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Tag Archives: Robert Motherwell
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
Politics
I’ve just been reading in the LRB about a young Chadian who, with great resourcefulness, got himself to Pakistan so he could study, and then was rounded up and “sold” to the Americans as an Al-Qaeda member and ended up … Continue reading
Figuration
I agree with Picasso’s dismissal of abstraction, and simple mathematics can explain why. A brushstroke that renders some particular thing does more than a brushstroke that sits on a canvas wanting to be admired for itself, so it’s a better … Continue reading
So far
This blog is getting complex, and though I’m glad to be getting comments on older posts I’m also afraid that some good moments will be lost because of the very nature of a blog, which is that it is always … Continue reading
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
Tapies
Just an in-between post to acknowledge the passing of Antoni Tapies, a great artist. I first came to appreciate his work a few years ago when I saw a show of his prints in Barcelona. They are in what I … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged form, Robert Motherwell, series, subjectivity, Tapies
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The Theater of Art
Both Scott Lyall and David Court have some skepticism about the concept of theatricality, probably because of the too heavy presence of Michael Fried in that discussion so far, so I thought it might be a good idea to take … Continue reading
Titles historical
Terry’s way with titles is basically the same as Motherwell’s, although seems very different. The fundamental difference is that Atkinson is more of a modernist, since no matter how specific their references his titles are always reflections on the role … Continue reading
A literary measure
I’d like to answer the question I asked about Motherwell’s work a few posts back by suggesting that it fails for both reasons; the Elegies series is both too literary and not literary enough. The works are too literary because … Continue reading
Sex and history
Each of the last four posts has reproduced one of Motherwell’s Elegies, so some readers might be getting tired of seeing them. It’s not because I think that they are all great, it’s because I want to make it clear … Continue reading
Risk
The bullfight inevitably suggests risk. That was why Picasso liked it. He must have seen bullfighters gored or killed, so he knew the risk was real. His ink drawings and etchings of bullfights, so many from the fifties, make a … Continue reading
Success
Just to gloss the last part of the previous post, success, meaning recognition and money, is good for artists. It enables. It makes things possible. And it can even be heroic, because the artist can become more, or bigger than … Continue reading
Abstract Allegories
Imagery in abstract pictures is often allegorical. It doesn’t have to be. The interest of the works of someone like Howard Hodgkin, for example, is that they represent specific matter—a portrait of a particular person, a certain place and time. … Continue reading
Motherwell’s melancholic poetry
Motherwell’s series Elegy to the Spanish Republic, is derived in a very sophisticated way from a poem by Lorca called “Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías,” an account of the death of a bullfighter. Motherwell shows his superiority to the leftist … Continue reading