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Z0031747.jpg

Introduction

Webs, Loops, and Skeins in Modern and Contemporary Art

February 24 - April 23, 2006

"Web," "loop," and "skein" are terms usually associated with textiles, but they are also surprisingly common referents for the formal qualities of a wide range of art created over the past 60 years. These words are particularly apt for describing the linear, gestural painting of American Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose work gained critical acclaim in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Their calligraphic abstractions were meant to convey the direct process and expression of the artist, an idea borrowed from Surrealists who emigrated to the United States before and during World War II. The Surrealists' commitment to "automatic writing" - allowing the unconscious to guide the creative process - was extremely influential. The artist's gestures, whether handwriting or larger movements of the body, became the vocabulary of personal self-discovery and revelation of his or her psychological states.
Moving forward from the work of the Abstract Expressionists, this exhibition explores how such processes have continued to resonate for generations, not just in painting and drawing, but also in sculpture and printmaking. The artists who came immediately after the Abstract Expressionists frequently removed personal associations by combining handmade marks with mundane imagery. For example, Jasper Johns used numbers as subject matter, and Cy Twombly filled heroic-scale paintings with illegible scrawls. Some artists eliminated the emotional and individual references in their work by reducing their compositions to basic geometric elements, such as Robert Mangold's compositions of the 1960s and 1970s of simple shapes drawn within polygons. Others evaded the personal by using industrial materials or machinelike precision to create optically vibrant pieces. The grid structure so essential to many of these works has since relaxed, as in Sol LeWitt's gouache drawing, Web-Like Grid, 2001.
Drawn primarily from the Museum's collection, this exhibition highlights manyrecent acquisitions by younger artists, including those made with the Paula and Leonard Granoff Fund for the purchase of contemporary drawing and The Richard Brown Baker Fund for Contemporary British Art.

Selected Objects

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Mary Bauermeister

The Art Investment Report, 1973
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Francesco Clemente

Departure of the Argonaut, 1986
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Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt)

Untitled, 1966
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Sam Gilliam

Providence (On the 6:36 at 9:00), 1999
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Ann Hamilton

wreathe, 2001
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Tayo Heuser

Untitled, 2004
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Jasper Johns

Figure 8, 1969
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Jane Kent

Privacy, 1999
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Willem de Kooning

Black and White Abstraction, ca. 1950
No Image Available

Irene Lawrence, designer

Singular Multiples, 1994-96
No Image Available

Irene Lawrence, designer

Singular Multiples, 1994-96
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Sol LeWitt

Web-Like Grid, 2001
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Joan Mitchell

Untitled, 1966
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Elizabeth Murray

Spill One, 1981
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Jacqueline Ott

Continuum #12, 1995
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Laura Owens

Untitled, 1999
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Simon Periton

Spaccanapoli 2, 2004
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Lari Pittman

Optimal Setting for Atmospheric Conditions that Can Induce Melodrama in the Male, 2001
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Martin Puryear, artist

Cane, 2000
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James Rosenquist

Bunraku, 1970
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David Smith

Untitled, 1960
No Image Available

Cy Twombly, designer

Untitled II, 1967-1974
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Martin Boyce

Ventilation Grills (Punching through the Clouds), 2004
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Christian Marclay

Cascade, 1989
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Jésus Rafael Soto

Green and Black Immaterial Curves, 1966
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Willy Heeks

The Set, 1993
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Jim Hodges

Untitled, 1992
No Image Available

Ibram Lassaw

Zodiac House, 1958
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Robert Mangold

Distorted Circle within a Polygon II, 1972
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Agnes Martin

Untitled, 1960
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Jackson Pollock

Magic Lantern, 1947
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Peter Sedgley

Trace, 1964
No Image Available

Richard Peter Stankiewicz

1960-11, 1960
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Cy Twombly

Untitled, 1968
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Judyth vanAmringe

Nest II, 2000
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Franz West

"Uncle" Chair, 2005
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Franz West

"Uncle" Chair, 2005
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Sue Williams

Busy with Face in Middle, 1997
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Louise Bourgeois, designer

Untitled, 1989-91

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Webs, Loops, and Skeins in Modern and Contemporary Art

February 24 - April 23, 2006
View Checklist PDF

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