Gary Simmons, Erasure Chair, 1992.

This exhibition draws from a promised gift and loans from the collection of Blake Byrne, one of the world''s leading collectors of contemporary art. Byrne earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke in 1957 and currently resides in Los Angeles. He has built his collection over the past 20 years, with special attention given to significant and emerging artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Byrne's gift features 37 works by 26 artists, and in addition to the works in this exhibition, includes work by Anthony Caro, David Hammons, Jasper Johns, Sol Lewitt, Thomas Scheibitz, and Rudolf Schwartzkogler, among others. The gift, which comprises more than 200 individual works, also includes portfolios of serial prints and photographs by Paul McCarthy, Raymond Pettibon, Ed Ruscha and Hiroshi Sugimoto. These works will be featured in future installations.

Byrne is a longtime supporter of Duke, and two of the gallery spaces in the Nasher Museum's Biddle Pavilion are named for the Byrne family. He is chairman of the museum's board of advisors and was instrumental in helping the museum purchase The uncertain museum, an installation by Danish artist Olafur Elíasson that was previously in this gallery. Byrne made this gift on the occasion of his 50th reunion at Duke, in honor of Raymond D. Nasher, the late founder and namesake of the Nasher Museum.

Many of the works in this exhibition engage issues of gender relations, sexual identity and racial and cultural identity.