From Michelangelo and Matisse to Rothko and Turrell, many iconic artists have answered the call to create a compelling chapel. American abstract painter Ellsworth Kelly adds to the canon with the newly opened Austin chapel.
Kelly, who passed away at age 92 in 2015, gifted the design to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas with the stipulations that his exact plans be realised: the building would be permanent, widely accessible to the public, and well maintained. ‘We worked with Ellsworth for about three years on it, collaborating with the architects and figuring out everything down to the minutiae to make sure his intentions large and small were captured,’ says Blanton director Simone Wicha, who was instrumental in bringing Austin to the museum.
Detail of Austin, 2015, by Ellsworth Kelly.
The luminous 252 sq m grey limestone building features hand-blown coloured glass windows, a soaring curved redwood ‘totem’, and 14 black-and-white marble panels. The project was originally commissioned for a collector in Santa Barbara in the 1980s, but Ellsworth ultimately decided he did not want it on private land, so the plans were put aside until a museum board member brought it to Wicha’s attention. ‘Austin is a joyful city, a very friendly, creative city. Ellsworth wanted this work to bring joy to people, to provide a place where they could find calm,’ she says.
Carter Foster, deputy director for curatorial affairs, curated the opening exhibition, ‘Form into Spirit’. ‘If you know Ellsworth’s work, the building comes from motifs and forms he’s been exploring his whole career: totems, black and white, colour grid, and spectrum,’ explains Foster. ‘My idea is that people could go into the building and understand, “Oh, he has been doing these ideas for a long time.”’
‘Form into Spirit’ features work in all of these themes, including prints from Kelly’s 1970s Romanesque series and two colour spectrum collages the artist made in France in the 1950s. In addition to the permanent totem in the chapel, Foster included several other wooden sculptures. ‘The totem has this magical relationship to the building,’ says Foster. ‘It is the focal point, but it also leads your eye up to the ceiling.’
The building’s curving white forms and glowing stained glass windows – the first time the artist’s colours have been rendered in glass – create an ethereal, memorable space. Wicha says: ‘It is hard to describe, but nothing replaces the experience of being in there: the materials, the way the light hits, it needs to be seen in person. It is worth coming to Austin just to visit this art and get a breakfast taco... what more could you want?’
Austin, 2015, by Ellsworth Kelly, artist-designed building with installation of coloured glass windows, black and white marble panels, and redwood totem.
North view of apse.
Kelly created a totem for the chapel, among other works.
Austin, 2015, by Ellsworth Kelly, artist-designed building with installation of coloured glass windows, black and white marble panels, and redwood totem.
INFORMATION
‘Form into Spirit: Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin’ is on view until 29 April. For more information, visit the Blanton Museum of Art website
ADDRESS
Blanton Museum of Art
200 E MLK Jr Boulevard
Austin
-
RIBA Stirling Prize 2025 winner is ‘a radical reimagining of later living’Appleby Blue Almshouse wins the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025, crowning the social housing complex for over-65s by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, the best building of the year
-
A24 just opened a restaurant in New York, and no one knows it existsHidden in the West Village, Wild Cherry pairs a moody, arthouse sensibility with a supper-style menu devised by the team behind Frenchette
-
Yinka Ilori’s new foundation is dedicated to play and joy: ‘Play gave me freedom to dream’Today, artist and designer Yinka Ilori announced the launch of a non-profit organisation that debuts with a playscape in Nigeria
-
Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are a love letter to Prospect ParkIn a new book, ‘Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025’, Jamel Shabazz discovers a warmer side of human nature
-
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles launches the seventh iteration of its highly anticipated artist biennialOne of the gallery's flagship exhibitions, Made in LA showcases the breadth and depth of the city's contemporary art scene
-
Thomas Prior’s photography captures the uncanny fragility of American lifeA new book unites two decades of the photographer’s piercing, uneasy work
-
Central Park’s revitalised Delacorte Theater gears up for a new futureEnnead Architects helmed an ambitious renovation process that has given the New York City cultural landmark a vibrant and more accessible future
-
Stephen Prina borrows from pop, classical and modern music: now MoMA pays tribute to his performance work‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’ recalls the artist, musician, and composer’s performances, and is presented throughout MoMA. Prina tells us more
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Richard Prince recontextualises archival advertisements in TexasThe artist unites his ‘Posters’ – based on ads for everything from cat pictures to nudes – at Hetzler, Marfa
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
