'Long Island Abstraction : 1950s to the Present' at Spanierman Modern

Monday, 11 September 2006 09:46

New York City - Spanierman Modern is pleased to announce Long Island Abstraction: 1950s to the Present.  While the impulses generating abstraction are usually thought to reside in the forms and experiences of industry and the city, beginning in the 1950s some of its most significant and revolutionary developments have happened on Long Island.  Many of the central figures in the Abstract Expressionist movement established homes at the east end of the island and their presence brought other abstract artists in future years, all of whom found fresh perspectives and new avenues of exploration at a distance from, yet within range of, Manhattan. Starting with Abstract Expressionist paintings and sculptures by Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning, Ibram Lassaw, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, Lee Krasner, Jimmy Ernst, Neil Williams, and Theodore Stamos, and collages by Esteban Vicente, the exhibition will represent the diversity of responses to Long Island offered by successive generations of postwar and contemporary abstract artists.

The public interest in art on Long Island was sparked recently by the movie, Pollock, the Hollywood depiction of the life of Jackson Pollock released in 2000.  The film introduced general audiences to the pastoral stretch of eastern Long Island where Pollock and Lee Krasner settled after marriage, leaving the lofts and tenements of New York’s Greenwich Village behind for a fresh start in the “country,” which was how Krasner referred to The Springs, a section of East Hampton.  The presence of Pollock and Krasner drew other New York artists to summer and even take up year round residence in the area.  In the 1950s and 1960s, while New York City established itself as the world’s leading cultural capital, the now glitzy “Hamptons” was being transformed into a wonderfully inclusive bohemian gathering place. 

The combination of reasonable proximity to the city, yet sufficient distance from the urban fast-pace, and the availability of inexpensive housing and land, enticed artists, dealers, art critics, museum curators, and collectors to Long Island.  There they found that people from all walks of life could interact and exchange ideas, allowing artists the freedom to be as reclusive, private, outgoing, or competitive as they wanted to be. 

Elaine De Kooning’s Cave #54, Sand Wall (1985) is a monumental painting from a late major series inspired by the artist’s visits to Lascaux and Altamira in Europe.  Created in East Hampton, the painting reflects critical elements of Abstract Expressionist art, including sweeping gesture and expansive color and scale.  De Kooning masterfully applies these modes to maximize the dreamlike impact of the emblematic images of animals in this impressive composition.

While many artists did indeed respond to the extraordinary environment of the East End with nature-based abstractions, others continued to explore other facets of expressionism, creating works informed by powerful emotive and psychological undercurrents.  Ibram Lassaw, best known for his open space welded sculptures in bronze, steel and other alloys, created poetic, ordered statements inspired by Taoist and Zen teachings, the psychological teachings of Jung, and other sources.

In different ways of working reductively from nature are approached in the work of Betty Parsons, the prominent dealer whose prescience in promoting Pollock and Abstract Expressionism was due at least in part to her talent as a painter, and in that of Robert Harms, in his rich impastos.  The ways in which the power and intensity of nature on Long Island can inform shape, line, and color can be seen in the geometric canvases of Della Weinberger as well as in a variety of other recent examples by Dan Christensen, Mike Solomon, and Frank Wimberley, among the artists associated with Minimalist, Color Field and Post-Minimalist tendencies.

The strong individualistic visions of John Alexander, Richmond Burton, Perry Burns, Dan Rizzie, and Gary Komarin demonstrate how the distance from urban distractions afforded artists possibilities of reinventing their work and expanding the language and history of abstraction.   Living and working in the former home of Elaine de Kooning, and sustained by the unspoiled surroundings of East Hampton, he has turned to a more biomorphic abstraction.  Dan Rizzie’s exquisitely crafted abstractions appear disarmingly simple and minimal; it is only on close examination that his meticulous concern for detail becomes apparent.  He works in a variety of media, incorporating elements such as newspaper and wax, as well as coffee grounds and dirt, into his compositions to create an aged, layered effect.  His vocabulary of forms includes lettering, vines, tree branches, and ancient vessels.  While the title of Gary Komarin’s Further Lane alludes to place – one of several scenic roads that lead to the sea in and around the village of East Hampton – the painting also speaks poignantly of personal experience and loss; Komarin recalls having biked along these country lanes with his late wife, adding that “quite a few have poetic sounding names or names that open doors to further thoughts, including of course Further Lane.”

Bringing a fresh perspective to Pollock’s statement, “I am Nature,” Long Island Abstraction: 1950 to Present celebrates the unique history and continuing rich contribution of Long Island to American art.  The exhibition, which remains on view at Spanierman Modern until October 28, will subsequently return to Spanierman Gallery at East Hampton, where it is scheduled to open on November 4.

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