From the Modern to the Postmodern and beyond: Art of the Later 20th Century
    
       
  The Art World's Focus Shifts West :: Postwar Expressionism in Europe :: Modernist Formalism :: Alternatives to Modernist Formalism :: Art for the Public :: New Models for Architecture: Modernism to Postmodernism :: Postmodernism In Painting, Sculpture, And New Media :: Into The 21st Century   Images courtesy of
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  MODERNIST FORMALISM

Abstract Expressionism

Abstract Expressionism is the first major American avant-garde movement. Abstract Expressionist paintings are usually abstract and express the artist's state of mind. Some Abstract Expressionists adopted Surrealist improvisation methods and created works that had a look of rough spontaneity and exhibited a refreshing energy. Abstract Expressionism developed along two lines: gestural abstraction, which relied on the expressiveness of energetically applied pigment, and chromatic abstraction, which focused on the emotional resonance of color.

The primacy of process:

Jackson Pollock's large-scale gestural abstract painting Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950 is composed of rhythmic drips, splatters, and dribbles of paint. Emphasis is on the creation process.		    
       
  34-4: JACKSON POLLOCK, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas, 7' 3" x 9' 10". National Gallery of Art, Washington (Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund).
  1. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950
  2. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950
  3. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950
  4. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950
  5. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950
34-5: Photo of Jackson Pollock painting. Center for Creative Photography.
  1. Photo of Jackson Pollock Painting
  2. Photo of Jackson Pollock Painting
  3. Photo of Jackson Pollock Painting
  4. Photo of Jackson Pollock Painting
A ferocious and intense woman:

Willem de Kooning's Woman I, although rooted in figuration, displays the sweeping gestural brushstrokes and energetic application of pigment typical of gestural abstraction.

34-6: WILLEM DE KOONING, Woman I, 1950-1952. Oil on canvas, 6' 3 7/8" x 4' 10". Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  1. Woman I
  2. Woman I
  3. Woman I
  4. Woman I
Action painting:

People also refer to gestural painting as action painting, a term that critic Harold Rosenberg applied first to the work of the New York School.

Color's enduring resonance:

Vir Heroicus Sublimis by the chromatic abstractionist painter Barnett Newman consists of a single slightly modulated color field split by narrow bands that serve as accents that energize the field and give it scale.

34-7: BARNETT NEWMAN, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-1951. Oil on canvas, 7' 11 3/8" x 17' 9 1/4". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Heller).
  1. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
  2. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
  3. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
  4. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
  5. Vir Heroicus Sublimis
"Tragedy, ecstasy, doom":

Mark Rothko's Untitled consists of large shimmering rectangles of intensely luminous pure color with hazy edges that seem to float on the surface of the canvas in front of a colored background. Rothko relies on color and shape to create emotion in the viewer.

34-8: MARK ROTHKO, No. 14, 1960. Oil on canvas, 9' 6" x 8' 9". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Helen Crocker Russell Fund Purchase.
  1. No. 14, 1960
  2. No. 14, 1960
  3. Another Rothko
Monumental metal sculptures:

Although American sculptor David Smith, was not associated with the Abstract Expressionists, his metal sculptures have affinities with the tenets of that movement.

34-9: DAVID SMITH, Cubi XIX, 1964. Stainless steel. 9' 4 3/4" x 4' 10 ¼". Tate Gallery, London. Cubi XIX
  1. Cubi XVIII
  2. Cubi XIX
  3. DAVID SMITH

Post-Painterly abstraction

Post-Painterly Abstraction developed out of Abstract Expressionism and exhibits a cool, detached rationality with an emphasis on pictorial control. The hand of the artist is conspicuously absent in Post-Painterly Abstraction.

Elemental hard-edge painting:

Ellsworth Kelly's completely abstract Red Blue Green has razor-sharp edges and clearly delineated color shapes in a simple composition.

34-10: ELLSWORTH KELLY, Red Blue Green, 1963. Oil on canvas, 6' 11 5/8" x 11' 3 7/8". Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (gift of Dr. and Mrs. Jack M. Farris).

  1. Red Blue Green, 1963
  2. Red Blue Green, 1963
  3. Red Blue Green, 1963
  4. Red Blue Green, 1963
  5. Detail
"What you see is what you see":

Frank Stella's Nunca Pasa Nada is a simplified image of thin, evenly spaced pinstripes on a colored ground.		  
       
 
 
       
       
  34-11: FRANK STELLA, Nunca Pasa Nada, 1964. Metallic powder in polymer emulsion on canvas, 9' 2" x 18' 4 1/2". Collection Lannan Foundation.
  1. Nunca Pasa Nada
  2. Nunca Pasa Nada
  3. Nunca Pasa Nada
Flat color field painting:

In Bay Side, Hellen Frankenthaler poured diluted paint onto unprimed canvas and allowed the pigments to soak into the fabric.

34-12: HELEN FRANKENTHALER, Bay Side, 1967. Acrylic on canvas, 6' 2" x 6' 9". Private Collection, New York.
  1. Bay Side
  2. Another Frankenthaler
  3. Bay Side
  4. Another Frankenthaler
  5. Several Frankenthalers
Stained canvases:

In Saraband, Morris Louis impregnated the canvas with paint by holding up the edges and pouring diluted acrylic resin to create billowy, fluid transparent shapes that run down the length of the unprimed canvas.

34-13: MORRIS LOUIS, Saraband, 1959. Acrylic resin on canvas, 8' 5 1/8" x 12' 5". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
  1. Saraband
  2. Saraband
  3. Saraband
  4. Saraband
Minimal Art

Minimal art, or Minimalism, strove for purity through primary structures.

Emphasizing objecthood:

Tony Smith's Die is a simple volumetric construction without an identifiable subject, color, surface texture, or narrative element. By reducing experience to its most fundamental level, Minimalist artists seek to inhibit any form of interpretation and to prevent the viewer finding any meaning in the art before them.

34-14: TONY SMITH, Die, 1962. Steel, 6' x 6' x 6'.
  1. Die
  2. Die
  3. Smith's Work
  4. Die
  5. Die
Declaring sculptures objecthood:

Donald Judd sought to avoid ambiguity and falseness in his Minimalist sculpture Untitled, which is comprised of basic geometric boxes constructed of brass and red plexiglass.

34-15: DONALD JUDD, Untitled, 1969. Brass and colored fluorescent plexiglass on steel brackets, ten units, 6 1/8" x 2' x 2' 3" each, with 60 intervals. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972). Art copyright © Donald Judd Estate/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
  1. Unititled, 1969
  2. Exhibit
  3. Exhibit
  4. Another Example
  5. Another Example
Greenberg and minimalism:

Despite the ostensible connections between Minimalism and Greenbergian formalism, Greenberg did not embrace the direction in art. He thought it relied to much on the mental formation of ideas, and not enough of anything else."

Healing psychic wounds:

Maya Ying Lin's simple and austere design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a V-shaped wall constructed of polished black granite panels set into the landscape.		    
       
  34-16: MAYA YING LIN, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1981-1983. Black granite, each wing 246' long.
  1. Memorial
  2. Memorial
  3. Memorial
  4. Design Contest
  5. Memorial
  
       
 
 
       
  The Art World's Focus Shifts West :: Postwar Expressionism in Europe :: Modernist Formalism :: Alternatives to Modernist Formalism :: Art for the Public :: New Models for Architecture: Modernism to Postmodernism :: Postmodernism In Painting, Sculpture, And New Media :: Into The 21st Century