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Tag Archives: drawing
Shaped Canvas 8
This piece by Martin Barré is very similar to another by François Morellet shown on this blog over a year ago. The continuation of the line across several discrete panels makes their edges more vivid—the panels punch holes in the … Continue reading
Swan Engravings
I did not like the Swan Engravings at first—critics talk about rich blacks, but I just saw a dull all-over gray, because I really don’t like that wiped-plate look so much appreciated by intaglio printers. But…having taken a longer and … Continue reading
Empty Formalism of Education
In an earlier post I implied that university training has not improved contemporary art. Robert Hullot-Kentor reminds me of how profoundly hostile to art the university is: “Ideas make us think; we think ideas. They are what are urgent in … Continue reading
Figures in a Landscape
Many of my works are figures, and many are landscapes. Since the overall rubric is “Islands,” I guess they are really all figures in a landscape. The figure might be found in the negative space or ocean, so figure and … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, figuration, landscape, Linsley, titles
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Polly Apfelbaum
I will soon add an interview with Polly Apfelbaum to the Publications page—actually a conversation between her and artist Kelly Jazvac. I very much admire this piece for its negative areas, the way that they flow together and make chains … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, emptiness, form, grids, Polly Apfelbaum, space
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Pragmatic Matisse
When artists talk about art they are usually more down to earth and concrete than theorists or critics. But even most artists get vague and wooly when they leave technique and try to express essences. Matisse was exemplary in his … Continue reading
A Flat Bird
In the catalog of the Stella retrospective in Wolfsburg I find a surprising member of the Exotic Birds series. At eight feet wide it is hardly a sketch, but it looks exactly like the preliminary drawings for that series. Most … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, drawing, feeling, Frank Stella, illusion, painted reliefs
1 Comment
How Hummingbird?
Yesterday I saw a show by Patrick Howlett. It fit well with my recent thoughts on Stella because Howlett’s work is also distinguished by sheer pictorial invention. Abstraction should not mean but be, to paraquote a famous poet. The largest … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, feeling, line, meaning, Pablo Picasso, Patrick Howlett, Paul Klee
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The Facts
This blog has given a fair amount of time to Frank Stella, and my attention was moving to other things—there are a few posts coming up on the topic of time. However, my interest in Stella has just been revived … Continue reading
All at once
I have to thank Mr. Stella for testifying to the strength of my own work, although he didn’t realize he had done so. He says that printmaking has “…one legitimate claim to superiority over painting,…it [creates] the surfaces it articulates … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, death, drawing, feeling, form, Frank Stella, Linsley
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The Mortality of the Work
I have belatedly found out that three of my pictures were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. When contemplating disaster, studio fires or things like that, I always thought I could handle it fine, because the important thing is the energy that … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, feeling, Jack Shadbolt, Linsley, time, titles
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Biomorphic
The previous comments on Hofmann and Stella started me thinking about this work. Most of the Moby Dick works combine the curvy forms of the wave/whale shapes with geometrical sections, but this one is completely biomorphic, maybe even expressionist. The … Continue reading
Stella Live
I’ve loved Frank Stella’s work since I started in art, and have seen a few examples over the years. Readers of this blog will also know that I have a strong interest in the Moby Dick series, and I have … Continue reading
Entangled
The interlacing method offers a beautiful dance of forms, as complex and layered as one could want, unified through the unbroken flow of line. Clearly, this is an important source for Pollock. But also important are all the pictorial possibilities, … Continue reading
Profile
Some of the Moby Dick works present a clearly defined boundary or profile, which closes them off—at least from the front. From the side they will look very different. But what interests me is the articulation of form inside the … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, drawing, form, Frank Stella, illusion, Linsley, painted reliefs, space, transparency
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Stella’s Color
Among other things, the Moby Dick series marks a real advance in color. Stella’s color always had a dash of the arbitrary, which was one of its most interesting features. Personally I give the Protractors, along with Richter’s Color Charts, … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, color, cubism, drawing, feeling, form, Frank Stella, painted reliefs, shaped canvas
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Painting in space
Stella’s constructions are to give him surfaces to paint on, so ultimately the work depends on the expressiveness of image, gesture and color, like any painting. A construction of curved, tilted and shaped flat surfaces or a single flat surface—is … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, drawing, feeling, form, Frank Stella, painted reliefs, shaped canvas, space
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Putting shapes together
I’ve been reading Robert Wallace’s book on Frank Stella’s Moby Dick, and finding it very inspiring and important. More about the book itself later, but right now I want to keep thinking about Stella. Wallace says “he…[sees]…himself primarily as a … Continue reading
Drawing and Writing 2
Frankenthaler’s literary interests are well known, in fact given away by the title of one of her pictures, Seven Types of Ambiguity, also the title of a book by William Empson, one of the most widely read works of literary … Continue reading
The Future Program
I’ve decided I will continue as I have for the last couple of weeks, and post every second day. I was posting every day, and then when burned out would stop for two or three days. There’s no shortage of … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Uncategorized
Tagged drawing, Helen Frankenthaler, Linsley, literature, Shep Steiner
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Drawing and writing
A few years ago I saw a show of Gego and the distinguished Argentine artist Leon Ferrari at MoMA. Ferrari’s work repels me—a purely instinctive reaction. Normally I might expect that feeling to reverse at some point, but in his … Continue reading
Drawing or letter
The ante-room had a row of books on the wall nearest to the outer door, while against the wall opposite there stood a small dark table and one chair. The paper, bearing a very faint design, was all but white. … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, emptiness, literature, society
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Discursive objects
Listening still to Boris Groys, whose ideas should by rights be central to this blog. He says: “We see artworks as incarnating art. The famous distinction between art and non-art is generally understood as a distinction between objects inhabited and … Continue reading
Shadows
Just staying on Gego for another post—couldn’t a shadow be a metaphor for interpretation, or even backstory? The object is touched by an illuminating gaze, let’s not say an imagination, but something less than that, a faculty of illumination from … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction, Latin American Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, emptiness, Gego, light, value
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Expressiveness without backstory
Following from the previous post, Gego‘s work might be exemplary of an art which is just a sensitive handling of small particulars, when those small particulars don’t necessarily mean anything, or stand for anything, and don’t need a title or … Continue reading
Poverty
Another quote from my favorite literary critic: “We dwell in poverty, and we are that poverty, for our imaginative need has become greater than our imaginations can fulfill.”
Planning
In the previous post, with reference to Frank Stella, I mentioned planning. That can be a very pleasurable activity in art—to project an image, then work out how to get it, the procedures, the methods, the materials. Of course, all … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, Cézanne, drawing, Frank Stella, labor
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Watery Pinnacle
The best works in the De Kooning show, perhaps the height of his career, were in the second last room, centered around the piece illustrated here. Words like magnificent come to mind. The orchestration of color and of the scale … Continue reading
Lines in color
I started in art in 1975, and the first works of De Kooning that affected me were of the late sixties and early seventies. Seeing the room of these works in the show reminded me that they have a specific … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, form, Picasso, Willem De Kooning
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Chance and sensibility
I think I was unfair to Motherwell in a previous post, in the sense that a reader might take the wrong impression. Of course it is obvious that Motherwell’s drawings are his, the products of a sensibility and an intelligence. … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, drawing, emptiness, meaning, series, value
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