The Shaping of Color Field

by Rosetta DeBerardinis

I departed the island of Baltimore last week to attend the preview of “Color as Field: American Painting 1950-1975,” the new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

After some lovely pastries and Dean and DeLuca coffee poured from boxes we ventured upstairs to its third floor gallery. Once you emerge from the elevator you become captivated by the large scale chroma-stained canvases which are so imposing that you feel child-like staring up at them. Signage on the walls with names we have all heard or seem before like: Frankenthaler, Louis, Olitski, Motherwell, Gottelib, Davis and Gilliam. But, this is not a block-buster exhibit for the masses intended to draw record numbers of crowds; it is a significant documentation of 39 works by the early pioneers of American art.

Due to limited government funding for museums and art institutions, there is now greater reliance upon garnering private donors to underwrite exhibits. This exhibit is organized by the American Federation of the Arts, the Henry Luce Foundation, Gene Davis Memorial Fund, Golden Artists Colors and several individual donors, and few of the works are from the Smithsonian’s own collection.

But, if this exhibit is an example of what can be done without the government, I say ‘thank-you’ now we can really have first-class art shows which are thought-provoking, scholarly and challenging. No, there is no audio-guide with snippets of history or narrative story-telling. This show is intended for those well-versed in the subject-matter, so if you are not, I suggest that you dust off an art history book or Google ‘ColorField’ to ensure that you won’t miss the importance of this historical exhibit.

And, if you negate the importance of the abstract expressionist and chant along with the masses “even my child could do this” then you need to purchase the easy reading color-illustrated exhibition catalogue, written by its guest curator Karen Willkin, a specialist in 20th century modernism.

The post-war Color Field painters abandoned the gestural strokes, the all-over painting and pouring inaugurated by Jackson Pollock and the abstract expressionists, and instead concentrated on color, spatial ambiguity and process. Their aim was to unify a colorful abstract image or shape on a large surface. This 1950s movement was more about color than form; however, both movements sought to reveal the unknown -not to report just on the visible.

Artist Helen Frankenthaler led the way by applying thinned oil pigment to stain the unprimed canvas. After visiting her studio in New York City in 1953, artists Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis (both then teaching in the District of Columbia) returned there to experiment with their newly found technique.

My favorite painting in the show is Frankenthaler’s large scale, ‘Off the White Square’ done in 1973 because it exemplifies the new power and presence of acrylic pigment -- which had just become available when she began using ten years earlier.

And, as they say "the rest is history," because America now had its second artistic movement, the Color Field school, which included Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Walter Darby Bannard, Jack Bush, Gene Davis, Friedel Dzubus, Sam Francis, Jules Olitski and later Larry Poons, Frank Stella, Ronald Davis and Sam Gilliam. These are artists who elected to concentrate on pure contrasting hues of color rather than light versus dark. In the words of Frank Stella “what you see is what you see.” However the significance of this exhibit extends beyond what the viewer sees on these colorful canvases. It is a historical event documenting the difference, similarity and distinction between abstract expressionism and color field painting along with the progression of American art.

The exhibition is in three-parts: an introduction to the origins of Color Field painting, its pioneers, and its later practitioners who pushed its further. It begins with Rothko, and the Abstract Expressionists, then to Frankenthaler’s departure from Pollock and the color field artists who followed with a new abstract form based on expanses of radiant unmodulated hues by staining, painting and spraying. And it concludes with the later generation often linked to the influential art critic Clement Greenberg, who curated the 1964 exhibit “Post Painterly Abstraction” and is credited along with art historian Michael Fried for defining and establishing the framework for interpreting the art form known as field of color, later coined "Color Field."

This exhibition is the first major examination of color field painting, and the District of Columbia is the only East Coast city to host this landmark exhibition. After its debut there it will make its final stop at the First Center of Visual Arts in Nashville, Tenn. in June.

On exhibit thru May 26th, 2008 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily (202) 633-1000\ (202) 633-7970 (recorded museum information).

Art Collector Feels "Victimized" After Selling Arbus Photos

From Artinfo:

An art collector says he feels "victimized" after selling a collection of previously unknown Diane Arbus photographs for $3,500, far below their value, the Associated Press reports.

Bayo Ogunsanya, who primarily collects African American art, bought a trunk full of unclaimed photographs at a Bronx storage facility in 2002 and sold some of them to Robert Langmuir, who returned a week later asking to purchase more and offering to give Ogunsanya more money if the photographs turned out to be "worth more than you and I think they are."

It was only later that Ogunsanya learned from a New York Times article that the photos were by Arbus and would go on display in a Los Angeles Gallery in February and be auctioned next month at Phillips de Pury & Company. Ogunsanya, who claims Langmuir knew the whole time that the photos were Arbus's, took his case to federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, asking the court to block or change the terms of the sale and award him unspecified damages. The lawsuit says the photographs are likely worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I suspect that if Langmuir is a professional (art dealer or art trader of some sort), then Ogunsanya may be covered under what's sometimes known as the "Widow's Law" in some states.

This law, as I understand it, tries to protect people from being cheated by professionals when selling collectibles, art, etc.

So if someone comes to me to sell me some artwork, and I recognize a bunch of Morris Louis' paintings in the stacks, I can't legally cheat the seller by offering them a few hundred bucks for the lot.

I'm not sure if the law applies when neither party has any idea of the value of the objects. In other words, if Langmuir "knew the whole time" that they were Arbus' photos and what their value really was, then he may be on the wrong side of the law if he's some sort of dealer - I'm not sure if the law applies if he's just a savvy collector. But if Langmuir had no idea what the photos were valued at, and then subsequently found out their real value - then I suspect that he is in the clear -- but if once he found out the value, then he came back to rip off Ogunsanya of the remaining Arbus photos, then he is probably in the wrong side of the law.

Pixelating America

Who says Mike Licht doesn't post art stories anymore? Read this.

Wanna go to a DC opening tonight?

We're being assured that the artist opening tonight at the Randall Scott Gallery in DC is the real Cara Ober.

"Painting as a mode of thinking" is the way Holland Cotter described the landscapes of Poussin in a recent New York Times review. He likened Poussin's artistic practice to a certain kind of poetry in which "antique references, modern speculation and sensual delirium" check and fuel the import of each component. A viewer might do well to keep this conflicted discursiveness in mind when looking at the paintings of Cara Ober. Her art can look deceptively inviting, almost reassuring in its Hallmark Hall greeting card sort of way, as if the meaning of her jumbled references to old-time dictionary illustrations, sentimental silhouettes, wallpaper patterns and middle class sense and sensibility were simply meant to give us pleasure, the concatenation of images and words an apotheosis of middlebrow taste somewhat like the effusions of Jeff Koons, another notable graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. But you would be mistaken to think so.

Perhaps like Ober you too are a product of suburban America, perhaps like her you too feel conflicted about the comfortable sources of your pleasures, how often they are rooted in a familiar environment, the taste of chocolate cake, a submissive pet, a doting mother, a non-threatening mate. Perhaps her older work made it easy for you to feel some such generational kinship but the new paintings are darker in color, more subtly threatening in their selection of quotes and definitions, more aggressive in their critique. They will remind you that you are not like Cara Ober.

-- excerpt from "New Paintings and a Wall by Cara Ober" -an essay by Dr. Michael Salcman

The opening is tonight, 7-9PM.

The Five Senses

Over the many years that I have been curating, creating, discussing and writing about art, I never cease to be surprised at the constantly changing and always surprising quality that is human creativity.

When the Target Gallery asked me to curate "The Five Senses," I must admit that I was a little concerned about the sort of work that I would eventually review for selection. The harsh brainwashing of the post-modernist mafia is a hard thing to avoid, even if you sometimes try to rebel against it.

But leave it to the creativity and intelligence of the artists submitting entries to not only surprise me, but also to delight me and open my eyes to a whole new genre of creativity, new media, fresh ideas and enviable talent from all over the nation.

David Bausman (Texas). Ideas, Sterlig Silver & Mixed Media, c.2005

All the jurying was done in the blind, and I never knew the artists' names until after the selections were made.

I was floored by the sheer diversity of interpretations of the theme, including a lot of three dimensional entries, which are usually represented by a small number, in a juried call for artists such as this one.

Not this show! There was a surprising number of 3D pieces in this call and a significant number in the selected pieces.

J. Lewis Takahashi (New Jersey). Senses - Taste - Watercolor c.2007

Not to say that the 2Ds were not represented; after all, J. Lewis Takahashi's gorgeous watercolors and Thomas Schlotterback's superb charcoal drawing make a very strong presence for the wall works.

Sun Kyoun Kim (Illinois). Triad II, Sterling Silver, c.2007

But as I write these words, I can't wait to see and get my hands on Sun Kyoung Kim's "Triad II" or "Restriction I." Or see or walk around Anjali Srinivasan's "(Re)Flexion" and Adam Bradley's "Cherubs," or wear and use Gary Schott's "Thought Stimulators."

This exhibition is a triumph of the human mind and talent over those who want to reduce the creation of art to just ideas or wall text about ideas, and it has been my honor and pleasure to have been a part of it.

See some of the selected artists here.

The exhibition is up now and through April 6, 2008, and the opening reception (free and open to the public) is Thursday, March 13, 6-8pm and I will give a gallery talk on that night at 7PM and present the awards.

See ya there!

Opportunity for photographers

The Baltimore Museum of Art has invited 19 photographers to respond to the exhibition "Looking through the Lens" with their own work.

The 19 were chosen by by artist Peter Bruun, Urbanite magazine creative director Alex Castro, and photographer/BMA Trustee Connie Imboden, the participating artists are: Beth Barbush, Jennifer Bishop, Laura Burns, Marshall Clarke, Cory Donovan, Peggy Fox, J.M. Giordano, Camille Gustus-Quijano, Regina DeLuise, Ellis Marsalis, Dan Meyers, Christopher Myers, Ken Royster, Jacqueline Schlossman, Sofia Silva, Lynn Silverman, Michelle Woodward, Erik Whipple, and Jack Wilgus.

Their images will be on view in the Looking Now Digital Gallery at the BMA from March 16–June 8, and also as part of a special feature in the April issue of Baltimore’s Urbanite magazine.

But on April 23 - June 8, the Digital Gallery expands with images by teens in the Youthlight after-school program. Founded in 2001 by photographer Marshall Clarke, Youthlight is committed to engaging young people in using photography as a means of self-expression.

And then other photographers can join Looking Now by visiting Looking through the Lens, creating your own digital images inspired by the exhibition, and uploading them to BMA beginning in mid-March. The best of the images submitted online will be on view at the BMA in the Looking Now Digital Gallery. April 23–June 8, 2008.

Submission inquiries may be directed to looking@artbma.org.

B&W

One of the posts that I lost in the last two weeks was an announcement for the opening of "black and white and... all over," the group show of 19 Greater DC area black and white photographers curated by fellow artsblogger J.T Kirkland for H&F Fine Arts.

I'm hearing good things about this exhibition, and from the images on JT's site, I really like the way that the show was hung - it looks really good.

It's a shame that when Lou Jacobson left the Washington City Paper, no one there has picked up the slack in focusing reviews on photography shows, as there are several good photography shows going on the DC area this month.