Tag: nontraditionalmaterials

Sol LeWitt

What more can I say about the democratizing effect of non-mimetic modalities on the arts that would do justice to the rise of a night shift guard at MOMA to the rightful prominence Sol occupies as a conceptual artist*? Just read.

*Right- one should also note that, even though he abandoned the idea of a master narrative in art that preferenced painting, he didn’t abandon the notion that geometric forms are uniquely human.

#sollewit

Brian Eno

Posting about Doug Wheeler made me think about other artists who work in the realm of creating experience that I find to be a cousin of formalist painting. Most of us know this Brit from his musical oeuvre. What he says about his brand of empty formalism is right on, and we share a modality where some artist license/control is measured against chance as an actual tool.

#brianeno

El Anatsui and Georgina Maxim

Saw El at Biennale and was over the moon to walk into NCMA and find that our state is now home to a great piece of his- his modality is similar to Elias Simes, another great hailing from Africa which NCMA has included in the permanent collection. Georgina is also an African artist, who’s work is included because, like El, it reminds me of another artist (Al Loving). Juxtaposing is fun.

#elanatsui

#georginamaxim

Al Loving

I’ve been following a hashtag on IG for Al so I can see snaps of his work that still gets shown. You can see from the first image why I was first drawn to him. Loving was well known for hard-edge, geometric abstract painting. However, he felt a tension between his work and his identity as an African American in a time of racial injustice, civil rights struggles, and the rise of the Black Power movement. In the early 1970s, he took a new direction with shaped, colorful, fabric-based works inspired by quilts.

#alloving