PRINT April 2016

Yve-Alain Bois

Yve-Alain Bois

To fully honor the legacy of Ellsworth Kelly, whose centennial falls on Wednesday, is not only to remember his singular and deceptively clear-cut contributions to art, but to remain open to life’s vibrant, infinite particularities. After all, Kelly saw his elating colors and shapes as residing “forever in the present,” as Yve-Alain Bois reminds us in a tribute to the late artist published in Artforum’s January 2016 issue. Bois, a leading scholar of Kelly’s work as well as his dear friend, nominates him as “the last happy modernist,” his art a “rock of optimism no matter how grim the world becomes