Inventing Abstraction at The Museum of Modern Art

Last day of Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:45:00 -0400

Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 closes today April 15th, 2013 and this concludes our series of daily tumblr posts. Over the course of three and a half months we have uploaded a lot of materials that supplement the exhibition, its catalog and website. We hope this tumblr will remain as a useful resource for anyone interested in early abstraction.

With best wishes to all our followers,

The curatorial team of Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925.

Artist Frank Stella discusses Kazimir Malevich’s...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:01:00 -0400

Artist Frank Stella discusses Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist Composition: White on White of 1918.

Stella refers to Alfred Barr’s chart for his 1936 “Cubism and Abstract Art” exhibition at MoMA.

AN EXHIBITION

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:01:47 -0400

El Lissitzky, New Man, from the portfolio Figurines, plastic representations of the electromechanical production entitled ‘Victory over the Sun,’ 1923

At the end of 1921, the Russian artist El Lissitzky traveled to Berlin, with support of the new Soviet government. There he participated in the organization of the First Russian Art Exhibition at the Galerie Van Diemen, which introduced recent Soviet art to a European audience for the first time after a long hiatus imposed by war and revolution. “The Blockade of Russia is coming to an end,” Lissitzky announced. So great was the exhibition’s success that in the spring of 1923 it travelled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where Lissitzky lectured on the new Soviet art, forging contacts with Dutch artists and architects.

Tonight on Charlie Rose

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:19:00 -0400

You can watch an interview with Leah Dickerman about Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925.

The video will subsequently be uploaded here.

Ai Wei Wei, Fountain of Light, 2007 This steel and glass structure, illuminated from the inside, is...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:12:02 -0400

Ai Wei Wei, Fountain of Light, 2007

This steel and glass structure, illuminated from the inside, is the contemporary Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei’s reinterpretation of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. It was exhibited at Tate Liverpool in 2007.

Arnold Schoenberg in the courtyard of the St.Petersburg Philarmonic, 1912 In 1911 Vasily Kandinsky...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:18:00 -0400

Arnold Schoenberg in the courtyard of the St.Petersburg Philarmonic, 1912

In 1911 Vasily Kandinsky introduced Arnold Schoenberg’s musical theory to Russia by publishing his own translation of the composer’s groundbreaking Theory of Harmony in a 1911 exhibition catalog of the International Art Salon, which traveled to several major cities in Russia. In the winter of 1912 Schoenberg was invited to St. Petersburg to conduct. This was his opportunity to make personal contact with the leading musicians and artists who were already familiar with his musical theory and compositions.

Schoenberg in Inventing Abstraction

An installation photo with a visitor in front of Morgan Russell’s 11 foot painting Synchromy...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:52:00 -0400

An installation photo with a visitor in front of Morgan Russell’s 11 foot painting Synchromy in Orange: to Form (on the right)

Another great photo of this monumental painting in Inventing Abstraction appeared in The New York Times review of the exhibition in December 2012.

Morgan Russell, Synchromy in Orange to Form, 1914In this painting, Russell models the rhythm of...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:06:42 -0400

Morgan Russell, Synchromy in Orange to Form, 1914

In this painting, Russell models the rhythm of space through the juxtaposition of saturated colors, which form bands that buckle and fold over a monumental surface, spilling onto the painted frame. “I always felt the need to impose on color the same violent twists and spirals that Rubens and Michelangelo imposed on the human body,” Russell wrote about his abstraction in 1912. Based in Paris since 1909, Russell made this painting for the Salon des Indépendants where it was exhibited in the spring of 1914 with a full title: Synchromie en orange: la création de l’homme conçue comme le résultat d’une force génératrice naturelle (Synchromy in Orange: the creation of man conceived as a result of a natural generative force). This painting’s ambitious scale, unique in Russell’s oeuvre, was undoubtedly a response to the succession of large abstract pictures shown at the Parisian salons over the previous two years by artists such as Kupka, Picabia, Leger and Delaunay.

Learn more about Morgan Russell through his archive and collection at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey

Sonia Delaunay-Terk and a companion wearing clothing of the artist’s design and with a Citroen...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:01:51 -0400

Sonia Delaunay-Terk and a companion wearing clothing of the artist’s design and with a Citroen B12 decorated by her. 1925

Sonia Delaunay produced works according to the principles of simultaneous painting along the entire spectrum of the fine and the applied arts: from paintings, drawings and book bindings to clothing, decorative objects for the home and even cars.

THE CAFE

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:09:15 -0400

Sonia and Robert Delaunay, 1923

In the summer of 1913, the Russian literary scholar Aleksandr Smirnov visited Robert and Sonia Delaunay in France. Returning to his native St. Petersburg, Smirnov spread the word of the new art he had seen, lecturing at the famous Stray Dog café, an avant-garde gathering place, on the Delaunays’ latest work and their theory of simultaneous contrasts. He brought with him posters, made by Sonia for his presentation, and a copy of the book she had created in collaboration with the poet Blaise Cendrars.

Here is a bibliography of art historical charts

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:45:00 -0400

Here is a bibliography of art historical charts :

compiled by our librarian Jennifer Tobias.

The diagram we created for Inventing Abstraction is part of this larger tradition.

And here are some earlier posts about charts.

Mikhail Larionov, Glass, 1912 In the autumn of 1912, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:46:51 -0400

Mikhail Larionov, Glass, 1912

In the autumn of 1912, Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova developed a new visual language they called Rayism, in which, inspired by the discovery of x-rays and radioactivity, they claimed to depict not objects but rays of light or energy these objects reflected. “I established the convention,” Larionov wrote in 1913, “of depicting a ray on canvas as a colored line.” In this painting, Larionov traces rays that radiate from glass; he creates a dense network of lines and planes fusing object and background into a single unit.

Emilio Pettoruti, Dynamic Expansion, 1914In this work Pettoruti aims to convey the synchronicity of...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:18:22 -0400

Emilio Pettoruti, Dynamic Expansion, 1914

In this work Pettoruti aims to convey the synchronicity of movement, light and rhythm with arching curves and shadows created from the subtle tonal range of charcoal on paper. This work is among this artist’s earliest forays into abstraction, made a year after he moved from his native Argentina to Italy where he was introduced to Futurist art.

Here is another photograph of visitors in the galleries of Inventing Abstraction. The...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:49:22 -0400

Here is another photograph of visitors in the galleries of Inventing Abstraction. The free-standing wall in the middle is dedicated to artists’ study of color. This wall includes August Macke’s Colored Squaresdiscussed in an earlier post today. To the left are Vaclav Nijinsky’s drawings, to the right the sections dedicated to abstract film and technological abstraction in Berlin.

Join Masha Chlenova, of the curatorial team, for a public tour of Inventing Abstraction tomorrow,...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:18:00 -0400

Join Masha Chlenova, of the curatorial team, for a public tour of Inventing Abstraction tomorrow, Friday April 5th at 12:30 pm. Meet at the entrance of the exhibition near the audio guide desk.

August Macke, Colored Squares, 1913Color is the primary subject of Macke’s abstract works. In...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:04:22 -0400

August Macke, Colored Squares, 1913

Color is the primary subject of Macke’s abstract works. In this painting he arranged triangles in a grid in a systematic progression from warm to cool hues. Adjacent colors make individual shapes flicker through their complementary and contrasting effects, guiding our gaze to isolate shapes and relate them to each other.

Abstract Currents - an Interactive Video Event at MoMA On...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:03:23 -0400

Abstract Currents - an Interactive Video Event at MoMA

On Sunday April 7th, 8:30-11:30 pm join us for a special party at The Museum of Modern Art, organized in conjunction with the exhibitions Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 and Abstract Generation: Now in Print.

The Pop Rally committee has collected hundreds of one-minute abstract videos created by the public. These video minutes open a broad window into the ways that abstraction endlessly inspires artists, designers, and anyone observing the peripheries of their own daily life. The captured imagery, ranging from the bizarre to the contemplative, is made from small observations in nature, flowing psychedelic mutations, and digitally imagined spaces.

Join us for a special party and see all of the submitted videos displayed on various screens and projections in MoMA’s lobby and on the Marron Atrium walls. Dream-pop queen Tamaryn will DJ the event, providing a hypnotic soundtrack to the collectively built abstract videoscape.

More information and to buy tickets

Here is documentary footage from a recent retrospective of...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:30:50 -0400

Here is documentary footage from a recent retrospective of Vladimir Tatlin’s work at the Museum Tinguely in Basel. It included two reconstructions of Tatlin’s famous model for the Monument to the Third International, one of which is on view in Inventing Abstraction. It also includes reconstructions of a number of Tatlin’s abstract reliefs, only a few of which survive in their original state.

Learn more about Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International

Vladimir Tatlin, Composition, 1916 Vladimir Tatlin made and exhibited three-dimensional abstract...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:24:26 -0400

Vladimir Tatlin, Composition, 1916

Vladimir Tatlin made and exhibited three-dimensional abstract reliefs in 1914 and 1915. In this work he revisits two-dimensional form, as if to reflect on the roots of his abstract practice. The media of this work - painted in tempera on wood - refer to medieval Orthodox Christian icons, which inspired many avant-garde artists in Russia. At the same time, overlapping planes, oval shape and stenciled letters in this work directly reference cubist collage, another key source of Tatlin’s abstract idiom. The inscribed words ‘month’ and ‘May’ most likely refer to the artist’s close affinity with the poetic practice of Velimir Khlebnikov, with whom he was traveling and working in May of 1916, the year this work was created.

Yesterday AICA - USA (International Association of Art Critics) awarded Inventing Abstraction its...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:31:01 -0400

Yesterday AICA - USA (International Association of Art Critics) awarded Inventing Abstraction its first prize for the Best Historical Museum Show Nationally. The awards are granted by vote of AICA - USA members, which include over 400 critics, curators, scholars and art historians working throughout the United States.

AICA announces the 2012 awards