Turquoise presents Ad Reinhardt: The End of Art is Not The End, curated by Karen Fan and Jo Kim and on view September 19 through November 1, 2026. Made possible by the Ad Reinhardt Foundation, the exhibition brings together a selection of Reinhardt's cartoons for the newspaper PM (1946–47), his 1966 silkscreens, a video, an invitation card by Jason Hirata, a parody of Reinhardt's Portend of the Artist as a Yhung Mandala, and replicas of the artist's black paintings made by the exhibition's organizers.
Reinhardt (1913–1967) was one of the most uncompromising artists of the 20th century in his dedication to abstract art. His "black paintings" of the late 1950s and 60s prefigured Minimalism and remain radical in their opposition to interpretation, while his work as a cartoonist and illustrator for PM and New Masses reflects a lifelong engagement with vernacular forms and his activities as an activist, writer, teacher and polemicist in defense of "Art-as-Art."
The title comes from the last line of Reinhardt's Art-as-Art Dogma Part III (1966), where "the end" can mean art's death on a timeline, its boundary as a sphere of activity, its ultimate form, or its ultimate purpose. The organizers' replicas and parodies treat Reinhardt's philosophy as a "handed-down model," testing what his works are by negation. A zine accompanies the exhibition, with writings on Reinhardt by Jo Kim, Peter Scott, Nick Irvin, Vijay Masharani, Zaid Arshad, Lise Soskolne, Laoer, Kevin Chen, Calvin Lee, Karen Fan, Xiaoyang Chen and Jason Hirata.
Turquoise