· Curator Harry Cooper reveals the roiling contradictions of Abstract Expressionism—the “band of selves,” the “controlled accident”—that have shaped much art today.
“The AbExers devised various strategies to dislodge a picturesque relationship to the world—and yet, like a bad perfume, it hung around.”
—Harry Cooper
· Artist Amy Sillman isn’t ashamed to like AbEx—and seeks to understand why its vulgarity, its virtuosity, and its campiness have been reclaimed by artists, not least women and queers, now.
“AbEx: Saw it? Loved it! Got the tote bag—and it came with a free Charlie Parker record!”
—Amy Sillman
· Terry Winters talks with curator John Elderfield in anticipation of his blockbuster “De Kooning: A Retrospective,” opening this fall at MoMA.
· David Joselit distinguishes between abstraction then and now, from the “passage” of signs in AbEx to the “broadcast medium” of contemporary painting.
· And: Daniel Marcus traces the suppression and reappearance of the figure and the face in the paintings of Jean Dubuffet, Cathy Wilkes, and cover artist Josh Smith; conservator Carol Mancusi-Ungaro brings the preservation of the AbEx monochrome to the surface; and Graham Bader finds the painterly gesture both emptied and full in the circulation and transmission of Roy Lichtenstein‘s Pop “brushstrokes.”
· Five “Close-ups” illuminate single projects that sit in the nexus—or the wake—of AbEx:
· Carroll Dunham on William Baziotes‘s odd Dwarf, 1947
· Ann Temkin on Cy Twombly‘s transitional Academy, 1955
· Jordan Kantor on the cool hand of Albert Oehlen‘s “Fingermalerei,” 2008–
· Mark Godfrey on Christopher Wool‘s new work for the Venice Biennale
· and Molly Warnock on art informel impresario Georges Mathieu‘s frenzied Battle of the Bouvines, 1954
· Also: Fourteen artists—including Richard Prince, Ei Arakawa, Nicole Eisenman, Scott Lyall, and Julian Schnabel—offer their personal takes on AbEx.
· Plus: Cory Arcangel takes Euro-trance seriously; curator Achim Hochdörfer introduces Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig‘s “1000 Words”; with the rise of computational architecture, critic Sean Keller calls for architects to look at painting again; Okwui Enwezor considers the controversies surrounding Ai Weiwei and Sharjah Biennial 10; James Meyer casts his vote for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s “Glenn Ligon: AMERICA”; Ina Blom plays the audience to Jutta Koether‘s “The Thirst” at Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Amy Taubin contemplates Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu‘s Aurora; and much more, as Artforum closes its forty-ninth season.
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