(An Appropriate Distance)

 

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

Nov 24, 2012 2:36 AM EST

color is so important, and difficult. as well as being very personal. thank you for devoting so much attention to it.

- Jay Zerbe

Nov 24, 2012 3:11 AM EST

Reading this article is extremely timely and interesting as in the U.K. Abstract Critical is dealing with similar issues ,redefining Abstraction.I would particularly agree with the view that Frankenthaler,Louis,et al ,in their best pictures are superior to experience than much done since. Thank you for such refined responses.

- Patrick Jones

Nov 24, 2012 4:23 AM EST

Good essay because it raises issues that were never fully resolved, especially in the nature vs. culture aspect of abstraction. Hofmann remains problematic but compelling, too. Was it his allegience to "School of Paris" aesthetics that kept him tied to cubism and avoiding -- or not getting -- the rawness of others, like deKooning in the late fifties? I think Greenberg commented on that.

- William Conger

Nov 24, 2012 6:31 AM EST

Analysis, context, and commentary all very much appreciated here. That it's all clearly stated is a bonus.

- Carl Belz

Nov 24, 2012 8:59 AM EST

Many thanks to all you nice people for reading my thoughts & responding to them so congently . But, William Conger, I don't see Hofmann as tied to "School of Paris esthetics" -- his surfaces are just as raw and beautiful as those of Pollock or Gottlieb or any of the other Yanks (it's artists like Soulages and Hartung who remained committed to the "finished" look of Paris). And de Kooning (not Hofmann) was the one who remained in a vein of late cubism--Hofmann's compositions by the mid-40s were already frequently (if not always) purely abstract, while de Kooning didn't stop drawing lots of shapes onto his canvases--even the abstract ones-- until the later 50s (then he goes whole hog in the opposite direction and simply starts slapping the paint around).

- Piri Halasz

Nov 24, 2012 9:13 AM EST

Always glad to see the color field painters get their due. They pushed color to color and made art that did not need 'issues' for validation.

- David Raymond

Nov 11, 2012 3:10 PM EST

I wish I had seen the show, what a great idea. Rest in peace, Eve

- Stephanie Lincoln

Nov 13, 2012 5:57 PM EST

Just a quick correction, you might want to re-check your dates on the life drawings. Olitski's on view start in '65 and continue through 2005. Also, as a sometime figure painter myself, and a woman, (feminist even), I prefer working with the female form. For me working with the female nude has more to do with the "form" and much less, perhaps nothing at all, to do with the "female".

- Lauren Olitski Poster

Nov 14, 2012 4:36 AM EST

Quite right -- as this story was originally written,it may have conveyed the impression that there were no drawings from the 60s in it. I've revised it to correct that impression. As to the preference for the female form, far be it from me to try and dictate the subjects of any artist. I can only testify to the impressions created by a given subject in the mind of one particular viewer, and in particular (in this case) to the impressions created by the presence of the headless (Caro) nudes.

- Piri Halasz