Magazine

A Word on the 100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum by Donald Judd

Few contemporary art destinations are more notable than Marfa, Texas. Though some complain that the mecca of Modernist asceticism has lately become more of a laboratory of Post-Modern avarice, at ...

Remembering Palestinian Abstract Artist Kamal Boullata

Beloved Palestinian artist and writer Kamal Boullata is dead at age 77. Boullata passed away on 6 August 2019 in Berlin, where he was a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Boull...

Bernar Venet's Arc Majeur To Become World's Tallest Work of Public Art

If you drive the E411 in Belgium between Luxembourg and Namur in the coming weeks, you might notice a fantastical form rising up from the horizon. “L'Arc Majeur,” the latest work by French sculpto...

Legendary Kinetic and Op Artist Carlos Cruz-Diez Dies at 95

Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923), an artist of the people, has died. An obituary posted on his official website reads, “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our beloved father, grandfat...

Robert De Niro Sr., Between European Modernism and Abstract Expressionism

You have likely heard the name Robert De Niro before—the two-time Academy Award winning actor has starred in 53 motion pictures. But you might not realize the connection De Niro has to some of the...

Inside the Reichstag, Gerhard Richter's Birkenau Tells of the Holocaust Horrors

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the re-opening of the Reichstag, the building that houses the Bundestag, or German federal parliament. It also marks the second anniversary of the arrival o...

The Splendor of Alberto Burri's Grand Cretto of Gibellina

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the start of construction on the Grand Cretto, by Alberto Burri, a sacred work of land art built on the site of a lost Sicilian town. Nowhere in the history...

The Persistence of Form in The Art Of Jiro Yoshihara

This summer, Fergus McCaffrey gallery in Tokyo is reviving interest in the work of Gutai Group founder Jiro Yoshihara. Jiro Yoshihara: The Persistence of Form focuses on a specialized aspect of hi...

Farewell to Eberhard Havekost

On 6 June, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported the death of German painter Eberhard Havekost at age 52. His gallerist, Frank Lehmann, owner of Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, was quoted as saying he was...

The Story of Atomium, A Brussels Gem That Almost Wasn't

More than 60 years after it was built, the Atomium in Brussels has become one of the most beloved buildings in Europe. When it was first constructed, however, critics panned it as a disgrace. A st...

A Long-Overdue Artist Spotlight on Marlow Moss

Marlow Moss was a master of constructivist art, yet few today know her name. That could be because Moss was more than just a constructivist; she was a female, lesbian, British constructivist in a ...

Richard Kalina Curates an Abstract Art Show at DC Moore Gallery

Richard Kalina is easily one of the most informed experts on contemporary art in America today. He has taught at Fordham University, Yale and Bennington College; is an influential art critic with ...

8 Works of Abstract Public Art That Can Be Found in Chicago

We recently ran a story about “Nuclear Energy,” a.k.a. “Atom Piece” (1964–66), a work of abstract public art by British artist Henry Moore, which is installed on the campus of the University of Ch...

Pier Paolo Calzolari and an (Abstract) Art that Happens

Pier Paolo Calzolari has returned to Naples for the first time in more than 40 years, with a grand survey of his entire career at The Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (a.k.a. Museo MADRE). T...

Meet an Italian Spatialist Who is Not Lucio Fontana

Next month in London, a survey of more than 40 works will trace the entire career of Italian artist Paolo Scheggi (1940 – 1971). Paolo Scheggi: In Depth at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italia...

Bernard Frize, Without Remorse at Centre Pompidou

Bernard Frize has returned to Paris this summer for his first major exhibitions there in 15 years. Bernard Frize—Without Remorse is on view until 26 August at the Centre Pompidou, and Bernard Friz...

How Henry Moore Portrayed Nuclear Energy Through Sculpture

As you stroll along South Ellis Avenue on the bucolic campus of the University of Chicago, you come upon an unusual abstract form protruding from a cement plaza next to The Joe and Rika Mansueto L...

Black Abstract Artists from the Thelma and Bert Ollie Memorial Collection Come to Saint Louis

This autumn, the Saint Louis Art Museum will expand the contemporary understanding of abstract art with an exhibition highlighting the contributions of Black abstract artists. The Shape of Abstrac...

Get Hypnotized by Bridget Riley at the National Galleries of Scotland

When the Edinburgh Art Festival opens in July, it will premier multiple groundbreaking surveys, including the first ever British collage survey, which traces the method back 400 years through more...

Revisiting the Sculpture of Tony Smith through These 5 Works

Tony Smith enjoys a radically individualized status within the story of 20th Century art. His sculpture oeuvre defies easy categorization, occupying a place somewhere between architecture, science...

How Queer Artists Used Abstraction to Express Themselves

A number of exhibitions are currently on view in consideration of Pride Month, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots—protests following a police raid of a gay bar in Greenwich Vil...

The Delicate Beauty of Constantin Brâncuși's Bird in Space

Constantin BrâncuÈ™i is considered the most influential sculptor of the 20th Century, and his most influential sculpture is considered to be the elegant “Bird in Space” (1923 – 1940), of which six...

Abstraction as Continuous Adventure - The Art of Frank Wimberley

More than a century ago, Wassily Kandinsky asked whether purely abstract art could ever achieve the same emotional effect as music. Since the 1950s, Frank Wimberley has been proving that it can, b...

Tony DeLap, A Multifaceted Abstract Artist, Dies at 91

Abstract artist Tony DeLap has died at age 91. It was barely more than a year ago that a DeLap retrospective opened at the Laguna Art Museum, in Laguna Beach, California. The exhibition featured n...

What Do Ranjani Shettar and Wassily Kandinsky Have in Common?

Late in 2018, Shearsman Books in Bristol, England, published the first ever color edition of Klänge (Sounds), the only book of prose poetry that Wassily Kandinsky ever published. Accompanying his ...

Why Was Richard Serra's Tilted Arc So Controversial?

The story of “Tilted Arc,” a 36.5 meter long, 3.6 meter tall steel sculpture by Richard Serra that was commissioned, installed, and then destroyed by government officials in New York in the 1980s,...

David Novros' Kinesthetic Experiences at Paula Cooper

A week after the closing of David Novros: Paintings 1966, a sparse exhibition of three historic works at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, Paula Cooper Gallery in New York opened David Novros...

The Blue Rhythms of Idris Khan

The work of British artist Idris Khan deals with accumulation and compression. Khan accumulates visual content from the material framework of his everyday experiences—photographs of buildings, pag...

Inside the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019

A mystical world of color, sound, and hair extensions awaits visitors to the Icelandic Pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale. The installation is the creation of Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, a.k.a. Sho...

Why this Mark Rothko Painting is Now Worth $50 Million

Last week, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art decommissioned “Untitled, 1960,” a prized painting by Mark Rothko, selling it for just over $50 million (50,095,250 USD to be precise) at Sotheby’...

Un Art Autre - Abstraction in Postwar Paris at Levy Gorvy

In 1952, the French art critic and curator Michel Tapié coined the phrase “Un Art Autre,” meaning “art of another kind,” to refer to a trend he perceived in abstract art away from rationality, and...

Why Ben Heller Was a Powerful Figure for Abstract Art

Ben Heller, one of the giants of 20th Century art, has passed away at age 93. Heller was not an artist—he was a businessman who made a relatively modest living in the textile industry. It is what ...

In Memory of Thomas Nozkowski

Abstract painter Thomas Nozkowski died last week at age 75. Pace Gallery, which represented Nozkowski, announced his passing. Nozkowski had been a fixture of the New York art field for more than f...

Jane Benson’s Abstract Interpretations of Suffragette Mona Caird's Revolutionary Work

When German author W.G. Sebald died in 2001, he was considered the most talented English-language author alive. The Rings of Saturn, published in 1995, was among his most beloved books. In 2017, B...

Hard edge, a response to gestural

The term Hard Edged was coined by art critic Jules Langsner and art historian Peter Selz, to describe a tendency that was becoming prominent in the late 1950s in the work of multiple California-ba...

Ruth Asawa’s Hanging Odes to Natural Forms

If you have ever stood in the midst of a Ruth Asawa installation, you understand that there exists an art outside of art; an art forged not from theory, but from direct expression, instinct and in...

5 Abstract Art Exhibitions to See During the Biennale 2019

Today we offer our round up of five of the most exciting abstract art exhibitions you can see while visiting the 2019 Venice Biennale. The 58th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia ...

6 Sculptures Inspired by Nature You Can See This Summer

An upcoming exhibition in London this summer promises viewers a unique opportunity to examine the intersection of figuration and abstraction in contemporary sculpture, by way of an assortment of s...

On a Journey with Antoni Tàpies

When Antoni Tàpies died in 2012, he left a massive hole in the Spanish culture. He was easily the most influential Spanish visual artist of his generation, and in many respects it is hard to imagi...

Lee Krasner at the Barbican - A Look at An Artist of Her Own

This summer, The Barbican Art Gallery in London will mount Lee Krasner: Living Colour, the first European retrospective of the work of Lee Krasner in more than half a century. The exhibition will ...

Joan Mitchell's Polyptych Paintings Land at David Zwirner

Visitors to The Long Run exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (which closes 5 May 2019) were no doubt transfixed when they first set eyes on the selection of large-scale dipty...

Why Mohamed Melehi Was Crucial for Postcolonial Moroccan Art

A new exhibition titled New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School, at The Mosaic Rooms in London, brings to light the artistic achievements of Mohamed Melehi (b. 1936), an influentia...

Diversity is Key to the Future of American Abstract Artists

When American Abstract Artists (AAA) was founded in 1936, most critics and curators considered abstract art too “European” to be “American.” The irony of that prejudice, of course, is that America...

Robert Motherwell's Monumental Approach to Painting

Some words do not retain the same meaning over time. Monumental is one such word. Its value— at least in relation to painting—is currently being tested in Sheer Presence: Monumental Paintings by R...

Why Jackie Winsor is Eccentrically Abstract

The work of Jackie Winsor provides a perfectly wonderful foil to academic theories about contemporary abstraction. The debate that drives most current conversations about abstract art inevitably r...

Key Figures of the Pattern and Decoration Movement

The Pattern and Decoration movement holds a special place in contemporary art history. Emerging out of the Feminist Art Movement of the 1960s, Pattern and Decoration declared itself as a sort ...

In The Spotlight - Georgia O'Keeffe's Gorgeous Watercolors

It may be hard to imagine a time when Georgia O’Keeffe was unsure of herself, or lacked confidence in her technique. Today, looking back at photographs of her knowing stare, her eyes glistening wi...

Janet Echelman’s Monumental Hanging Abstractions

A new, monumental, outdoor art installation recently premiered in the air space above The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. Titled Earthtime 1.26 (Hong Kong), it is the newest work by Janet Echelman, ...