Magazine

The Week in Abstract Art – Partners in Time

We have been thinking about artistic partnerships lately. The idea popped up while admiring works on paper by the artist Jean Dubuffet, currently on view at the Morgan in New York. The exhibition ...

Is Dot Painting the Remnant of Pointillism?

Dot painting may sound benign, but it has had a long, tendentious, sometimes controversial history. The Neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat shocked the art world with a dot painting in 1886. N...

The Abstract Side of Thomas Ruff Photographs

We may complain that digital manipulation has made all photographs suspect; but even in its non-manipulated condition every photograph is only a partial truth at best. The biggest illusion photogr...

Vibrancy and Energy in Joan Mitchell Paintings

When we look at a Joan Mitchell painting we are looking at an image of liberty. We are looking at abandon made palpable. Mitchell approached the act of painting from a place of total freedom, with...

Anish Kapoor and the Abstract Essence in Space

When is form not form, and color not color? How do we create space by filling space? Can we separate the abstract essence of a phenomenon from its material presence? These are some of the mysterie...

The Week in Abstract Art – Spirits in the Material World

This is the time of year when many cultures celebrate the harvest and prepare for the onset of winter. Across the globe, people will don costumes and engage in festivities intended to embrace the ...

Finding the Color-Field Heritage in Sterling Ruby Paintings

The multiple simultaneous realities of the city speak in visual bursts on its innumerable surfaces. Glitzy, rotting, rusting, ancient, new, some marked for destruction, all intermingling, building...

What is Gestural Abstraction in Painting ?

The phrase gestural abstraction refers to a way of making art. It is a process, not a movement. With an abstract gestural painting, the point is not what gets painted. The point is how it gets pai...

Abstraction in Photography of László Moholy-Nagy

Today, photography is ubiquitous. Cameras are imbedded in billions of electronic devices, and it is hard to imagine any subject that has not been thoroughly explored ad nauseam in photographs. But...

The Revolution Abstract Acrylic Painting Brought to the Medium

Every artistic medium possesses qualities that affect the way viewers interact with it. As one of the newest mediums, acrylic paint communicates, among other things, modernity. What else is unique...

The Week in Abstract Art – Patterns and Randomness

Revelation is often associated with abstract art. Sometimes a revelation inspires an artist to begin working. Other times a revelatory moment lets an artist know a work is done. Viewers frequently...

The Role of Biomorphic Shapes in Abstract Art

Biomorphism comes from the Greek words bio, meaning life, and morphe, meaning form. It does not, however, mean life form. Rather, it means the tendency to exhibit the appearance or qualities of a ...

Cecily Brown and the Associative Abstract Painting

When we say that a painting is figurative we mean that its imagery is derived from the real world. By that definition, Cecily Brown is a figurative artist. The British-born New York artist makes p...

The Late Abstract Expressionism in the Works of Sam Francis

Some people say that for true artists, making art is not a choice; it is a compulsion. They make artworks whether they get paid or not, even if they get ignored. In other words, artists make art b...

Can We Find an Abstract Element in German Expressionist Art ?

Dark. Anxious. Frightening. Primitive. Crude. These are some of the words people use to describe German Expressionist art. For a visual reference of what those people mean, picture The Scream, the...

The Week in Abstract Art – A Culture of Forms

Every culture has its own language. That language includes verbal and written communication systems, but it does not stop there. The language of a culture includes every phenomenon that identifies...

Lee Krasner and Her Impressive Oeuvre

Some artists focus so intently on one particular style that almost any art lover can easily describe typical examples of their works. Others, however, purposefully and constantly evolve their styl...

Impasto Painting in Abstract Art

Perhaps the most symbolic building in America is One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. As the centerpiece of the development that replaced the twin towers that were destroyed in 2001, its ver...

Optical Illusion Art That Marked the 20th Century

Reality is not always fixed; or at least it can seem that way to the human mind. What we believe is based to some degree on what we perceive, but what we perceive is also sometimes determined by w...

Sigmar Polke and His Abstract Painting Experiments

What are the limitations of knowledge? Can we always learn our way out of our problems? Or must we sometimes rely on something beyond knowledge, like instinct, mysticism or magic? Sigmar Polke bel...

The Week in Abstract Art – The Dwan Legacy

Are you tired of noise, fraud and chaos? Do you crave nuance, rhythm and restraint? Why not go to Vegas? “Wait,” you say, “is Vegas not the world capital of noise, fraud and chaos?” Maybe. But we ...

The Most Important Traits of Kinetic Art

What is kinetic art? The simplest definition is, “art that depends on motion for its effect.” But that is really inadequate. Scientifically speaking, everything depends on motion for its effect, s...

What is Abstract in the Work of John Baldessari

While teaching at the University of California San Diego, the artist John Baldessari developed an assignment to challenge the attitude his students had about abstract art. He told them to pick out...

Appreciating Abstract Portraits and Their Particular Aesthetics

Abstract portrait artists confront peculiar challenges. When we see faces in everything; that is called pareidolia. When we see everything in faces; that is called empathy. Abstract portraits inha...

Goodbye Shirley Jaffe - The Painter of Flat Abstractions

The abstract art community lost a lovely and inventive painter this week. Shirley Jaffe was born in New Jersey and studied art in New York, at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and A...

Keepers of the Artistic Vision - Dia:Beacon Museum

Without shadows how could we understand the value of light? In the 1890s, Beacon, New York was an industrial powerhouse known as the Hat Making Capital of America. By the 1990s it was in shadow, w...

The Week in Abstract Art – Relationship Building

Artists and athletes are notorious for not understanding each other. But happily there are some among us actively working to reverse that cliché. Last week the city of Sacramento, California, unve...

Abstract Expressionism - Art Exhibition at the Royal Academy

Few Modernist art movements have proved, over time, to be as popular and influential as Abstract Expressionism. Art critic Robert Coates coined the term Abstract Expressionism in 1946 to describe ...

Anni Albers and the Abstraction in Textile Art

When the Bauhaus was established in Germany in 1919, it was a relatively forward-thinking academy. It synthesized the study of art and design in pursuit of a total approach to both, and it opened ...

The Art of František Kupka - From Figuration to Orphism

What is color? What is its purpose? What are its capabilities? It may sound strange, but there is much we do not know about the underlying phenomena that cause us to experience color. For example,...

What is the Most Expensive Painting of Abstract Art Ever Sold?

While we love exploring the less tangible qualities of abstract art, we are also keenly aware that it can be a wonderful financial investment. To date, the most expensive painting ever sold is an ...

The Week in Abstract Art – Structural Utterances

If you happen to be in New York this week you might see something rare: traveling architecture. A recreation of the Monumental Arch of Palmyra is on display outside of City Hall. Standing 25 feet ...

How Ad Reinhardt Taught Us to Look at Modern Art

What does it mean to be a purist? Is it like being close-minded? Or is the quest for purity inherently noble, like the pursuit of perfection? To the American abstract artist Ad Reinhardt, purity w...

Abstract Approaches of Modern Italian Art

Most people who study the history of Italian art learn about the classical masters from the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio. F...

IdeelArt Gathering in Brooklyn

IdeelArt recently had the pleasure of getting together for a few hours with more than thirty American abstract artists in a bar in Brooklyn. The experience was unique and powerful. We often meet o...

The Evolution of Style in Piet Mondrian Artwork

Many artists strive to express what is universal. But what does that mean, universal? To Piet Mondrian it meant spiritual: but not dogmatic, or religious. Rather, Mondrian used the word spiritual ...

Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight

Cosmologists say that when we look into outer space we look back in time. The galaxies we see through telescopes may not even exist any more. But does that matter to the light? It is here now to h...

Peter Soriano: 3 Murals and Related Drawings

Meaning is everything. We search for meaning in our experiences. We assign meaning to every relationship we develop, whether with creatures, places or objects. Somewhere in every interaction betwe...

The Week in Abstract Art - Site Specifics

Late summer is the best time to visit New York! Then again early summer is pretty great. And winter is nice, too; ice skating at 30 Rock and snacking on roasted chestnuts in Central Park. Maybe th...

How Arshile Gorky Discovered Abstraction

Where would we be without camouflage? It helped the Allies win World War II and has since become ubiquitous in military strategy. And there are other types of camouflage besides those used in war....

Mel Bochner and The Different Side of Language

Words are a precious resource. They are a storehouse of meaning. They enable societies to develop cultures. They help us express feelings, explain the past and make future plans. And yet words can...

Cutting the Canvas - The Story of Lucio Fontana

Abstract art creates questions, not answers. Thus it invites attack. Not everyone likes questions. People often desire from art only comfort and beauty. But many abstract artists are not decorator...

The Week in Abstract Art – Fall Formalism

Formalist traditions help define us. But they are also like prisons. We recently read a story highlighting events that seem to put some of the formalist traditions of abstract art at risk. The Jud...

Vladimir Tatlin and The Monument to the Third International

Intentions are vital to abstract art. Conversations about intent help viewers connect with artists and contextualize their work. Unlike in politics, business or other utilitarian fields, in abstra...

How Karel Appel Broke the Rules Through an Experiment

We take it for granted today that art is a creative field. But what does that mean? For something to be created, it must not have previously existed. Creativity demands originality. Artists, there...

Defining Abstract Photography

When you read the words abstract photography how do you react? Do you perk up, fascinated to discover more about this topic? Or do you recoil, annoyed at the very thought of it? Or are you ambival...

Jean Dubuffet and the Return to the Essence

What is art? Where can we find it? How do we recognize it? What is the origin of the creative impulse? What is the purpose of making art? It was with questions such as these in mind that the Frenc...

The Week in Abstract Art – Concepts and Machinations

We have a question for contemporary artists: “What is the difference between a concept and a machination?” Britain’s BBC4 has announced a new fall season of programming celebrating conceptual arti...