Highbrow Magazine - lee krasner https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/lee-krasner en ‘Labyrinth of Forms’: The Whitney Pays Homage to Women Abstractionists https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19304-labyrinth-forms-whitney-pays-homage-women-abstractionists <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/photography-art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Photography &amp; Art</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 02/14/2022 - 09:54</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1womenabstract.jpg?itok=2G00lUpa"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1womenabstract.jpg?itok=2G00lUpa" width="480" height="369" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Like any relationship, achieving harmony comes with its challenges. In the Whitney Museum’s exhibition, <strong>Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930-1950</strong>, 26 artists, many who remain overlooked, met the challenge head-on – pushing the evolution of abstract art in this country into the public consciousness.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Twenty-six artists and 35 works, primarily drawn from the Whitney’s permanent collection, highlight the achievements of these artists, exploring ways in which works on paper, in particular, were vital ways to experiment with a new visual language. Often relegated to the sidelines of the Abstract Expressionism movement as it grew into prominence, these women were determined to play in the big boys’ sandbox in whatever form it took.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Labyrinth of Forms</em>, a title drawn from an Alice Trumbull Mason work for this exhibition, refers to the various and innovative ways these experiments took. And Mason’s work is a good place to start. Descended from renowned history painter John Trumbull through her father, she traveled throughout Europe as a young woman, absorbing influences from Arshile Gorky’s work and support from Gertrude Stein. In late 1936, she was instrumental in founding the Association of Abstract Artists with one-fourth of its membership women.    </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2womenabstract.jpg" style="height:447px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The actual title of her etching, <em>Labyrinth of Closed Forms </em>(1945), belies the free-floating spirit of shapes on display. They may be “closed” in their contour but they are free-wheeling in the composition.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Another show inclusion that reflects the same spirit is Lee Krasner’s <em>Still Life</em> (1938). The influence of Hans Hoffman, the renowned early teacher and modern artist, is undeniable. He stretched the importance of negative space. Colors swirl, speeding in all directions at once in this work. The same could be said about <em>Untitled</em> (1942), from Charmion von Wiegand, a less celebrated painter. It’s a riotously colorful playpen of shapes, a chaotic universe but a happy one nevertheless.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Some of the early abstractionists navigated a thin line between the recognizable and the non-objective. In Anne Ryan’s <em>Figures in a Yellow Room</em> (1946), one can’t help but be intrigued by the setup – abstraction morphing into an imagined reality or vice versa. Her title has provided the onlooker with a closed space and the suggested relationship between her geometric shapes. Is one figure with what appear to be feet turning away while another stands awkwardly frozen in space? The artist tempts the viewer to guess.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3womenabstract.jpg" style="height:600px; width:541px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Puerto</em> (1947), another woodcut by this artist, makes the task of finding a doorknob in the squares, rectangles and circles irrelevant. The work is a beautifully realized composition of muted sea greens and crimsons and black strokes that may or may not delineate her subject.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In Mina Citron’s <em>Death of a Mirror</em> (1946), one finds a mastery of black, gray. and white shapes fighting for dominance with patches of squiggling lines suggesting shattered glass.  </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Some titles invariably challenge us to find the defining subject. Conversely, others challenge us if not to find credence in the words, to reject them altogether. Certainly, the Surrealists, even if figurative in approach, flung nonsensical titles every which way, defying a rational response. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4womenabstract.jpg" style="height:444px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A vital gathering place for printmaking was Atelier 17, the avant-garde studio that flourished in New York City between 1940 and 1955. It facilitated women artists’ exposure to modernist styles and a sisterhood of networking decades before the women’s art movement of the 1970s.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Two artists in the exhibit who benefited from their association with the Atelier were Norma Morgan, one of two Black women to show there, and Teresa D’Amico Fourporne. Morgan’s <em>Turning Forms</em> (1950) employed color engraving and aquatint.  Fourporne emigrated in 1941 from Brazil to study at<em> </em>the Art Students League. After joining<em> </em>Atelier 17, she created <em>Braco e Negro</em> (1945), a work made by using intaglio, a process in which lines and shapes are incised into metal plates  </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Irene Rice Pereira was a Spanish emigrant whose works, such as <em>Abstract Composition</em> (1938), were based on pure form and not derived from the real world—in an effort to “create new forms to express the new age.” Inspired by theories of perception, psychology and physics, she interwove rectilinear shapes, suggesting a continuous movement within the picture plane. In 1953, Pereira became the first woman to have a retrospective at the Whitney Museum.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5womenabstract.jpg" style="height:407px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">West Coast artists were hardly unaware of these new and revolutionary inventions in printmaking. Ray Kaiser from Sacramento is presented by an offset lithograph<em>, Untitled</em> (1937), which combines distorted figures in a boldly erotic work. Dorr Bothwell, a San Francisco native, was an early feminist and a world traveler. Her screenprint, <em>Corsica </em>(1950), invites the viewer to make visceral associations with the country in question.  The red is a vibrant yet muted choice, bordered by muted greens and blues with a school of fish that streak across the upper part of the canvas. A cross hatching of black lines seem to say “stay away” in this watery world of total abstraction.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The most prominent artist in the bunch is Louise Nevelson, a legendary sculptress born in Ukraine, but an American icon of originality. Here she is represented by a graphite sketch, <em>Untitled (1935)</em>, that looks as if it was done offhandedly, an afterthought of automatic drawing. In one seemingly continuous loop, she suggests the form of a reclining woman.  </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even in this small exhibit for the Whitney, there are standout works of excellence. Most importantly, it shows that these early- to midcentury artists were determined to form a beautiful friendship with abstraction and make their mark on history.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930-1950, runs through March 13, 2022.</em></span></span></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Author Bio:</em></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Sandra Bertrand is </em>Highbrow Magazine’s<em> chief art critic.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Image Sources:</em></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>--The Whitney Museum:</em></strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>(1) Lee Krasner, Still Life (1938)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>(2) Alice Trumbull Mason, Labyrinth of Closed Forms (1945)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>(3) Charmion von Wiegand, Untitled (1942)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>(4) Sue Fuller, Lancelot and Guinevere (1944)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>(5) Louise Nevelson, Untitled (1934)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/whitney-musuem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">The Whitney Musuem</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/women-abstract-artists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Women abstract artists</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/alice-trumbull-mason" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">alice trumbull mason</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lee-krasner" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lee krasner</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/louise-nevelson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">louise nevelson</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/abstract-art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">abstract art</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-art-exhibits" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new art exhibits</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sandra Bertrand</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">All images courtesy of the Whitney Museum</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:54:55 +0000 tara 10926 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19304-labyrinth-forms-whitney-pays-homage-women-abstractionists#comments Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction at MOMA https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7725-women-artists-and-postwar-abstraction-moma <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/photography-art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Photography &amp; Art</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 07/02/2017 - 13:17</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1womenmoma.jpg?itok=mkuggRbe"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1womenmoma.jpg?itok=mkuggRbe" width="405" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>The first thing I noticed upon entering this exhibit was the intentional spacing of the show title that greeted me:  The words “Making” and “Space” were placed at the beginning and end, while “Women and Postwar Abstraction” had been squeezed in between.  All but one of the 94 works by 53 international women artists on display, drawn from MOMA’s own collection, have finally taken center stage.</p> <p>That’s a subtle but important way of the curators saying that it is high time these talented and transformative artists find their rightful place in the brash, male-dominated universe of abstract expressionism.  For too long the likes of Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Louise Bourgeois and others worthy of visibility have been brushed to the sidelines of modern art.  As Peter Schjeldahl said in his April 24<sup>th</sup>  <em>New Yorker </em>review, the post-war world left women “less with glass ceilings than with absent floors.”</p> <p>It's an old story, one that should have been relegated to the dustbins of history long ago, but the environment in which artists like Berthe Morisot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Lee Krasner to name but a few grew up was rigidly defined.  Women were hardly solitary stars but marked by the liaisons, constellations if you will—familial, marital and otherwise—that allowed for their creative endeavors to flourish. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2womenmoma.jpg" style="height:618px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In Morisot’s case, it was her brother-in-law Edouard Manet; in O’Keeffe’s it was her husband and mentor Alfred Stieglitz.   In Frida’s world, it was her own unique surrealistic genius and magnetic personality that held sway over the gigantic personage of her muralist husband, Diego Rivera. And in Krasner’s case, Jackson Pollock hovered nearby—a revolutionary presence that we can assume didn’t suck all of the oxygen out of their studio space. </p> <p>Thanks to curators Starr Figura and Sarah Hermanson Meister, with help from Hillary Reder, there’s an airy, capacious feel to the entire exhibit, giving these creations—from Ann Ryan’s miniature but magnificent collages to the monumental woven sisal sculpture by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, room to breathe.  In the latter’s case, this massive sienna-colored piece is positively monolithic, imperiously looking down at the viewer as something alternately timeless and terrifying in its beauty.</p> <p>For many of these artists, a nod to more intimate, personalized approaches was subsumed into a more universal abstraction.  Grace Hartigan’s <em>Shinnecock</em><em> Canal</em>, situated on the south fork of Long Island, has an almost magnetic appeal through its great blocks of color and zigzag motion.  Such a bold treatment of theme was attributed to a certain “George” Hartigan (a nom de plume briefly used by the artist). </p> <p> </p> <p>The Romanian-born Hedda Stern fled from Bucharest during the Nazi occupation, finding inspiration in New York’s interwoven highways.<a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>  Her <em>Road </em>series of paintings shuns color for charcoal streaks and shadows, the blur of erratic white spots giving the impression on second viewing of converging headlights.  Another example of the undeniable power of dark tones is reflected in Helen Frankenthaler’s <em>Trojan Gates</em> (1955) where her huge columns suggesting ominous barriers hold sway.  In contrast Joan Mitchell’s turquoise and magenta shapes, arbitrarily dripping down the canvas surface, put her squarely in a natural universe of color (though don’t expect to locate the <em>Ladybug</em> of the painting’s title!).  Elaine de Kooning’s <em>Bullfight </em>(1960) saturates the picture panel with color, introducing a dead-center frenzy of black. </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3womenmoma.jpg" style="height:239px; width:625px" /></p> <p>A lighter approach is evident in Alma Woodsey Thomas’ patterned squares.  A school teacher who didn’t begin painting until her retirement, she became in 1972 the first African-American woman to receive a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Close by, Lee Krasner’s gigantic canvas of pink and white amorphous egg-like shapes is encountered.  Her <em>Gaea,</em> after the Earth Goddess, manages to bring an element of femininity into this whimsical mix without compromising its essential force. </p> <p>Photography is obviously a medium well suited to experimentation and generously represented by several works of note.  The most riveting to be found are the works of Gertrude Altschul, a German-born Brazilian.  Nurtured by her association with Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, a groundbreaking group of photographers in Sao Paulo, her works make clear her mastery of technique.  Reflected shadows from a ubiquitous ladder exemplify the power of geometric abstraction.  My favorite image features a roll of paper, seemingly lit from within, with a rogue cigar smoldering nearby.  An uneasy tension is thereby created by this simple juxtaposition.  </p> <p>The inherent playfulness to be found in many of Picasso’s sculptures is here evidenced in Dorothy Dehner’s six bronze totems.  They seem in their arrangement to confront one another’s alien personages.  Louise Nevelson’s <em>Big Black</em> from 1963 presents the viewer with a series of conjoined wooden black boxes filled with an arbitrary assortment of dowels, spindles, and stray furniture parts.  Austere and unapologetic, Nevelson gives us in her words “a black that encompasses all colors.”</p> <p>The elegant use of fabric is nowhere better represented than in Annie Albers’ free-hanging room divider.  She and husband Josef Albers were instrumental in their early work with the Bauhaus School of Design, where she was director of weaving until the Nazis closed the school in 1933.  The pair subsequently emigrated to the United States, teaching at the famed Black Mountain School in North Carolina. </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4womenmoma.jpg" style="height:352px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The appropriation of natural materials beyond the practical to convey emotive power was adopted by several artists found here.  Abakanowicz’s earlier mentioned fiber work takes prominence but that artist keeps stellar company with Louise Bourgeois’ <em>The Quartered One</em> (1964), a Bronze lair or trap but also reminiscent of a carcass, hung as it is from a giant meat hook.  For some it’s an ugly business to behold, but it clearly falls in that realm where art can be—take it or leave it—what the viewer makes of it. </p> <p>This work, like the intentions of a percentage of artists on display, takes no prisoners.  Lee Bontecou’s untitled wall sculpture—a concoction of steel, canvas, and discarded conveyor belts from the artist’s own neighborhood laundry—could be a set piece for a production of Sophocles’ <em>Medea</em>, pulling the viewer into its cavernous vortex. </p> <p>This is an exhibition not to be taken lightly—celebrating the ambitious scope of these artists’ intentions as much as the works themselves.  MOMA at last has chosen to make space for these formidable women, but there’s little doubt that these creators have chosen—come hell or high water—to take it for themselves. </p> <p><strong>(Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction will run through August 13, 2017.)</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Sandra Bertrand is</em></strong><strong> Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief arts critic.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lee-krasner" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lee krasner</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/louise-bourgeois" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">louise bourgeois</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/grace-hartigan" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">grace hartigan</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jackson-pollock" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jackson pollock</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/moma" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">moma</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/making-space" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">making space</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/abstraction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">abstraction</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/art" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">art</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-york-city" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">New York City</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sandra Bertrand</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">MoMA</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 02 Jul 2017 17:17:01 +0000 tara 7599 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7725-women-artists-and-postwar-abstraction-moma#comments