Magazine

The Knave/Jack of Diamonds and the Russian Avant-Garde

The roots of nearly every Russian avant-garde movement of the 20th Century lie in a short-lived Russian art collective called Бубновый Валет, which had its first exhibition in 1910. I...

Nicolete Gray's Subtle Contribution to Abstraction

Nicolete Gray was not an artist; she was an expert in typography. And yet her understanding of the semantics of visual languages led her to make a distinctive contribution to the history of abstra...

How Kim Whanki Pioneered Abstract Art in Korea

For the first time in generations it seems possible that North and South Korea might unify as one nation. To mark this important historical moment, The Powerlong Museum in Shanghai, China, recentl...

The Met Explores the Profound Legacy of Abstract Expressionism

The Met Fifth Avenue in New York opened Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera this week. Featuring more than 50 major works by some of the most compelling abstract artists of the past century, the ...

Divisionism and Its Influence on Color in Art

Divisionism was one of the most influential aesthetic developments of the 19th Century. It emerged out of the Post-Impressionist period, and is essentially a method of painting a picture in which ...

Sadamasa Motonaga, Between High and Low Art

An exhibition of mid-career abstract paintings by Sadamasa Motonaga is currently on view at McCaffrey Fine Art in New York. Motonaga was one of the earliest members of the Gutai Group, an experime...

Charlotte Posenenske, a (Forgotten) Minimalist Master

Dia Art Foundation recently announced the acquisition of 155 sculptural elements by German Minimalist Charlotte Posenenske (1930 – 1985). Posenenske voluntarily left the art world at the height of...

Behind Joan Snyder’s Transcending Practice

Joan Snyder has accomplished something few artists do: she has become an icon. Usually in order to be considered iconic, an artist must focus on a single style, a single technique, or a single sig...

The Spatial Reliefs of Hélio Oiticica

An exhibition of early works by Hélio Oiticica at Galerie Lelong & Co. New York is worth a trip to see, as it offers a glimpse into the pure plastic aestheticism that formed the basis of the o...

Why The Irascibles Rebelled Against the Art Establishment

The Irascibles, or The Irascible 18, was a group of American abstract artists who signed an open letter of protest addressed to Roland L. Redmond, then President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,...

The Monumental Art of Louise Nevelson

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Louise Nevelson, an artist who profoundly influenced 20th Century art and whose legacy still reverberates today. Nevelson is most widely known ...

Alfonso Ossorio and his Congregations of Found Objects

Alfonso Ossorio is almost a forgotten name today. And yet Ossorio was a key figure in the development of Post War Modernist Art. Born into a wealthy family, Ossorio was an avid art collector whose...

Arshile Gorky to Get the First Italian Retrospective in 2019

The Ca' Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice will mount an ambitious Arshile Gorky retrospective in 2019. Titled “Arshile Gorky: 1904 – 1948,” it will coincide with the run of the ...

The Story of Hedda Sterne, Between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism

Hedda Sterne was a versatile and imaginative artist who experimented with dozens of distinct styles over the course of her long career. Yet her legacy has somehow become attached to a single style...

How Alexander Bogomazov Created the Cubo-Futurism

Alexander Bogomazov is an underappreciated hero of Modern Art. He was born in 1880 in a small village near the city of Kiev, Ukraine, when it was still part of the Russian Empire. Despite growing ...

The Joy of the Colorful Abstract Art at Mnuchin Gallery

Mnuchin Gallery in New York is currently showing The Joy of Color, a celebratory group show of colorful abstract art dating from 1939 to 2018. The exhibition offers a unique glimpse into the multi...

The Abstract Figuration of Franz Marc

Franz Marc died at 36, but it is difficult to feel sorry for him. In his brief life he created a body of paintings that were so powerful that they are considered the height of German Expressionism...

The Glorious Austerity of Ben Nicholson

When Ben Nicholson died in 1982 at the age of 88, he left behind a troubled legacy in his homeland of England. On one hand, his abstract reliefs are considered by most British scholars to represen...

Saluting Yun Hyong-keun, Star of the Dansaekhwa Movement

Eleven years after his death, Korean abstract artist Yun Hyong-keun is finally receiving the celebration he deserves, with simultaneous exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporar...

Why We Should Pay Attention to Hungarian Artist Ilona Keserü

It is her love of art that makes Ilona Keserü such a successful artist. It is her appreciation for the art of others, and the art of other times, that helped her become one of the greatest artists...

Jackson Pollock’s Convergence – A Masterpiece

“Convergence” by Jackson Pollock is an underappreciated masterpiece. Pollock painted it in 1952, the same year he finished “Blue Poles,” which became one of the most famous paintings of his career...

The Systematic Paintings of Paul Mogensen

Paul Mogensen creates pared down visual compositions based on simple mathematical systems. He expresses those systems through structured arrangements of squares, rectangles and lines. Each image h...

A Revolutionary Painter – Our Interview with Olivier Mosset

Swiss-born abstract artist Olivier Mosset has been making revolutionary aesthetic statements for more than 50 years. His work is visually intense and minimal, based on a geometric, monochromatic l...

Why Mark Grotjahn Is In Focus These Days

Mark Grotjahn is one of the most loved and most hated artists of our time. He is loved not for his art, primarily, but for how that art has made a lot of powerful art collectors and dealers rich (...

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pays Homage to the American Minimal Art

The legacy of American Minimal art is on view in Monumental Minimal, at the Paris Pantin location of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. The exhibition includes more than 20 objects created by six of the mos...

The Wonders of Geometric Art of Latin America

One of the most intriguing exhibitions of abstract art anywhere in the world right now is on view at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris. Titled Southern Geometries, from Mexico...

Abstract Art – Differentiating Brexit Supporters from the Opposers?

A recently released report in The British Journal of Sociology 2018 claims to have identified a fascinating link between abstract art and Brexit. The scientists behind the report hypothesized that...

Arthur Dove, One of America’s Greatest Painters

The name Arthur Dove may not be as well known today as the name Georgia O’Keeffe, but the two painters and their oeuvres share a great deal in common. Both were on the forefront of early 20th Cent...

Why Harold Rosenberg Was Seminal for Abstract Expressionism

Harold Rosenberg (1906 – 1978) is the art critic most often credited with helping Abstract Expressionism gain a foothold as a mainstream American art movement. But it could also be said that Abstr...

Shedding a Light on Andy Warhol's Shadows

This month, “Shadows” (1978-79) by Andy Warhol will be partially on view at the headquarters of Calvin Klein, at 205 W 39th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The most ambitious work Warhol ever created...

Marsden Hartley, The Painter of Maine

The American painter Marsden Hartley (1877 – 1943) is referred to today as “The Painter of Maine.” He wasn’t given that title by critics or his fans, but rather Hartley gave himself that moniker l...

Centre Pompidou Takes a Fresh Look at Cubism in a Comprehensive New Show

On 17 October, the first major Cubist exhibition in Paris in 65 years opens at The Centre Pompidou. Cubism (1907-1917) brings together more than 300 works in an attempt to expand our understanding...

Who is Zao Wou-Ki, China's Auction Record-Breaker?

The stunt Banksy pulled at the 5 October Contemporary Art Auction at Sotheby’s London, with his self-shredding “Girl with Red Balloon” painting, was truly newsworthy, but it also took attention aw...

Why Liz Nielsen’s Photography Is So Unusual

Liz Nielsen is part photographer, part conjurer. She coaxes into existence vividly colored photograms from the pitch dark confines of her analog photographic dark room. The images that emerge out ...

How Much Do You Know About Frank Sinatra’s... Paintings?

This December, a selection of Frank Sinatra paintings will be offered at Sotheby’s New York, in the Lady Blue Eyes: Property of Barbara and Frank Sinatra sale. Not only will the sale include paint...

18 Contemporary Abstract Artists Open Up About Their Lineage

It is dangerous and impossible to teach art. Yet it is also imperative. For art to exist, artists must learn how to become whatever it is that they are going to become, and how to create whatever ...

Getting the Most in the Simplest Form - Anne Truitt at Matthew Marks

A rare exhibition of paintings by Anne Truitt is currently on view at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York. Truitt (1921 – 2004) is mostly known for her sculptures, or structures as they are most oft...

What is Rayonism?

Rayonism was a Russian avant-garde art movement founded by the painters Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov around 1911. The movement was based on the concept that material objects are really ...

The Genius of Blinky Palermo

When I think of Blinky Palermo I think of two things: the incomplete becoming complete, and the underestimated becoming profound. If you know the life story of this artist, you might think I am tr...

Grand Palais Welcomes a Grand Retrospective of Joan Miró Works

On 3 October, the Grand Palais in Paris will open Miró, an ambitious retrospective examining the oeuvre of Joan Miró. It has been 44 years since the museum has so honored this Modernist pioneer wh...

Examining Theo van Doesburg’s Counter Compositions

When people think of the Dutch art movement De Stijl, they tend to think of its most famous representative: Piet Mondrian. Yet Mondrian was by no means its only founder. Theo van Doesburg was equa...

5 Abstract Artworks From 'Soul of a Nation' Exhibition of African American Artists

The monumental exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power opened this month at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. This is the third venue for this extraordinary show, which opened at...

Dana Gordon in Paris – New Abstract Painting from New York

Dana Gordon's elegant, powerful new work sings beautifully in its refined setting in Paris's Galerie Metanoia, on rue Quincampoix in the Beaubourg neighborhood. "Lucky Paris" is the response from ...

Barbara Takenaga's Fluctuations of Space

DC Moore Gallery in New York recently opened Outset, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Barbara Takenaga. These paintings, however, might be better described as worlds. They possess a sort of g...

The Power of Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red Blue and Yellow

Piet Mondrian painted “Composition with Red Blue and Yellow” in 1930. It marks a subtle turning point in the evolution of his distinctive, singular style of painting, which he called Neo-Plasticis...

4 Books on Abstract Art Worth Reading Right Now

My cousin recently asked me if I could recommend any abstract art books for a newbie. I was visiting him in Houston, and ended up dragging him to visit the Menil Collection, where we spent several...

The Kaleidoscopic Nature of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s Art

It may not be obvious to many people at first why Sunset, Sunrise, the first international retrospective of the work of Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, is being held at the Irish Mu...

Shara Hughes - Subverting Traditional Representational Landscapes

Shara Hughes makes paintings that are decidedly contemporary, and yet the artificial landscapes that she conjures evoke comparisons to a multitude of aesthetic traditions from the past. Their intu...