Tag Archives: abstract art

ART

ANDY WARHOL:: OXIDATION PAINTINGS, aka PISS PAINTINGS, 1977-78

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“Basically we’d say, ‘we’re making these piss-paintings. Wanna come up and pee?’ And that didn’t work as well.  Uhh, I brought u a girl, and she squats and just makes a puddle.  And Andy went, ‘Oh there’s no brushstroke.’  So we learned the hard way.”   -Ronnie Cutrone

(below,from Warholstars.org)

The Oxidation paintings are sometimes referred to as Warhol’s Piss Paintings. The paintings are generally attributed to 1977-78, although Warhol also referred to them in a 1976 interview. The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné (Vol. 1) notes “In a little-known 1976 interview, when Warhol was asked if there were ‘any old non-representational paintings that no one knows about,’ he replied: ‘The only ones I have are the piss paintings; I have a couple. That was a long time ago. Then there were the canvases that I used to leave on the street and people used to walk on them; in the end I had a lot of dirty canvases. Then I thought they were all diseased so I rolled them up and put them somewhere. Reproduced with this interview was an unstretched canvas, captioned ‘Andy Warhol: Piss Painting, urine on canvas, 46 x 80, c. 1961.'”  Continue reading ANDY WARHOL:: OXIDATION PAINTINGS, aka PISS PAINTINGS, 1977-78 →

ART, Video

TERRY WINTERS: UNINTENDED THINGS TO HAPPEN, interview, Louisiana Museum, 2015 9 min.

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A wonderful, thoughtful short interview with the artist Terry Winters by Anders Kold at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in August 2015. Continue reading TERRY WINTERS: UNINTENDED THINGS TO HAPPEN, interview, Louisiana Museum, 2015 9 min. →

ART, Music, Video

RICHTER 858, A Slideshow, Bill Frisell,composer/Gerhard Richter, artist

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Richter 858 is an album by Bill Frisell of improvised music inspired by the paintings of German artist Gerhard Richter and performed by Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Jenny Scheinman and Hank Roberts. The album was originally released as part of a limited-edition volume of Gerhard Richter’s paintings which also contained poetry and essays by Dave Hickey and Klaus Kertess inspired by the artist’s work. The album was rereleased in 2005 on the Songlines label with a CD-ROM with MP3 music to accompany a slide show of the paintings, which can also be found reproduced in the booklet. Continue reading RICHTER 858, A Slideshow, Bill Frisell,composer/Gerhard Richter, artist →

ART

Art historian Katy Siegel quotes Frankenthaler in 1964 in response to a question from Henry Geldzahler, then the curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum, “How do you feel about being a woman painter?” Frankenthaler replied, Obviously, first I am involved in painting not the who and the how… Looking at my paintings as if they were painted by a woman is superficial, a side issue… The making of serious painting is difficult and complicated for all serious painters. One must be oneself, whatever.”

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Helen Frankenthaler, Robinson’s Wrap, 1974

 

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Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Grace Hartigan at the opening of Frankenthaler’s solo exhibition at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, February 12, 1957. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos

 

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Helen Frankenthaler in her 10th Street Studio, New York, circa 1951-52. Photo credit: Cora Kelley Ward. Courtesy Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Archives, New York

Helen Frankenthaler, a painter who is having a seriously revitalized pop culture moment, was among those who also resisted this label.

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In a dynamic and excellently illustrated new book with essays about her ongoing influence, “The heroine Paint” After Frankenthaler” published by Gagosian Gallery, the art historian Katy Siegel quotes Frankenthaler in 1964 in response to a question from Henry Geldzahler, then the curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum,

“How do you feel about being a woman painter?”

Frankenthaler replied,

Obviously, first I am involved in painting not the who and the how… Looking at my paintings as if they were painted by a woman is superficial, a side issue… The making of serious painting is difficult and complicated for all serious painters. One must be oneself, whatever.

(“The heroine Paint” After Frankenthaler edited by Katy Siegel. Cover artwork © 2015 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Rob McKeever.)

ART, Video

HELEN FRANKENTHALER, interview, Portland State University, May 1972, 25 min.

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In May 1972, Abstract Expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler came to Portland as part of a “Visiting Artist Program” organized by the Art Department of Portland State University. The program brought the artist and nine of her paintings with the support of the Oregon Arts Commission, the Portland Art Museum, and the Academically Controlled Auxiliary Activities Committee at PSU. At Portland Art Museum, the artist gave a slide show and preview of the selected work, which was installed in the sculpture garden of PAM. The following day, Frankenthaler participated in an informal Q & A session in PSU’s Lincoln Hall Auditorium with area art students and members of the public. The Q & A at the university was recorded by Ed Du Vivier and Mel Katz, with support from PSU’s Television Services and with the assistance of Tom Taylor and the Center for Moving Image, with the idea that the recording, with funding and support from the Oregon Arts Commission, would later be made available to other schools, museums, and libraries. In this restored version of the film, Frankenthaler discusses her work, her youthful influences, her association with the New York School of painting, and whether advanced formal training aids or hinders the artistic process.

Continue reading HELEN FRANKENTHALER, interview, Portland State University, May 1972, 25 min. →

ART, Video

THE PAINTING TECHNIQUES OF AD REINHARDT: Abstract Painting, AB EX NY via MOMA, 5 min.

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Another chapter of the great AB EX NY series of short videos discussing the painting techniques of key NY Abstract Expressionist artists.  Produced for the MoMA exhibition: Abstract Expressionist New York, October 3, 2010–April 11, 2011

Filmed by Plowshares Media
Images courtesy of the Estate of Ad Reinhardt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Photos by John Loengard/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Music by Chris Parrello
Chris Parrello, Ian Young, Kevin Thomas, Ziv Ravitz

ART, Video

ELLSWORTH KELLY, hard edge art legend

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Red White 1966 Ellsworth Kelly born 1923 Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of Douglas S Cramer 2013 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T14156
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Ellsworth Kelly’s earliest works of art were created in service to the United States, as part of a special camouflage unit in France during World War II. Kelly and his fellow artist-soldiers were tasked with fooling the Germans—using rubber and wood to construct fake tanks and trucks—into thinking the multitudes of Allied troops on the battlefield were much larger than reality. While this seems an unconventional early training for an artist, it proved a fitting one for Kelly.

“He was able to understand that there were these realities that for most of us are camouflaged,” says Virginia Mecklenburg, chief curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “He would evoke those realities—a distinct feel of gravity, or the physics of weight and momentum that we rarely think about in tangible terms. He was able to get that across.” Continue reading ELLSWORTH KELLY, hard edge art legend →