Since the Chelsea galleries reopened a few months ago, there has not been much on exhibit that has compelled me to leave my house in order to see the art in person. I felt differently, however, when I received an email announcing an exhibit of new paintings from Wilmington, DE-based painter Jennifer Small. As soon as I saw her bold and colorful canvases featuring abstract shapes and patterns, they reminded me of the shaped, sculptural paintings by Beverly Fishman as well as the furniture designs of Shiro Kuramata. It delighted me to imagine what a line of art furniture from the mind of this artist might look like. I wanted to see these paintings in person right away. Sadly, I was informed that the show was viewable online only, but gallerist Robert Berry was kind enough ask Jennifer for a statement about her work exclusively for this post. Sweet. Continue reading Beauty in Banality: The Art of Jennifer Small→
An early practitioner of Op Art, a movement that emerged in the mid-1960s and prioritized optical illusionism, Edna Andrade (1917 – 2008) used geometry and color to create abstract interpretations of organic ratios, biological systems, and natural rhythms. Summer Game (1972) features a vibrant palette and an irregular grid that appears to expand and contract, project, and recede, creating a sense of playful, kinetic energy.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
After the Bauhaus closed under political pressure in 1933, Wassily Kandinsky was forced to abandon Germany for a second time, and he settled in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Sein. The artist increasingly experimented with materials and colors, favoring pastels and gold-hues reminiscent of his Russian origin. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Wassily Kandinsky, Dominant Curve→
This painting, Expansion in Four Directions (1961 – 62), shares its lozenge shape and geometric divisions of color with many paintings by Piet Mondrian, whose work Max Bill (1908 – 1994) collected and in whom he was greatly interested. Bill trained at the Bauhaus in the 1920s under Josef Albers and was an architect and graphic designer as well as an artist. In his work, he aimed to transcend personal artistic expression to achieve universal communication, and to this end he used mathematics as a neutralizing compositional device. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Expansion in Four Directions By Max Bill→
Ad Reinhardt (1913 – 1967) studied both Eastern and Western art history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He deepened his understanding of Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies by attending the lectures of Zen teacher Daisetz Suzuki at Columbia University. Number 22 (1949) shows Reinhardt fusing Eastern and Western traditions by using calligraphic brushwork inspired by Chinese and Japanese calligraphy in a gridded composition influenced by those of de Stijl cofounder Piet Mondrian.
Number 22, Detail
In classical East Asian painting, the fragility of paper wet with ink limits the artist’s ability to rework the composition. The sturdier canvas support and slower-drying oil paints used throughout much of the history of Western painting allows artists to highlight various revision and layering techniques. Although he worked in oil on canvas, Reinhardt chose to restrain himself and not rework his painting’s surface, in keeping with Asian calligraphic traditions. The result is a far more controlled manner of gestural painting than those of the Abstract Expressionists.
