6 cm
- Year of acquisition2000
- Inventory numberUAB 207
- On viewCurrently not exhibited
- Copyright© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn [2024]. Photo: Haydar Koyupinar, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich
More about the artwork
From early on, Katz found allies and important aesthetic inspiration among contemporary poets, musicians, and dancers. In 1960, Katz included his powerful full-length portrait of the dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor in his first exhibition at New York's influential Stable Gallery. The following year, after a disagreement between Taylor and his regular designer, artist Robert Rauschenberg, Katz stepped in at the last minute and designed his first set for Taylor's dance company. As Katz later recalled, “I had seen Paul dance for the first time shortly before we met... and thought his choreography was one of the most surprising things I had seen as an artist. Paul's dancing seemed to be a real break with that of the previous generation: no expression, no content, no form, as he said, and with great technique and intelligence.”
Taylor and Katz proved to be well-matched. Between 1960 and 1986, Katz designed sets and costumes for a total of 14 of the ensemble's choreographies. For the dark, Cold War-inflected “Scudorama” (1963) —represented in the painting “Paul Taylor Dance Company”—Katz used an unusual combination of brightly colored unitards. In his autobiography, the choreographer himself described “Scudorama” as a “dance of death.” The choreography dates from shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when Americans still lived in fear of nuclear weapons. Against an almost black backdrop with no fixed spatial points, the dancers' overlapping forms and movements in Katz’s painting convey the performance’s physical and psychological complexity.
