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Art and its Others (with Boris Groys)
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Doors:River (with Joseph Drapell and David Moos)
Around the Episcene (with Scott Lyall)
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Non-Identical Abstraction Engine (with Jan Tumlir)
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Tag Archives: form
Edges Early and Late
I was reading the catalog for the show Frank Stella 1958, and one of the writers, Megan Luke, explains Stella’s thinking about edges, which led to the early Black Paintings. He noticed that many of the second generation abstract expressionists … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, form, Frank Stella, illusion, shaped canvas
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In Memoriam
The series Polar Coordinates for Ronnie Peterson was another tough one for me to learn to like, but now I love them. Somehow, the two layer structure, combined with the busyness of the “ground” layer, has some relevance to the … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, feeling, form, Frank Stella, prints, subjectivity, time, titles
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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
Those who make
As Harold Bloom has pointed out, Emerson is the ancestor of all American motivational speakers and aspirational gurus. Tony Robbins and his ilk are Emerson’s progeny, and if self-reliance has become an ideology then it has to be reinvented, or … Continue reading
The Planar Dimension
Been reading the catalog of a 1979 show at the Guggenheim Museum called The Planar Dimension. The essay by Margit Rowell can only be described as lucid and enlightening. Her discussion of Picasso’s constructions is brilliant, and the essay in … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, form, Frank Stella, Pablo Picasso, painted reliefs, shaped canvas
5 Comments
Approximating Nature
Despite my not so high opinion of the memoirs of Tapies, I continue to find interesting bits. This is his description of an early experimental phase of his work: “I was searching for images without knowing whether they were amorphous … Continue reading
More Preparation
Been reading the memoirs of Antoni Tapies. I find them bland and a little disappointing for an artist of his stature, but here is one interesting observation: “A moment of lucidity will also free the artists from many hours of … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Antoni Tapies, emptiness, feeling, form, improvisation, series, subjectivity
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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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New again
Emerson has something to say about the appreciation of pictures: “So with pictures; each will bear an emphasis of attention once, which it cannot retain, though we fain would continue to be pleased in that manner. How strongly I have … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, emptiness, feeling, form, meaning, Morris Louis, self-reflection, time
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Frozen time
AJ Heschel again: “To the spiritual eye space is frozen time, and all things are petrified events.” A petrified event sounds like an artwork, but also like anything else made by human hands. Art can also aspire to be more … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, feeling, form, nature, RBKitaj, subjectivity, time
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Integration
My children go to Waldorf school, and recently I attended a workshop on eurythmy. I’ve heard about it of course, but never paid any attention. Surprise—it really is quite marvelous. It made me vividly aware of how many of my … Continue reading
How to continue
I’ve found that my smaller works tend to have more parts, and more detail. They are more intensive, you might say. The beauty of the larger works is in their ease and simplicity, but just today I looked at some … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, Linsley, method, self-reflection, series, technique
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Secret meaning
Another theme of Kitaj’s Jewish commentarism is the esoteric. Behind the flat surface lies a depth of meaning—but meaning is not the right word. It’s easy to see how this can work in figurative art, but in abstraction less so. … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, backstory, form, Jeff Tutt, labor, literature, meaning, value
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Lightness
Lightness is an aspect of abstraction that I particularly value. It is allied to the comic, which has been an important strand in art since the Baroque, and became dominant in the west in the early 19th. century. In its … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, American Modernism, Ethics of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, humor, illusion
4 Comments
Questionable or Not
On the British web site abstract critical there is more debate about Frank Stella. I’m on his side but most aren’t. Much of the criticism seems to be based on a perception that the work does not hold together formally—the … Continue reading
Slightly Overwhelming
I’m pretty familiar with the illustrations in Robert Wallace’s book on the Moby Dick series, but when I see the actual pieces don’t usually recognize them. There’s something about the size and detail and rawness of the works that stuns … Continue reading
Infinity of Images
Reading Groys can also be encouraging. In my case it confirms the avant-gardist qualifications of my work—surprising to me as much as anyone. One of the strongest pieces in his book Art Power is the opener, “The Logic of Equal … Continue reading
Achievement in time
Reading Boris Groys can be both enlightening and painful, not least because what he says rings so true. For example, the following words are a good description of my work: “To be an artist has now ceased to be an … Continue reading
Redefinition
In the previous post I managed to avoid making a definition of abstraction, although I feel the presence of one near. It’s that feeling that should guide us, the pull of the future. Hope to survive long enough to talk … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, figuration, form, illusion, Linsley, meaning, time, titles
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Figures coming through
Ruminating on the later work of Frank Stella has led me to a some new thoughts about what abstraction really is. Most important is to keep a sense of what Richard Shiff described in our recent conversation as the strangeness … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, demons, figuration, form, Frank Stella, illusion, meaning, subjectivity, the inhuman, titles
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Cutting the book
In his Kleist series Stella hit on a very good way to use literature. For his version of Kleist’s “Betrothal in Santo Domingo” he took six short speeches by five characters in the story and made a piece to embody … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, form, Frank Stella, literature, series
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Breath
Stella says about his famous smoke ring photographs that “…if they do not stand for the human figure, I do not know what does.” There’s a long tradition in both literature and religion that equates breath with life, and photographed … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, breath, feeling, figuration, form, Frank Stella, illusion, literature, meaning, painted reliefs
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Modes of Abstraction and Styles of Writing
Robert Wallace has shown me that I was mistaken about Stella’s work, as in fact many are. Though at first sight the Moby Dick works seem attractively chaotic, it would be wrong to assume that they have a fundamental arbitrariness, … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, form, Frank Stella, literature, painted reliefs, series, titles
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Noise
Following from the previous post, as an example of visual noise I would like to present any abstract work by Gerhard Richter. Pictures like this are the high class, supremely tasteful equivalent of stadium rock, a sclerotic form if there … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, form, Gerhard Richter, grids, labor, meaning, music, series
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After Poussin
Following from the preceding post, the overloadedness (if the reader will forgive such an awkward coinage) of Stella’s work is attractive, to me at least, but it does present problems. For one it becomes more difficult than usual to grasp … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, Cézanne, form, Frank Stella, nature, Poussin
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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
4 Comments
Definition of Abstraction
I’ve never worried my mind about a definition of abstract art, or of what I do, but occasionally have stumbled upon possibles. Just now I came up with what I believe to be a simple and accurate one. Abstraction is … Continue reading
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
Hofmann
Stella is on record as a huge admirer of Hans Hofmann, so the resemblance of this early print to the Moby Dick works should not be surprising. This Hofmann is imaginatively and pictorially more substantial than, say, a typical ink … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, figuration, form, Frank Stella, Hans Hoffman, painted reliefs, prints
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