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Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Estados-Unidos da América«Out of the Web, No. 7» 1949, oil and enamel on fibreboard
(Staatsgalerie Stuttgart)
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«Search» 1955, oil and enamel on canvas(Fujii International, Japan)
«Bird» 1938-41, oil and sand on canvas(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
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«The Moon-Woman cuts the Circle» 1943, oil on canvas(Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris)
Wilhelm de Kooning (1904-1997) Holanda
«Woman I» 1950-52, oil on canvas
(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
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«Seated Woman» 1940, oil and charcoal on composition board
(Private Collection)
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«A Tree in Naples» 1960, oil on canvas(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
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.jpg)
Clyfford Still (1904-1970) Estados-Unidos da América«July 1945-R» 1945, oil on canvas
(Private Collection)
(Private Collection)
%25C2%25BB%252B1949,%252Boil%252Bon%252Bcanvas%252B(Clyfford%252BStill%252BMuseum,%252BDenver,%252BColorado).jpg)
«1949 No. 1 (PH 385)»1949, oil on canvas(The Denver Art Museum)
«1957-D No. 2» 1957, oil on cotton(Private Collection)
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Sam Francis (1923-1994) Estados-Unidos da América
«Blue and Red Balls» 1962, acrylic on paper
(The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)
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«Untitled» 1954, watercolor on paper(The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)
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.jpg)
Roberto Matta (1911-2002) Santiago do Chile«Fiery Landscape» 1940, crayon and pencil on paper
(Private Collection)
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«Listen to Living» 1941, oil on canvas(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
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.jpg)
«Las Grandes Expectativas» 1966, oil on canvas(Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)
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Pierre Soulages (1919-) França«Peinture, 1963» 1963, oil on canvas
(Museu Berardo, Lisboa)
«Peinture, 28 décembre 1959» 1959, oil on canvas(Beyeler Foundation, Basel)
.jpg)
Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968) Alemanha«Scheiben» 1956, watercolor
(Private Collection)
.jpg)
«Polychrome» 1959, oil on canvas(Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)
.jpg)
Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) Arménia«Study for Bullin the Sun» ca. 1942, gouache, india ink
and pencil on paper
(Museu Berardo, Lisboa)
*
.jpg)
«Untitled» 1943, wax and charcoal on paper(Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)
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.jpg)
«The Leaf of the Artichoke is an Owl» 1944, oil on canvas(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
*
,%252BIt%2527s%252BAll%252BOver%252B-%252BThe%252BCity,%252B1946-47,%252Boil,%252Bgrattage%252Band%252Bimprints%252Bon%252Bcanvas.jpg)
Alfred Otto Wolfgang Shulze (1913-1951) Alemanha«It's All Over - The City» 1946-47, oil, grattage
and imprints on canvas
(Beyeler Foundation, Basel)
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.jpg)
«Painting» 1946-47, oil on canvas(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)
.jpg)
«La Ciudad» 1950-51, gouache, paint and watercolor on paper(Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)
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Morris Louis (1912-1962) Estados-Unidos da América«Omega IV» 1959-60, synthetic resin on canvas
(Beyeler Foundation, Basel)
Kazuo Shiraga (1924-) Japão«Yugi» 1992, oil on canvas
(Private Collection)
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«Yugyo» 1989, oil on canvas(Private Collection)
Eva Hesse (1936-1970) Alemanha«No Title» 1961, oil on canvas
(Beyeler Foundation, Basel)
«Untitled» ca. 1962, oil on canvas(Private Collection)
Cy Twombly (1928-) Estados-Unidos da América«Leda and the Swan» 1962, oil, pencil and crayon on canvas
(Private Collection)
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A Fundação Beyeler em Basileia, na Suiça, tem patente até ao próximo dia 12 de Maio, uma exposição das obras mais emblemáticas de uma das correntes mais representativas do expressionismo abstracto norte-americano, designada por Action Painting.
A Action Painting ou pintura de acção foi um movimento artístico surgido no início dos anos 40, em Nova Iorque, que ganhou força expressiva própria, inspirado nas teorias derivadas do conceito de «automatismo psíquico» do Primeiro Manifesto do Surrealismo em 1924, que utilizava uma espécie de “escrita por sinais”, mas, ao mesmo tempo, impulsionado pelas tendências Expressionistas.
A técnica adoptada estava muito longe da arte figurativa, sendo o seu objectivo o próprio acto em si da pintura. O termo Action Painting foi utilizado em 1952, pelo critico de arte norte-americano, Harold Rosenberg. As obras eram produzidas a grande velocidade, simbolizando a urgência da comunicação. Enquanto o resultado obtido era criado pela espontaneidade dos gestos, foi adoptado o termo gestural painting ou pintura gestual para os descrever.
A Action Painting ou pintura de acção foi um movimento artístico surgido no início dos anos 40, em Nova Iorque, que ganhou força expressiva própria, inspirado nas teorias derivadas do conceito de «automatismo psíquico» do Primeiro Manifesto do Surrealismo em 1924, que utilizava uma espécie de “escrita por sinais”, mas, ao mesmo tempo, impulsionado pelas tendências Expressionistas.
A técnica adoptada estava muito longe da arte figurativa, sendo o seu objectivo o próprio acto em si da pintura. O termo Action Painting foi utilizado em 1952, pelo critico de arte norte-americano, Harold Rosenberg. As obras eram produzidas a grande velocidade, simbolizando a urgência da comunicação. Enquanto o resultado obtido era criado pela espontaneidade dos gestos, foi adoptado o termo gestural painting ou pintura gestual para os descrever.
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Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), mundialmente reconhecido como o pintor mais representativo da história do Expressionismo Abstracto na pintura, particularmente no que se refere à Action Painting, expressava-se vertendo a tinta directamente para a tela, através de um tubo ou balde, cobrindo-a em camadas sucessivas e espargindo a tinta numa tentativa de interagir directamente com a tela, cuja superfície se encontrava horizontalmente estendida no chão.
Franz Kline (1910-1962), por outro lado, utilizava uma vulgar trincha de decorador para fazer a projecção de linhas de cor preta numa superfície branca, com uma veemência gestual de grande impacto visual.
Sam Francis (1923-1994) adoptou métodos idênticos aos de Pollock, utilizando a técnica do espargimento em telas de grande dimensão, mas os resultados obtidos foram menos convincentes. Estes ensaios eram demonstrativos de como na ausência de uma qualquer linha orientadora do processo criativo, um estilo artístico que se baseasse unicamente na combinação das cores recorrendo aos mais variados métodos, corria o risco de ficar reduzido a mera superficialidade decorativa.
Contudo, a Wilhelm de Kooning (1904-1997) deverá ser reservado um lugar especial neste movimento, que, enquanto definitivamente um artista gestual, mantinha um cunho de uma essência realista. As suas obras são abstracções dinâmicas que, não obstante, apresentam formas orgânicas ou biomórficas. A figura humana é um tema central: por ex., no seu trabalho em série «Women» (Mulheres), as figuras são dificilmente discerníveis, mesmo que a trincha tenha distorcido a sua forma no processo criativo da construção ou no da destruição. As figuras parecem estar prestes a desintegrar-se e, no entanto, impressionam pela sua presença através do rodopio de cor em que imergem.
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), mundialmente reconhecido como o pintor mais representativo da história do Expressionismo Abstracto na pintura, particularmente no que se refere à Action Painting, expressava-se vertendo a tinta directamente para a tela, através de um tubo ou balde, cobrindo-a em camadas sucessivas e espargindo a tinta numa tentativa de interagir directamente com a tela, cuja superfície se encontrava horizontalmente estendida no chão.
Franz Kline (1910-1962), por outro lado, utilizava uma vulgar trincha de decorador para fazer a projecção de linhas de cor preta numa superfície branca, com uma veemência gestual de grande impacto visual.
Sam Francis (1923-1994) adoptou métodos idênticos aos de Pollock, utilizando a técnica do espargimento em telas de grande dimensão, mas os resultados obtidos foram menos convincentes. Estes ensaios eram demonstrativos de como na ausência de uma qualquer linha orientadora do processo criativo, um estilo artístico que se baseasse unicamente na combinação das cores recorrendo aos mais variados métodos, corria o risco de ficar reduzido a mera superficialidade decorativa.
Contudo, a Wilhelm de Kooning (1904-1997) deverá ser reservado um lugar especial neste movimento, que, enquanto definitivamente um artista gestual, mantinha um cunho de uma essência realista. As suas obras são abstracções dinâmicas que, não obstante, apresentam formas orgânicas ou biomórficas. A figura humana é um tema central: por ex., no seu trabalho em série «Women» (Mulheres), as figuras são dificilmente discerníveis, mesmo que a trincha tenha distorcido a sua forma no processo criativo da construção ou no da destruição. As figuras parecem estar prestes a desintegrar-se e, no entanto, impressionam pela sua presença através do rodopio de cor em que imergem.
Na Europa, foi dado o nome de Art Informel ou Informalismo ao movimento artístico que utilizou a técnica da pintura de acção, tendo sido o pintor francês Jean Fautrier (1898-1964) o percursor desse movimento.
Em 1954, esta técnica teve outros desenvolvimentos artísticos, tendo sido adoptado o termo de Tachisme pelo crítico francês Charles Estienne, para descrever uma forma de pintura caracterizada pela técnica da mancha, a partir da dispersão da tinta sobre a tela. Jean Fautrier utilizou esta técnica, dando às suas obras uma consistência táctil construindo camadas disformes de têmpera (cal e cola), espessadas em cor branca, resultando em superfícies pastosas de intensidade dramática. No seu trabalho em série «Hostages» (Reféns), esta metodologia evocou, de uma forma brilhante, a reacção de Fautrier ao massacre dos prisioneiros de guerra. Os seus quadros produziam um efeito de profundeza e poder.
Apesar de terem sido vários os estilos adoptados sob a designação de Arte Informal, prevaleceu um denominador comum na maior parte das obras traduzido pela sua natureza autobiográfica. Elas transformaram-se simbolicamente no espelho da natureza intrínseca do artista, reflectindo a sua objecção à aparente falta de individualidade na sociedade industrial contemporânea.
Fonte: A World History of Art
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Fonte: A World History of Art
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* * *
**
*
Jackson Pollock, circling like a dancer around a canvas spread out on the floor, dripping and pouring paint – this film image of an “action painter” not only confirmed Pollock’s standing as the leading protagonist of one of the most influential avant-gardes of the twentieth century. It also became an unforgettable icon of modern art in general. Our exhibition, Action Painting, is devoted to the phenomenon of abstract gestural painting, which emerged in Europe and the United States in the wake of the Second World War. Despite all the differences between European L’Art informel and American Abstract Expressionism, in hindsight the similarities appear to predominate. Artists on both sides of the Atlantic dared a revolutionary new beginning by transcending the borders of traditional art. By radically concentrating on the spontaneous painting gesture, the artist’s personality and state of mind were to be directly manifested on the canvas.
On our journey through a modern myth we encounter, in addition to Pollock, other famous painters like Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Sam Francis, Roberto Matta, and Pierre Soulages, as well as some who, once celebrated, were soon forgotten and have recently been rediscovered. Paintings by Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Arshile Gorky, Wols, Morris Louis, and Kazuo Shiraga, reflect the multifarious visual potentials of color and gesture. Representing the following generation are Eva Hesse and Cy Twombly, who expanded the concept of Action Painting. The exhibition comprises about one hundred works by twenty-seven artists from Europe, South and North America, and Asia.
Basically we focus on two forms of expression in abstract painting that depend on “action”: first, the painting gesture as a “protocol” on canvas; and second, paint traces left up to the workings of controlled chance. Combinations of these two working principles are common, as is especially obvious in Pollock’s case. A large group of important Pollocks, done between 1946 and 1953 and showing the full range of his expressive devices, forms the center of the exhibition. The group includes such legendary works as Out of the Web, 1949, from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Number 7, 1950, from the MoMA in New York; and Search, 1955, the last picture the artist completed (courtesy Galerie Hauser & Wirth). Pollock’s works are manifestations of his physical movements; yet the most fascinating thing about his drippings and pourings is the fact that the paint, between leaving his hand and hitting the canvas, was no longer subject to the artist’s will.
This technique was adopted and ramified by various other artists. One is Helen Frankenthaler, who instead of applying paint in the usual manner used like a dye, letting it seep into the canvas. Morris Louis took this method further. His large-format “stained paintings,” radically reduced visual configurations, are among the absolute sensations in the exhibition – a significant series the likes of which has not been seen in Europe for many years. Gerhard Hoehme and Eva Hesse, inspired by gestural painting, are represented here by large compositions that show their concern with the three-dimensionality of paint, as if extending the weave of Pollock’s entangled paint filaments. Lynda Benglis with her cast paint sculptures, and Arman with his Accumulations of squeezed paint tubes, developed Action Painting in a compelling and ironic direction as they visualized the results of a creative process, indeed a performance.
The possible variations in the use of color and line to express movement are virtually infinite. This becomes clear in the exhibition, in which groups of works by the artists are arranged for the most part chronologically. Each can be seen to have his or her unique touch, as personal as handwriting. In small-format paintings and drawings, frequently influenced by the Surrealist idea of écriture automatique, artists such as Jean Fautrier, Wols, and Hans Hartung produced gestural imagery in which – especially in Fautrier’s case – there is no distinct line between figuration and abstraction. An entire exhibition room is devoted to Wols, who in Jean-Paul Sartre’s eyes embodied the existentialist artist par excellence. The notion of a painterly calligraphy immediately brings Cy Twombly to mind, a series of whose works is likewise on view at the Fondation Beyeler. In sharp contrast to Twombly’s delicate inscriptions stand the “paint orgies” of Kazuo Shiraga, the leading representative of the Japanese artists group “Gutai.” Inspired above all by Pollock and executed with his feet, Shiraga’s works were preceded by phases of intensive meditation.
The opposition between figuration and abstraction, once a topic of heated critical debate, was apparently less crucial to the artists themselves. This is confirmed by a juxtaposition of selected works by the “Cobra” artists Karel Appel and Asger Jorn with significant paintings by the star Abstract Expressionist, Willem de Kooning. All of these artists, like Pollock himself, took the figure as point of departure for their compositions.
Especially interesting are the close ties that existed between Europe and America. Arshile Gorky, a survivor of the Armenian genocide who emigrated to the U.S., is a case in point. After adapting the approaches of his European ideals, Cézanne and Picasso, Gorky both built on them and liberated himself from them by developing a unique gestural style. Like Gorky, the German-born Hans Hofmann is still too little known in Europe. After beginning under the influence of Henri Matisse and moving to America, Hofmann not only became a pioneer of gestural painting, experimenting with dripping techniques even before Pollock, but the teacher of an entire generation of artists of the New York School. These included Lee Krasner, who is unjustifiably viewed primarily as Pollock’s wife – her paintings show her to have been an outstanding abstract artist. Artists like Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis, who lived in Europe for long periods, likewise freely developed impulses from Claude Monet and others, and combined these with experiences gained from the New York School. Francis’s outstanding painting Round the World, from the Beyeler Collection, forms the hub of a compelling group of the artist’s works from the late 1950s.
In the U.S. as in Europe, the development of abstract gestural art went hand in hand with a liberation from the small format. A pioneer in this respect was Roberto Matta. Although perhaps not an action painter in the narrower sense, Matta’s large-format and smaller yet equally expansive “visual galaxies” set an example for artists like Pollock, Franz Kline, and Clyfford Still. Compelling works by Kline, and examples of Still’s wonderful, sublimely fissured paintings, are on view. Ernst Wilhelm Nay, who stood in the tradition of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee and now tends to be underestimated, was one of the first European artists to employ very large formats for his compositions in color. The well-nigh forgotten monumental Freiburg Painting (1956), a commissioned work for the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, is on loan to our exhibition – a veritable sensation. The most recent work on view is by Pierre Soulages, the doyen of French L’Art informel. His breakthrough came in the late 1940s and early 1950s, at about the same time as Pollock’s. Soulages, the last living member of the first generation of action painters, is represented by five examples from every phase of his career.
As our review suggests, gestural painting is predicated to a great extent on an actively receptive audience. These pictures make considerable demands on us as viewers, challenging us, as it were, to finish them in our own minds. Art that concentrates on the artist’s personality, gestures, and paint substance prompts us to participate, to virtually enter the picture. Action painting invites “action viewing”.
*
On our journey through a modern myth we encounter, in addition to Pollock, other famous painters like Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Sam Francis, Roberto Matta, and Pierre Soulages, as well as some who, once celebrated, were soon forgotten and have recently been rediscovered. Paintings by Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Arshile Gorky, Wols, Morris Louis, and Kazuo Shiraga, reflect the multifarious visual potentials of color and gesture. Representing the following generation are Eva Hesse and Cy Twombly, who expanded the concept of Action Painting. The exhibition comprises about one hundred works by twenty-seven artists from Europe, South and North America, and Asia.
Basically we focus on two forms of expression in abstract painting that depend on “action”: first, the painting gesture as a “protocol” on canvas; and second, paint traces left up to the workings of controlled chance. Combinations of these two working principles are common, as is especially obvious in Pollock’s case. A large group of important Pollocks, done between 1946 and 1953 and showing the full range of his expressive devices, forms the center of the exhibition. The group includes such legendary works as Out of the Web, 1949, from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Number 7, 1950, from the MoMA in New York; and Search, 1955, the last picture the artist completed (courtesy Galerie Hauser & Wirth). Pollock’s works are manifestations of his physical movements; yet the most fascinating thing about his drippings and pourings is the fact that the paint, between leaving his hand and hitting the canvas, was no longer subject to the artist’s will.
This technique was adopted and ramified by various other artists. One is Helen Frankenthaler, who instead of applying paint in the usual manner used like a dye, letting it seep into the canvas. Morris Louis took this method further. His large-format “stained paintings,” radically reduced visual configurations, are among the absolute sensations in the exhibition – a significant series the likes of which has not been seen in Europe for many years. Gerhard Hoehme and Eva Hesse, inspired by gestural painting, are represented here by large compositions that show their concern with the three-dimensionality of paint, as if extending the weave of Pollock’s entangled paint filaments. Lynda Benglis with her cast paint sculptures, and Arman with his Accumulations of squeezed paint tubes, developed Action Painting in a compelling and ironic direction as they visualized the results of a creative process, indeed a performance.
The possible variations in the use of color and line to express movement are virtually infinite. This becomes clear in the exhibition, in which groups of works by the artists are arranged for the most part chronologically. Each can be seen to have his or her unique touch, as personal as handwriting. In small-format paintings and drawings, frequently influenced by the Surrealist idea of écriture automatique, artists such as Jean Fautrier, Wols, and Hans Hartung produced gestural imagery in which – especially in Fautrier’s case – there is no distinct line between figuration and abstraction. An entire exhibition room is devoted to Wols, who in Jean-Paul Sartre’s eyes embodied the existentialist artist par excellence. The notion of a painterly calligraphy immediately brings Cy Twombly to mind, a series of whose works is likewise on view at the Fondation Beyeler. In sharp contrast to Twombly’s delicate inscriptions stand the “paint orgies” of Kazuo Shiraga, the leading representative of the Japanese artists group “Gutai.” Inspired above all by Pollock and executed with his feet, Shiraga’s works were preceded by phases of intensive meditation.
The opposition between figuration and abstraction, once a topic of heated critical debate, was apparently less crucial to the artists themselves. This is confirmed by a juxtaposition of selected works by the “Cobra” artists Karel Appel and Asger Jorn with significant paintings by the star Abstract Expressionist, Willem de Kooning. All of these artists, like Pollock himself, took the figure as point of departure for their compositions.
Especially interesting are the close ties that existed between Europe and America. Arshile Gorky, a survivor of the Armenian genocide who emigrated to the U.S., is a case in point. After adapting the approaches of his European ideals, Cézanne and Picasso, Gorky both built on them and liberated himself from them by developing a unique gestural style. Like Gorky, the German-born Hans Hofmann is still too little known in Europe. After beginning under the influence of Henri Matisse and moving to America, Hofmann not only became a pioneer of gestural painting, experimenting with dripping techniques even before Pollock, but the teacher of an entire generation of artists of the New York School. These included Lee Krasner, who is unjustifiably viewed primarily as Pollock’s wife – her paintings show her to have been an outstanding abstract artist. Artists like Joan Mitchell and Sam Francis, who lived in Europe for long periods, likewise freely developed impulses from Claude Monet and others, and combined these with experiences gained from the New York School. Francis’s outstanding painting Round the World, from the Beyeler Collection, forms the hub of a compelling group of the artist’s works from the late 1950s.
In the U.S. as in Europe, the development of abstract gestural art went hand in hand with a liberation from the small format. A pioneer in this respect was Roberto Matta. Although perhaps not an action painter in the narrower sense, Matta’s large-format and smaller yet equally expansive “visual galaxies” set an example for artists like Pollock, Franz Kline, and Clyfford Still. Compelling works by Kline, and examples of Still’s wonderful, sublimely fissured paintings, are on view. Ernst Wilhelm Nay, who stood in the tradition of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee and now tends to be underestimated, was one of the first European artists to employ very large formats for his compositions in color. The well-nigh forgotten monumental Freiburg Painting (1956), a commissioned work for the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, is on loan to our exhibition – a veritable sensation. The most recent work on view is by Pierre Soulages, the doyen of French L’Art informel. His breakthrough came in the late 1940s and early 1950s, at about the same time as Pollock’s. Soulages, the last living member of the first generation of action painters, is represented by five examples from every phase of his career.
As our review suggests, gestural painting is predicated to a great extent on an actively receptive audience. These pictures make considerable demands on us as viewers, challenging us, as it were, to finish them in our own minds. Art that concentrates on the artist’s personality, gestures, and paint substance prompts us to participate, to virtually enter the picture. Action painting invites “action viewing”.
*
Beyeler Foundation, press release
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