Pictures of Nothing (eBook)

Abstract Art since Pollock

Kirk Varnedoe (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
320 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-25296-4 (ISBN)

Infos

An illuminating exploration of the meaning of abstract art by acclaimed art historian Kirk Varnedoe"e;What is abstract art good for? What's the use-for us as individuals, or for any society-of pictures of nothing, of paintings and sculptures or prints or drawings that do not seem to show anything except themselves?"e; In this invigorating account of abstract art since Jackson Pollock, eminent art historian Kirk Varnedoe, the former chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, asks these and other questions as he frankly confronts the uncertainties we may have about the nonrepresentational art produced in the past five decades. He makes a compelling argument for its history and value, much as E. H. Gombrich tackled representation fifty years ago in Art and Illusion, another landmark A. W. Mellon Lectures volume. Realizing that these lectures might be his final work, Varnedoe conceived of them as a statement of his faith in modern art and as the culminating example of his lucidly pragmatic and philosophical approach to art history. He delivered the lectures, edited and reproduced here with their illustrations, to overflowing crowds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the spring of 2003, just months before his death.With brilliance, passion, and humor, Varnedoe addresses the skeptical attitudes and misunderstandings that we often bring to our experience of abstract art. Resisting grand generalizations, he makes a deliberate and scholarly case for abstraction-showing us that more than just pure looking is necessary to understand the self-made symbolic language of abstract art. Proceeding decade by decade, he brings alive the history and biography that inform the art while also challenging the received wisdom about distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, and minimalism and pop. The result is a fascinating and ultimately moving tour through a half century of abstract art, concluding with an unforgettable description of one of Varnedoe's favorite works.Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.10.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Bollingen Series
• Reihe/Serie: Bollingen Series
• Reihe/Serie: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
• Reihe/Serie: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
• Vorwort: Adam Gopnik, Earl A. Powell
• Zusatzinfo: 261 b/w illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Kunstgeschichte / Kunststile
• Schlagworte: abstract art • abstract art: “abstraction” and • abstract expressionism • abstract expressionism: as American art • Adolf von Hildebrand • Aerial perspective • Aestheticism • allover composition • American art: abstract expressionism as • analytic cubism • Andy Warhol • Annie Hall • anti-art • Art and Illusion • Art History • Barnett Newman • Bauhaus • body: Hesse’s art and • Braque, Georges • Brice Marden • Calligraphy • Carl Andre • Cézanne, Paul • chance: Cage and • Classicism • Clement Greenberg • Clyfford Still • composition: allover • Constantin Brâncu?i • Cubism • Cy Twombly • Dada • Dan Flavin • David Sylvester • de Kooning, Willem • Donald Judd • Drip Painting • Edvard Munch • Ellsworth Kelly • Ernst Gombrich • European Art • Eva Hesse • Feminist Art • figurative art • Fine Art • Frank Stella • Geometric abstraction • Gerhard Richter • Greenberg, Clement • Hazlitt, William • history of art: abstraction and • Illusionism (art) • Jackson Pollock • Jasper Johns • J. M. W. Turner • Josef Albers • Kirk Varnedoe • lacquer • Lecture • Levine, Sherrie, Untitled (Lead Checks: • Marcel Duchamp • Mark Rothko • Max Bill • Michael Fried • Minimalism • modern art • modernism • National Gallery of Art • Newman, Barnett • New Thought • New York: abstract expressionism in • nonobjective art • Pablo Picasso • Peter Eisenman • Peter Halley • Picasso, Pablo • Pollock, Jackson • Pop Art • pop art: emergence of • Postmodernism • process of art making • Rachel Lachowicz • Rachel Whiteread • Rauschenberg, Robert, xiii • Realism • Reductive art • Richard Serra • Robert Rauschenberg • Rothko, Mark • Roy Lichtenstein • Satire • sherrie levine • Smithsonian Institution • Sol LeWitt • Terry Winters • Turner, J.M.W. • Unconscious • universal truths • Whitney Museum of American Art • Willem de Kooning • work of art
• ISBN-10: 0-691-25296-3 / 0691252963
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-25296-4 / 9780691252964