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Tag Archives: illusion
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
1 Comment
Bornowsky’s Spheres
I’ve written a review of Vancouver artist Eli Bornowsky’s recent show in Toronto, soon to appear in the on-line edition of Canadian Art. His small works had wooden spheres, some drawn over with lines, attached to shaped supports. There are … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Eli Bornowsky, illusion, painted reliefs, shaped canvas, space, volume
3 Comments
Moving Out and Staying Back
I’m still getting great enjoyment out of Frank Stella’s Moby Dick series, which seems to be a kind of culmination. With the next series, built around the writings of Kleist, he gives up the method of constructing in superimposed planes … 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
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
Juam
One of the prints from the Imaginary Places series, “Juam,” offers a perspective on Stella’s overcrowded compositions. A first state—much lighter, less labored—was also released, described in a pamphlet dedicated to the piece. As usual the final state is over … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, composition, cubism, Frank Stella, illusion, place, space
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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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Abstraction as Child of History
Any working definition of abstraction that I am likely to come up with will be a description of my own paintings—that can hardly be avoided. Recent intense looking at Frank Stella has provoked some ideas, but his work is not … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Italian Art, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, emergence, Frank Stella, illusion, knowledge, Linsley, nature, the inhuman, value
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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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Alighiero Boetti
A latecomer to Boetti’s work, I have no expertise in it. Right now I’m looking at this grid piece, “Niente da vedere niente da nascondere,” or “Nothing to see nothing to hide.” The title really adds something, and bears thought, … Continue reading
Powers of Art
One can exert oneself and make many sorts of things in a life. One can make artworks, which do nothing, but just are what they are. Or one can build institutions, or social structures or change life for the better—decrease … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Ethics of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, illusion, meaning, Smithson, society, value
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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
The Milliner’s Workshop
Maybe the most ambitious example of the interlacing style of cubism is this large piece by Picasso. That the labor represented is mimicked in the manner is interesting enough. But to show the potential of the interlacing method this piece … Continue reading
Posted in Italian Art, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, illusion, interlacing, labor, light, Pablo Picasso
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Overlapping, Interlacing
Arp’s figuration is a bit like Klee’s, it has an aura of innocence and a species of humor, both of which are bound to make it widely popular. But though it seems inoffensive and kind of cute at first meeting, … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Arp, cubism, Frank Stella, illusion, interlacing, Linsley, painted reliefs, space
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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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Plurimi
It’s worth it to spend more time on the comparison in the preceding post, which doesn’t need much commentary. Plurimi is a made-up name. Two views of the same piece, which has a crystalline quality—enclosing parts of the viewing space … Continue reading
The Sea
There aren’t very many unvisited places in the world, if any. So also the artistic adventurer will sail off over the horizon full of hope and then light on well populated islands, or places where the first arrivals have left … Continue reading
Realization
Stella’s skill in conjuring a beautiful arrangement is clear when he uses few colors, as here: But it continues into the ultra complex pieces, as in this other version of the same work. The openwork lattice at the bottom right … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, beauty, color, cubism, form, Frank Stella, illusion, painted reliefs, value
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Civilization
Our civilization is an enormous ongoing car crash: natural forces unleashed by reason under the hands of people with their minds on something else. If it hums along without mishap it’s by luck. We have learned how to run the … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, illusion, knowledge, society
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The Wall
I want to be clear that the inhuman does not mean geometry, which in fact is all too human. The concept is not idealist and has nothing to do with ideas of “purity,” such as pure abstraction or pure form, … Continue reading
Art is social
Following the nautical theme, one can go sailing over the horizon and end up somewhere outside. The following thoughts, also torn out of Conrad, complement nicely an earlier post, Society is Abstract. “Few men realize that their life, the very … Continue reading
Modes of Dexterity
An Actor’s Life (R.Graham) An actor’s life, that’s the life for me Burnin’ up the scenery is really unique Hand dipped cigarillos and barrels, just barrels, of wine Do you think I like it? I like it, I like it … Continue reading
Scale and Composition
Shep Steiner’s recent comment affirms that T.J.Clark’s recent LRB article on Picasso and British art is worth reading. What Clark is responding to is Picasso’s skill at scaling the image to the size of the canvas, something that all great … Continue reading
Shaped canvas 3
The relation between the interior and the edge of a shaped, meaning not rectangular, support, is the most interesting problem. Stella solved it in the classic modernist way by eliminating the interior, most importantly in his Polish Village series, one … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, form, frame, Frank Stella, illusion, plane, Richard Tuttle, shaped canvas
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Scale internal and external
Continuing with T.J.Clark’s recent piece in the LRB, he had some very perceptive things to say about Picasso’s skill at scaling an image to its support. Looking with the eyes of the present, Clark can’t help but see that today … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, form, Frank Stella, Gego, illusion, Pablo Picasso, shaped canvas, space, TJClark
2 Comments
Visual or non-conceptual
I’m really glad to get Peter Stott’s critique of my take on Motherwell. I try to leave openings for argument, and could do with more of that. I share his skepticism about “meaning,” and agree that abstraction is made for … Continue reading
No Aura
A critic should be judged by the quotient of pain he or she can inflict. Here again is Boris Groys: “For those who devote themselves to the production of art documentation rather than artworks, art is identical to life, because … Continue reading
Emptied of feeling
The work discussed in the previous post gave a good example of how orthogonals enable feeling. But in modern times, one of the advantages of geometry is how it can allow the negation of feeling. That’s an advantage because it’s … Continue reading
Non-conceptual
I’m aware that the previous post did not correctly describe how Byron Kim makes his work, and I also know that he makes other kinds. The resemblance of his carefully painted monochromes to paint chips is in this viewer’s eyes, … Continue reading