Exhibition at The Met Fifth Avenue explores large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, October 6, 2024


Exhibition at The Met Fifth Avenue explores large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage
Jackson Pollock. Number 28, 1950 (detail), 1950. Enamel on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, in honor of her grandchildren, Ellen Steinberg Coven and Dr. Peter Steinberg, 2006 © 2018 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.



NEW YORK, NY.- On view at The Met Fifth Avenue, Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera begins in the 1940s and extends into the 21st century to explore large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage through more than 50 works from The Met collection, a selection of loans, and promised gifts and new acquisitions. Iconic works from The Met collection, such as Jackson Pollock’s classic “drip” painting Autumn Rhythm (1950) and Louise Nevelson’s monumental Mrs. N’s Palace (1964–77) are being shown in conversation with works by international artists, such as Japanese painter Kazuo Shiraga and the Hungarian artist Ilona Keserü. The exhibition is punctuated with special loans of major works by Helen Frankenthaler, Carmen Herrera, Shiraga, Joan Snyder, and Cy Twombly.

“The Met’s great holdings of post-war art include some of the most celebrated examples of Abstract Expressionism. This exhibition is an important reinterpretation of a core area of the Museum’s collection as it expands beyond the familiar to include fresh and perhaps surprising perspectives of artists who have adopted, adapted, and even critiqued the precedents established by the well-known New York school,” said Max Hollein, Director of the Museum. “These monumental works also offer a powerful—even mesmerizing—experience.”

In the wake of unprecedented destruction and loss of life during World War II, many painters and sculptors working in the 1940s grew to believe that traditional easel painting and figurative sculpture no longer adequately conveyed the human condition. In this context, numerous artists, including Barnett Newman, Pollock, and others associated with the so-called New York School, were convinced that abstract styles—often on a large scale—most meaningfully evoked contemporary states of being. Many of the artists represented in Epic Abstraction worked in large formats not only to explore aesthetic elements of line, color, shape, and texture but also to activate scale’s metaphoric potential to evoke expansive—“epic”—ideas and subjects, including time, history, nature, the body, and existential concerns of the self.

Highlights of the exhibition include a group of paintings by Pollock and a selection of his experimental sketchbook drawings from the late 1930s and early 1940s that demonstrate the artist’s exploration of automatic techniques and his interest in Jungian psychoanalysis. Major works by Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Clyfford Still expand the representation of mid-century American painting, while a space devoted to Mark Rothko’s meditative compositions offers a powerful immersion in color, feeling, and sensation. These heralded Abstract Expressionists have been joined by Hedda Sterne and Philippines native Alfonso Ossorio, who were also associated with the movement. A significant ink painting from 1966 by Japanese artist Inoue Yūichi illuminates the international practice of large-scale calligraphic abstraction. Monumental painterly canvases by Joan Mitchell—a lyrical retort to Pollock’s freighted whipping drips—and Mark Bradford—whose Duck Walk (2016) marks a recent addition to the collection—evoke Abstract Expressionism’s long and profound legacy.

The exhibition also features a gallery of works by the next generation of artists, including Herrera, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Mangold, Alejandro Puente, and Anne Truitt, who tamed the highly pitched emotionalism of Abstract Expressionism by working in the hard edge and minimalist styles that came to define modern art in the 1960s and 1970s. An adjacent gallery with key works by Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis explore the reductive technique of staining canvas in painting.

The exhibition includes a range of major works composed of found objects and repurposed materials, including the installation’s centerpiece, Nevelson’s Mrs. N’s Palace, Chakaia Booker’s Raw Attraction (2001), and Thornton Dial’s elegiac Shadows of the Field (2008), which evokes the history of American slavery. The installation design establishes artistic and conceptual connections between the artists on view while encouraging visitors to contemplate individual works of art in isolation or in dialogue with others in their midst.

Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera is curated by Randall Griffey, Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met.










Today's News

December 23, 2018

Artemis Gallery to donate all of Dec. 25 antiquities auction's proceeds to charity

Exhibition at the Centre Pompidou takes a fresh look at Cubism

Exhibition at The Met Fifth Avenue explores large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage

Exhibition provides rare opportunity to see works from the acclaimed Manton Collection of British Art

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts acquires 250 works for permanent collection

Is this what gave Banksy the idea for his shredding stunt?

SFMOMA opens an exhibition devoted to exploring the early concepts and plans of The Sea Ranch

Exhibition at Museum Rietberg showcases 2,500 years of Buddhist art and culture

Rare ancient funerary plaque with corrections subject of new scholarly research

Brazilian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale: Artists and curator announced

Exhibition at Aargauer Kunsthaus explores Surrealism in Switzerland

Vancouver Art Gallery announces 334 acquisitions to its permanent collection in 2018

Solo exhibition of the Swiss artist Daniele Buetti on view at Bernhard Knaus Fine Art

Mona Museum of Old and New Art set to show six exhibitions this summer

The Border Project Space in Brooklyn opens "Color Matters II": A group show

Donna Huanca's work leads visitors from artificial light to darkness

Explore Money Museum from comfort of home

Exhibition at Craft in America Center traces the deep roots of craft in California's history

Sotheby's & Miss Porter's School announce an all-women artist benefit auction

'Inhabiting the Mediterranean' on view at the Valencian Institute of Modern Art

"In King Matt's Poland" on view at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Lin & Lin Gallery presents 'Chen Chieh-jen: After the Financial Crisis and Automated Production'




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful