NEW YORK.- Abstraction for Jean Miotte has never been an escape into the self from the conditions of the world. Indeed, painting for Miotte has always had eminently ethical overtones, a commitment to the world beyond the self. This connection to the trauma and injustice he saw in much of the political turmoil of the twentieth century is particularly apparent in his Black paintings. Two phases of Miotte’s “dark” work will be highlighted in this exhibition. The first corresponds to the cruel repression of the Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule in Budapest in 1956; the second to Miotte’s visit to Beirut, Lebanon, where he saw the ravage of 20 years of war. In both cases, Miotte’s work abandoned the rich coloration for black paintings: monochrome in the first case, gestural in the second. These two bodies of work were exhibited and chosen by the museum Mücszarnok of Budapest for the commemoration of the 1956 Revolution. The "Black paintings" have also been the focus of several important traveling shows in European museums organized for Miotte during 1999 to 2000.