Best Museum Solo

As a curator, Cydney Payton is at her best when dealing with art she really loves, which is why Dots, Blobs and Angels was so darned spectacular. Payton's a fan of John David Rigsby's work, and it's easy to see why. The quality of the paintings, sculptures and drawings that...

March 24, 2005

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As a curator, Cydney Payton is at her best when dealing with art she really loves, which is why Dots, Blobs and Angels was so darned spectacular. Payton's a fan of John David Rigsby's work, and it's easy to see why. The quality of the paintings, sculptures and drawings that made up this stirring retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver was first-rate. The show followed Rigsby's career, which he began as a sharecropper's son scrounging for materials in Alabama in the '30s, through his impoverished existence in Houston at the end of his life, when he once again had no money for supplies. In between, he hit heights of fame and success. But whether in good times or bad, he always created something wonderful. Dots, Blobs and Angels demonstrated that Rigsby was a groundbreaker -- not just once, but over and over again.

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