Existing comment:
Assemblage and Post-Painterly Abstraction:
Abstract Expressionism, which includes Action Painting and Color-Field, is the forbearer of the work in this gallery. In the late 1950s, sculptors such as John Chamberlain and Richard Stankiewicz translated Action Painting's internal coherence and spontaneity into three-dimensional works called assemblages. These rough-hewn sculptures were made of traditionally non-art materials and found objects and were closely related to collage. Robert Rauschenberg's "combines" and Lee Contecou's constructions unite painting and sculpture and represent additional approaches to Assemblage.
Post-Painterly Abstraction developed when other artists further explored Color-Field painting. Stain painters such as Helen Frankethaler, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland emphasized the autonomy of the creative process. They poured and dripped thinned paint onto unprimed canvases where it soaked into the fabric, creating a unified image but also eliminating the possibility of correcting "mistakes". Their works were dubbed "one shot" paintings for the speed of production and simplicity of images. Cool indifference was read into abstract painting in the early 1960s, presaging the economy of Minimalism and the irony of Pop Art. |