Magazine

The Legacy of German Abstract Art Pioneer Karl Otto Götz

On 19 August 2017, Karl Otto Götz, a singular voice in abstract art, died at the age of 103. I can say without reservation that the body of work Götz created in his lifetime is worthy of reverence...

Two Major Mary Heilmann Exhibition Give the Artist a Long-Overdue Attention

Mary Heilmann is getting a lot of attention right now, which she would probably be the first to admit is all she ever really wanted. That is not a critique. I am only paraphrasing what Heilmann to...

These Artists Continue to Redefine 3D Printed Art

I heard a joke once at an art opening featuring 3D printed art. It went something like this: “How do you know you are looking a piece of 3D printed art?” Answer: “Because everybody tells you.” It ...

At LACMA, Sarah Charlesworth Presents Doubleworld

The Pictures Generation sounds like a great name for children born today. Never before in history have so many people had immediate access to picture-taking technology, along with the ability to s...

Martin Puryear - Between Craftsmanship and Art

The works of Martin Puryear emit a sort of aesthetic gravity. They attract our attention with their presence, pulling us toward them with implicit promises of beauty, comfort, and after looking at...

Mystical and Metaphysical - The Art of Shirazeh Houshiary

It is not always a delight to think about the nature of existence: we are so obviously frail, and this life is so obviously temporary. But I, for one, nonetheless see it as a priority to confront ...

Random Quark - Turning Feelings into Abstract Digital Art

The idea of turning brain waves into abstract digital art has been making the rounds of artist studios, creative agencies and computer labs for years. Back in 2015, I remember visiting an installa...

The Subtle Influence of the Washington Color School

The story of the Washington Color School is a cautionary tale. On the surface (so to speak) it is just a simple story about six painters: Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, ...

How Victor Pasmore Found His True Style in Abstraction

This coming January will mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Victor Pasmore, a pioneer of British abstract art. Pasmore underwent a unique transformation over the course of his artistic care...

Three Masters of Color Green in Contemporary Art

We have been conducting some research into the meaning of the color green, and the results, frankly, are quite confusing. Many of the most common associations people have with green directly contr...

Edward Burtynsky and Landscapes Like No Other

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has been photographing the natural world for nearly four decades. He began his career in the late 1970s, photographing natural landscapes from a strictly for...

Merging Science and Photography - The Art of Fabian Oefner

Chances are you have seen the work of Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner at some point in recent years. Since he opened his professional photography studio in 2013, his magical-looking photographs c...

Dan Colen, Bad Boy of Post-Pop New York, To Exhibit at Damien Hirst’s Gallery

It has been roughly a decade since New York Magazine ran the article that is widely credited with establishing Dan Colen as an art market star. Titled Chasing Dash Snow, the piece coined the monik...

The Utopian Architecture of Yona Friedman Reviewed at MAXXI Rome

Yona Friedman is part architect, part artist, part poet, part philosopher, and all human. Throughout the course of his long career, which could be said to have officially started in 1956 with the ...

The Meticulous Process of Hard Edge Painter Frederick Hammersley Honored

When it comes to American, Post-War, abstract art movements, Abstract Expressionism tends to get most of the press. But while New York School artists like Pollock, Krasner and de Kooning were expl...

The Politically Abstract Art of Dia al-Azzawi

Iraqi-born artist Dia al-Azzawi is no stranger to conflict. He has spent a lifetime in the crosshairs: sometimes literally, as when he was forced by Ba’ath extremists that had taken control of the...

Why Do Abstract Art Images Make us Feel so Good?

When you look at abstract art images, how do they make you feel? Do you find that they tend to cause you to have a visceral emotional response? Does abstract art make you feel happy? Does it make ...

The Abstract Salt in the Photographs of David Burdeny

David Burdeny belongs to a photographic heritage that uses the camera not only to document the physical world, but also to investigate the mysteries of how shapes, colors, forms and spaces functio...

The Mesmerizing Animations of Oskar Fischinger

This year is the 50th anniversary of the death of Oskar Fischinger, a prescient genius who came closer than any other artist has to expressing the mystifying, abstract commonalities that exist bet...

Helen Frankenthaler Paintings Celebrated in Dual Retrospectives

Helen Frankenthaler paintings are common sights at many of the best museums in the world, as well as at many prestigious Modern and Contemporary art fairs and auctions. But far fewer people have h...

When Hilla Rebay Became the Guiding Spirit of the Guggenheim Museum

We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the death of a great woman, without whom abstract art history as we know it would not exist. The Baroness Hildegard Anna Augusta Elizabeth Freiin Rebay v...

How Latin American Artists Altered Our Perceptions of Modern Art

A new book by Alexander Alberro, a Professor of Art History and the Department Chair at Barnard College, offers insights into the global development of abstract art in the 20th Century. Titled Abs...

Pollock and Motherwell: Legends of Abstract Expressionism at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

A recently opened exhibition in Kansas City, Missouri, examines Abstract Expressionism from the perspective that less is more. The exhibition, Pollock and Motherwell: Legends of Abstract Expressio...

British Abstract Art Exhibition Arrives in Nottingham

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Arts Council Collection, the most substantial loaning collection of British modern and contemporary art in the world. In celebration of this milestone, ...

The Dark, Abstract Art of Adolph Gottlieb

Adolph Gottlieb was one of the key figures in mid-20th Century abstraction. His paintings are emotive, sparse, and primitive, and many people consider them to be dark. But Gottlieb saw himself as ...

The Sibling in the Shadow - Diego Giacometti

This summer the Tate Modern has mounted an intensive retrospective of the work of Alberto Giacometti, one of the most important artists of the 20th Century. But many people attending the show may ...

Giardini Colourfall - Ian Davenport at Venice Biennale 2017

The Venice Biennale is a simple expression of something timeless: the act of returning regularly somewhere beautiful to enjoy contemporary art in fellowship with others. One of the highlights of t...

Groundbreaking yet Forgotten - The Art of Mark Tobey

This summer the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, is showcasing the first major European retrospective of the paintings of Mark Tobey in more than 20 years. Titled Mark Tobey: Threadin...

The Wall Works by Imi Knoebel at Von Bartha

Imi Knoebel is a conceptual artist. That may sound like a controversial statement to many who know his work. Knoebel more often tends to be associated with things like Minimalism and Geometric Abs...

The Abstract Realities of Photographer J Henry Fair

Our natural environment appears to be changing at a horrifying clip. And few people on this planet are more aware of exactly what the appearance of a rapidly changing world looks like than J. Henr...

Design Radical by Ettore Sottsass Takes Over The Met Museum

On 21 July 2017, the Met Breuer in New York will open a major exhibition of the work of the designer Ettore Sottsass. Sottsass reached the peak of his influence in the 1980s, and his most memorabl...

When the Art of Arpita Singh Went Abstract

The images that inhabit the figurative paintings Arpita Singh has been making since the late 1980s spring to life with excitement and energy. They buzz and vibrate with life, and confidently speak...

Vivid Compositions of 5 Los Angeles-Based Artists at Brand Library

The Brand Library in Glendale, California, is an architectural spectacle. A former mansiondubbed Miradero (meaning vantage point), its majestic white facade sparkles amid tree-covered hills and va...

Mitchell-Innes and Nash Salutes the Art of Julian Stanczak

The painter Julian Stanczak died earlier this year in his hometown of Cleveland Ohio, at the age of 88. Prior to his death, Mitchell-Innes and Nash in New York had been planning what would have be...

UK's First Major Retrospective of Alberto Giacometti at Tate

Among contemporary artists, Alberto Giacometti is one of the most revered masters of all time. Though the sculptor, painter and draughtsman lived his entire life in the 20th Century, he created a ...

Reinterpreting Collage - Brenna Youngblood

If, like many art lovers, you constantly carry with you the baggage of having looked at tens of thousands of images of art in your life, you might, when glancing quickly over the work of Brenna Yo...

Celebrating 100 Years of De Stijl at The Open Air Museum de Lakenhal

As we recently announced, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Dutch art movement De Stijl. The founders of the movement, such as Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld, are remem...

What Was The Dematerialization of Art Object?

Lucy Lippard—giant of American art criticism, author of more than 20 books, and co-founder of Printed Matter, the quintessential seller of books made by artists—turned 80 this year. Despite her mu...

Female Australian Abstract Artists at Newcastle Art Gallery

We love any opportunity to discover the hidden geniuses who helped make abstraction what it is. So many stories from abstract art history remain untold. One current exhibition in which we are part...

Colors of De Stijl Artists at Kunsthal Kade

This year marks an extraordinary milestone for the Netherlands: the 100th anniversary of the founding of the art movement De Stijl. De Stijl artists sought to reduce visual composition to its most...

The Mesmerizing Art of Fahrelnissa Zeid Gets a Tate Retrospective

Complexity may be the best word to define the life and the art of Fahrelnissa Zeid. Born in 1901 into a family with roots in both politics and art (her father was a diplomat, her brother was the w...

The Legacy of Lee Hall, Artist and de Kooning Biographer

Lee Hall, artist, writer, educator, biographer, university administrator, advocate for the less fortunate, and outspoken truth teller about the New York art world, has died. In the 1960s, Hall dev...

Le Corbusier - Between Architecture and Fine Art

Within the contemporary architecture community, the name Le Corbusier is as likely to arouse praise as derision. One of the most influential thinkers of the 20th Century, Le Corbusier was more tha...

Interview With American Abstract Painter Dana Gordon

New paintings by Dana Gordon are on view at Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn until 4 June 2017. We recently had a chance to catch up with Gordon and talk to him about this exciting new body of work. I...

How Gutai’s Kazuo Shiraga Suddenly Rose to Fame

A generation ago, the name Kazuo Shiraga would not have meant anything to most curators, academicians and art collectors in the United States. Neither would the word Gutai have gotten much of a re...

Forms of American Landscapes - The Art of Letha Wilson

The relationship between humanity and nature is complicated. Like everything we love, we strive to understand nature, imitate it, and exalt it; but then inevitably we also try to possess it, captu...

The Versatile Photographic Practice of Ryan Foerster

Conservation is one of the core ideas of photography. Capture a vision of reality. Do not waste time by letting it slip away. Conserve a fragment of the moment so it might be experienced after the...

Alfred Leslie - From Abstract Expressionism to Figurative Painting

Anyone who visited the Bruce Silverstein booth at Frieze New York 2017 was offered a rare treat: a selection of realistic paintings by Alfred Leslie spanning from the late 1960s, when he first cha...