Abstraction Academy | artistvenu

Anish Kapoor – The Vantablack Feud

November 17, 2022 (updated November 17, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Anish Kapoor – Cloud Gate is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in Chicago. Image credit: Mariano Mantel

It’s not often that colors are at the heart of controversies, however famous Indian-born British artist, Anish Kapoor managed to do exactly that. His studio purchased the exclusive rights to the artistic use of Surrey NanoSystem’s “blackest black”, Vantablack coating. It’s safe to say the art world did not sit idly by. At the heart of the feud is the notion of exclusivity, and not necessarily exclusivity in appearance, but specifically the exclusivity of a color. So who is Anish Kapoor and what happened?

Born in Mumbai in 1954, Anish Kapoor is a British sculptor known for his use of abstract forms, and his love for rich colors and polished surfaces. Upon leaving school, Kapoor spent a few years on a Kibbutz in Israel, where he decided to stay and train to become an engineer. Within 6 months, the realization that life as an engineer wasn’t for him had dawned and he decided to pursue a career in art, in London instead. After completing his studies in art, the young artist returned to his native India for a visit. On this trip, he gained a new perspective on the country, finding a new appreciation for its colors, shapes and textures.

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Dean Fleming Paints the Fourth Dimension

October 22, 2022 (updated October 22, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Dean Fleming, “Orange Line” (1964), gouache on paper, 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches

I first learned about Dean Fleming when I got the catalogue for the exhibition Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York, which was shown at the Blanton Museum in Austin (September 28, 2008–January 18, 2009) and curated by Linda Dalrymple Henderson. My interest in this group of painters and sculptors, and their preoccupation with space and the “fourth dimension” (which, according to the press release, means “a dimension beyond height, length and width”) has increased over the years, as I have learned and written about the work of Leo Valledor, Robert Grosvenor, David Novros, and Mark di Suvero — who were among the original 10 members (evenly split between painters and sculptors) of this cooperative gallery — and their collective concerns. Since then my interest in Fleming has grown.

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Vibrant Abstractions

October 22, 2022 (updated October 22, 2022) Published by artistvenu

What defines a ‘Bauhaus photograph’? In The Spirit of the Bauhaus (Thames & Hudson, 2018), curator Louise Curtis writes that, in the early-to-mid-1920s, cameras were used “to uncover previously unimagined scales and forms of reality.” One of the most famous pioneers of this approach was László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), interested in abstraction, space and the possibilities of the lens. “He insisted above all upon its capacity to extend human vision beyond standard habits of perception,” says Curtis.

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‘Beyond the Visible,’ a Documentary Illuminating the Life and Work of Hilma af Klint, Is Free to Stream

September 22, 2022 (updated September 22, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Released in 2020, an acclaimed documentary serves as a corrective to the art historical record. Beyond the Visible spotlights the life and work of the pioneering Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), an obscure figure during her lifetime whose colorful abstract works predate those of famed male artists like Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Directed by Halina Dyrschka, the feature-length documentary centers on af Klint’s groundbreaking practice and the spiritual, scientific, and natural phenomena that inspired her work.

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Painting Against the Tyranny of Flatness

September 16, 2022 (updated September 16, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Lee Seung Jio, “Nucleus 85-21” (1985), oil on canvas

SEOUL — On March 7, 2020, I reviewed the posthumous New York debut exhibition Lee Seung Jio: Nucleus at Tina Kim Gallery (February 20–April 4, 2022). Two weeks later, on March 22, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered all non-essential businesses in New York City to close because of COVID-19. I thought about the fact that Lee’s show was closed down when I saw Lee Seung Jio at Kukje Gallery (September 1–October 30, 2022). Lee, who died in 1990 at the age of 50, is often considered a major figure in the Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting) movement that was central to Korean art between the late 1960s and late 1970s and comprises at least two generations of artists. While the first generation of Dansaekhwa artists, such as Park Seo-Bo, Ha Chong-Hyun, and Kim Tschang-Yeul, have gained an international reputation, Lee, who was a decade younger, remains one of the movement’s lesser-known artists.

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A New Exhibition in Hong Kong Aims to Boost the Market for Female Abstract Expressionists—the Ones You Know and the Ones You Don’t

September 1, 2022 (updated February 24, 2023) Published by artistvenu

Lynne Drexler, Keller Fair II, (1959-1962).

A new exhibition in Hong Kong aims to boost the market for Abstract Expressionist female artists in Asia.

The show is the inaugural presentation at Art Intelligence Global’s exhibition space in Asia’s leading art market hub. The advisory, founded by Amy Cappellazzo, Adam Chinn, and Yuki Terase in 2021, stated from the outset that one of its goals was to tap into Asia’s robust art market.

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Graffiti Artist Futura Was a Peer of Basquiat and Haring—and Then Left the Art World Completely. Now, at 66, He’s Making His Way Back

September 1, 2022 (updated September 1, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Futura prepares his Tarpestries. Photo by Shilei Wang.

I was quite taken with you in the recent The Andy Warhol Diaries documentary. You were very reflective and not self-aggrandizing. It showed real evolution and honesty to say that latent homophobia might have held you back.

Thank you. A lot of people have said, “Hey, you know, you were really good in that.” It’s hard to explain to people the time in which I grew up—not just the way I was raised, but the fear I had. I’m gonna be 67. I’ve evolved so much as far as what I believe. I was fresh out of a four-year military experience, where I had this thing about my testosterone and what a male is supposed to be. Once AIDS happened, I fell into the fear of that too, and then people started dying. I was afraid that through association, there would be implication… I always felt my work was different. I was really into my identity, very conscious of what I looked like.

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Artist Paints Ethereal Flowers on Canvas and Shares Her Abstract Techniques With Others

August 20, 2022 (updated August 20, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Flower painting has a long place in art history. The practice has been around for centuries; and today, artists continue the tradition in various styles. Nitika Alé favors an abstract aesthetic, in which the blooms seemingly float on the canvas. The flowers are clad in luscious colors and techniques including drip texture and energetic brushstrokes. Together, the elements showcase Alé’s passion for beautiful blooms.

Abstract painting can be a challenge. It’s relatively straightforward to paint in a realistic way; the focus is on recreating exactly what you see. But with abstract art, it’s more about intuition and feeling. How do you know if you’ve got it right? That’s where Alé lends her expertise and is sharing it with you.

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An American In Paris: How Painter Shirley Jaffe Mastered The Secret Of Hard-Edge Vitality

July 28, 2022 (updated July 28, 2022) Published by artistvenu

View of the exhibition “Shirley Jaffe: An American Woman in Paris,” 2022, at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.MNAM-CCI/HELENE MAURI

Shirley Jaffe, who died in 2016 a few days short of her 93rd birthday, is the subject of “Une Américaine à Paris,” a luminous retrospective currently at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The French capital was her adopted home, where she had lived and worked since 1949. While many American artists came to Paris after the war—more than 300 were reportedly there in the 1950s—only a handful stayed more than a few years.

Drawn by the city’s history, culture, and romantic bohemian life, these visitors found Paris cheap, especially after the 1948 devaluation of the French franc. Veterans could benefit from the GI Bill, which provided a cash stipend and tuition at places such as the Académie Julian, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and the École des Beaux-Arts. It also enabled Jaffe’s husband, an American journalist assigned to Paris, to take classes at the Sorbonne.

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Sonia Gechtoff Finally Gets Her Due

July 28, 2022 (updated July 28, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Sonia Gechtoff, “Celestial Red” (1994), acrylic on canvas, 77 3/4 x 78 inches (photo by Guang Xu, image courtesy the artist and 55 Walker, New York)

Sonia Gechtoff was part of the Abstract Expressionist flowering that took place in the Bay Area between the late 1940s and late ’50s, along with Jay DeFeo and Deborah Remington. One of the centers of this convulsive outburst was Clyfford Still, who taught at the California School of the Arts (1946–50). Gechtoff, who moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1951, was inspired by Still’s work to begin painting with a palette knife. Still’s solemn, moody abstractions enabled Gechtoff to shed her previous indebtedness to Ben Shahn’s socialist realist style and concerns.

While DeFeo has had major museum exhibitions, especially during the last 20 years, and Remington has recently started to receive the attention she deserves, Gechtoff remains under the radar. Her first solo museum show, at the de Young Museum in 1957, was also her last.

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Category: Abstraction Academy

Anish Kapoor – The Vantablack Feud

Dean Fleming Paints the Fourth Dimension

Vibrant Abstractions

‘Beyond the Visible,’ a Documentary Illuminating the Life and Work of Hilma af Klint, Is Free to Stream

Painting Against the Tyranny of Flatness

A New Exhibition in Hong Kong Aims to Boost the Market for Female Abstract Expressionists—the Ones You Know and the Ones You Don’t

Graffiti Artist Futura Was a Peer of Basquiat and Haring—and Then Left the Art World Completely. Now, at 66, He’s Making His Way Back

Artist Paints Ethereal Flowers on Canvas and Shares Her Abstract Techniques With Others

An American In Paris: How Painter Shirley Jaffe Mastered The Secret Of Hard-Edge Vitality

Sonia Gechtoff Finally Gets Her Due

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