The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents FRAMING DESIRE, an exhibition showcasing over 40 recent acquisitions alongside iconic photographs and videos from the permanent collection. The Museum has acquired key works by Cory Arcangel, Artemio, Larry Clark, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Debbie Grossman, Candida Höfer, Misty Keasler, Ragnar Kjartansson, Vera Lutter, Robert Mapplethorpe, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ryan McGinley, Nicholas Nixon, Catherine Opie, Orit Raff, Laurie Simmons, Allison V. Smith, Arne Svenson, Frank Thiel, and Gillian Wearing.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents URBAN THEATER: NEW YORK ART IN THE 1980s. Vibrant, vital, and discordant, the New York art scene of the 1980s gave rise to some of the contemporary art world’s most recognizable features. As the artists who emerged in that decade now set records at auction, the era is ripe to be reexamined. Representing in turns a cool irony, reflections on media culture, consumerism, cartoons, and street art, the work collected here re-creates the tense energy of a grittier New York.

Conceptual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija (pronounced Rick-rit Tee-rah-vah-nit), born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, grew up living between Thailand, Ethiopia, and Canada as the son of a Thai diplomat. His grandmother played an important role in his life. She taught cooking on Thai television and owned a restaurant in Bangkok, where Tiravanija spent time as a youth. This background influenced the artist’s work, which often involves cooking in art-related places, such as museums and galleries.

Terry Haggerty draws on the vocabulary of abstract art to create his illusory paintings and large-scale wall works. The artist’s central motif is created by painting patterned lines that alternate a light and dark color, such as white and blue. When juxtaposed, these colors play off of each other, appearing to advance and recede (as seen in Kinetic Friction, 2009).

New York-based artist Gary Simmons is known for his “erasure” technique, which he began using in the early 1990s. Initially creating semi-erased works with chalk on blackboards, the artist has evolved to works on paper, paint on canvas, and murals that mimic smudged chalk. The resulting blurred and ghostly images often refer to intersections of pop culture, race, and class.