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                  Formalism has become part of the today’s visual language. I think about the mass produced prints doctors’ offices, hotels, office spaces have in their waiting rooms, and next to landscapes and portraits of flowers, a visually pleasing abstract composition probably won’t offend anyone. Kant’s idea that there is a universal idea of beauty is somewhat true. With the exploration of formalism throughout the years, the psychological effects of different elements and principles of art have been explored. The abstraction of art allows artists such as Ellsworth Kelly to pare down the experience of looking to a singular experience. The starkness of color, shape and form in his work, whether it is on canvas or with metal is a sculptural experience. The silent gallery video walks up to the painting and around it so you experience the shadows on the wall, the quality of surface. It becomes a meditation of geometry, of pigment.

 

                  The first time I saw Anish Kapoor I think it was at the Des Moines Art Museum. I was in high school, and I was developing a meaningful artistic relationship with Henry Moore, Andy Goldsworthy and Eva Hesse. Anish Kapoor spoke to me in a very intense language during the show. I walked into the gallery, white walls, and saw a blank wall. As I walked closer I realized the shadows weren’t quite right, and at a certain point, the shapes on the wall made sense. The title of the wall was Pregnant. I thought it was amazing, to be able to trick me like that, to manipulate the structure of the gallery wall itself. To reference the feminine, the creative process, potential. I loved it. There were also several pigment dust pieces in that show. A blood red column with a splatter of pigment across the floor, like it was falling, and spreading across the gallery. Boulders covered in velvety cobalt. Anish Kapoor is captivating because his sculptures become an experience of interaction between object, environment and viewer as participant.

 

              Works like Eichelman’s Kinetic knit pieces remind me of a video instillation on architecture, like the work of Krysztof Wodiczko. Fluid, dependent on the contrast of the surrounding architecture, sky and in this case wind. Like a soft mobile. The consistent beauty of the colorful light and fabric flowing and changing is undeniable. Similar to Serra’s work, I can’t help but wonder if some artist’s get stuck in an idea, get recognition and can’t find a way out. I think Serra’s drawings are almost more interesting than the work I’ve seen over and over again. The fact that they are so huge, so permanent, even though they are allowed to rust and patina, they’re like permanent crop circles, visible from space around the planet. Very manly.

 

             I visited the Denver art museum’s Women of Abstract Expressionism exhibit this summer. I saw work by Helen Frankenthaler and Jean Mitchel at the show. I grew up in Iowa City, regularly visiting the Pollock, staring at it for long periods of time. Though abstract expressionism is not my favorite, looking at the women of abstract expressionism makes so much sense and softens my bitterness toward the macho side of this movement. Jean Mitchel’s work was presented on line as being aggressive, perhaps because of her personality, but I found that the 3 paintings from the show I saw, which included the city scape, were some of the most sensitively handled paintings in the show. Though the lines were energetically, sometimes franticly applied, they were applied purposefully and with almost tense restraint. The result were huge paintings with large thoughtful, and complicated negative spaces, which surrounded the intense color in the middle, reminiscent of a city scape, or rain on water. I thought her pieces were magnificent.

 

              The history of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism has focused on white guys, not surprisingly. The women in the New York movement were often partners of the men, and perhaps were thought of as tag alongs. Artists like Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler were as much a part of the movement as Pollock or Motherwell, but as the New York Times article about Carmen Herrera pointed out, even her art dealer wouldn’t fully support her because she wasn’t a man, and the discrimination continues as she is given an eighth floor retrospective instead of one of the major galleries.  The art world’s bias toward white men is also apparent when we look at the work of Norman Louis. His work, Migrating Birds, received the Carnegie International Award, and I’ve never heard of him. Though his work doesn’t quite fit into the Abstract Expressionist movement, since his work is more abstracted representation, it had a far reaching effect on some African American artists who were interested in the Social Realist movement, and the social justice issues Louis continued to represent in his abstracted work.

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              Abstraction continues to play a big part in the language of contemporary work. I imagine there will always be a place for beauty in the discussion of visual arts. Now that abstraction is a part of our collective history, the role of teaching abstraction in the artroom becomes a key point in teaching that art is more than just a visual experience, it is a cultural experience. Art becomes a primary source, documenting historical events.