(An Appropriate Distance)

FROM THE MAYOR'S DOORSTEP

By Piri Halasz

Report from the Front
Art criticism, sometimes with context, occasional politics. New shows: "events;" how to support the online edition: "works."

ALONG THE ABSTRACT TRAIL IN MANHATTAN

November 18, 2012

Tags: Peter Halley, John Zinsser, Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, Hofmann, Ronnie Landfield

Ronnie Landfield. Bluebird, 2ooo. Acrylic on canvas, 89 x 76 in. Photo courtesy the artist.

Despite the depredations of Hurricane Sandy, a number of abstract shows have been rearing their curly heads this fall. The biggest and most prestigious (at least, until MoMA opens its big historical “Inventing Abstraction” in December) was “Conceptual Abstraction” at Hunter College’s huge but curiously arid West 41st Street Times Square Gallery Read More

6 Comments

Comments

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