The most basic factor, however, is how a new purchase or gift will relate to the existing collection. Will it fill a gap? Will it amplify the holdings of a particular artist? Will it expand our ability to look at a particular theme, movement, or point in time? Will it offer new ways to look at a medium or subject? This exhibition attempts to demonstrate the result of such questions.

Our Woman painting by Willem de Kooning, safely back after her star showing at The Jewish Museum's Action/Abstraction exhibition, will be juxtaposed with other representations of the human form by women artists. Another group of works will reveal the continuing interest in collage as a medium, from Joseph Stella's 1920 Chiclets to recent work by Pablo Helguera.

Works of art “talk” to one another; that is, they set up dialogues for us about aesthetic, social, and conceptual ideas. Our job as museum staff is to facilitate that dialogue between the viewer and the artwork. A three-part series of public talks on this exhibition begins March 5. Come and join the conversation!

Image: Pablo Helguera, “Obviously the dream itself was over, he had awakened from it, and he could not go back to sleep deliberately to dream that dream again (from the Arlington Heights series)”, 2008, collage on paper, 10 15/16 x 13 7/8 in. Gift of the artist, 2008.