The Humanism of Abstraction

CARRIE MOYER | DAVID REED | JOHN ZINSSER October 20 - November 17, 2016 The Gallery at Industry City

Foreword

Sara Roffino

To wander along the path that leads from the New York School to abstract painters working in New York today affords ample opportunity for divergence. One can consider the waves that have passed—from minimalism to neo-expressionism to identity politics and relational aesthetics, to name a few—and still find that at the end of the road painters are facing many of the same concerns, albeit in different terrain, as did their counterparts of the mid-twentieth century. This exhibition takes its name from a 1970 speech titled “On the Humanism of Abstraction” that Robert Motherwell gave in conjunction with an exhibition of his work. This essay offers a glimpse into the ways in which three prominent abstract painters, Carrie Moyer, David Reed, and John Zinsser, have incorporated, rejected, or otherwise dealt with the legacy of twentieth century abstraction. Framing this exhibition with regard to Motherwell’s statement that “all our forms of communication are abstractions from the whole context of reality,” allows for readings beyond the formal, perhaps even a decoding of these paintings that extends outside the strictly art-historical. Yet, while facing their present realities, these artists—all of whom have lived in New York for at least 30 years—have remained committed to the brush, to the application of paint, to painting itself.

As a gay civil rights activist in the ’90s, Carrie Moyer has had extensive first-hand experience with punk and ag- itprop aesthetics, in addition to being a trained modern dancer. Without making overtly political paintings, her personal history and art historical references—among which Elizabeth Murray holds a significant place—un- doubtedly make them radical. She would likely agree with Motherwell’s belief that abstraction is “a most pow- erful weapon.” Starting with collage, Moyer physically constructs shapes and layers in paper before approach- ing the canvas, where paint is applied via pouring, to create a broad range of visual effects in which meaning is evoked not only by shape and form but also by the wide variety of surface textures. In Tickler, 2012, for instance, Moyer’s analog graphic approach combines with her mastery of color and surface; the flat black background is interrupted by illusionistic forms, with the luminosity of the glitter and shadow below the scythe-like shape pushing it out into space.

David Reed’s interest has long been the brush mark, though his experimentations with scale and presentation are also evidenced in his early 2016 installation wherein single paintings were divided into sections, and their imagery extended across several canvases. His two pieces here, Color Study #3-#8 [For painting #650 - #656, study A], 2016, and Color Study #15-#21 [For painting #650 - #656, study A], 2016, are one-fifth scaled inves- tigations that were executed in preparation of those larger works, which were made with a combination of brush application and the use of laser-cut stencils—creating a highly gestural stroke that also recalls the artist’s awareness of Pop and Minimalist strategies. Reed, noting the ways in which media and technology have

1 greatly broadened the color spectrum, has said, “painting has a wonderful history of giving emotional con- notations to certain colors.” His color studies, therefore, are of-the-moment in their investigation of digitally- sourced hues, while continuing a tradition that was evoked in Motherwell’s statement that “states of feeling, when generalized, become questions of light, color, weight, solidity, airiness, lyricism, somberness, heaviness, strength, whatever.”

Among the three artists in this exhibition, John Zinsser has remained in most direct discourse with the Abstract Expressionists, upholding a belief in painting as a language beyond language, or a compromise between con- scious and unconscious. His two 2015 works included, Blue Canyon, 2016, and Yellow Canyon, 2015, were created in response to motifs found within paintings by Theodoros Stamos, the youngest of The Irascibles. Originally presented alongside Stamos’s works, Zinsser’s appropriation makes the differences between the two—and de- velopments during the intervening years—more salient than their similarities. His large-scale monochrome images in saturated out-of-the-tube colors are, in a sense, explained by the inclusion of his Biographic Thesis Drawing: The Problematizing of Black and White, 2016, which literalizes his artistic concerns and influences in a non-linear graph-like display.

Motherwell’s reference to humanism in the title of his 1970 talk conveys a sense of the particular weight and se- riousness inherent in abstract painting—and a responsibility that requires us to consider both the material and aesthetic choices made by Moyer, Reed, and Zinsser, as well as the larger intellectual and historical contexts in which they are working. To accept that a picture is not a depiction of something in nature, but “a deliber- ate choice of a certain degree of abstraction,” requires one to think about it what it is that is being abstracted. While these artists are clearly probing the possibilities of painting itself, what is perhaps more significant is their ability to intertwine that history within their own lives. The results are paintings that are about painting itself, where painting is the abstraction of all that is.

2 About the Dedalus Foundation

The Dedalus Foundation was created by the artist Robert Motherwell in order to foster public understanding of modern art and modernism. In fulfilling this mission, the Foundation operates programs in arts education, research and publications, archives and conservation, and exhibitions, as well as in the guardianship and study of Robert Motherwell’s art. During the fifty years of his career as an artist, Motherwell frequently discussed and wrote about the role and importance of abstraction. The title for this exhibition is taken from a lecture he gave in 1970, “The Humanism of Abstract Art.” The three artists whose work is being shown are important practi- tioners of abstract painting, and were also participants in a 1915 symposium at the Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C., which considered the importance of Motherwell’s rich contribution to the development of abstract art.

3 4 Carrie Moyer

Hello Sunshine 2012 Acrylic and graphite on canvas 72 x 54 inches Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York

5 Carrie Moyer

Motor Belly 2012 Acrylic and graphite on canvas 54 x 72 inches Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York

6 7 8 Carrie Moyer

Tickler 2012 Acrylic and glitter on canvas 40 x 28 inches Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York

9 10 11 Previous page:

Top: David Reed

Color study #3 - #8 [For painting #650 - #656, study A] 2016 Acrylic, alkyd, and oil on Dibond 16 x 109 1/4 inches Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Bottom: David Reed

Color study #15 - #21 [For painting #650 - #656, study A] 2016 Acrylic, alkyd, and oil on Dibond 16 x 109 1/4 inches Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

12 13 14 John Zinsser

Blue Canyon 2016 Enamel and oil on canvas 56 x 52 inches Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York

15 John Zinsser

Yellow Canyon 2015 Enamel and oil on canvas 56 x 52 inches Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York

16 17 18 John Zinsser

Biographical Thesis Drawing: The Problematizing of Black and White 2016 Graphite and colored pencil on drawing paper 14 x 17 inches Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York

Published in conjunction with the exhibition: The Humanism of Abstraction The Gallery at Industry City October 20 - November 17, 2016

Exhibition organized by the Dedalus Foundation

Catalogue designed by Claire Altizer

Special thanks to Andrea Cerbie, Peter Luke Colon, George Ericson, Jack Flam, Kerrigan Kessler, Mike Linskie, Mallorie Livingston, Katy Rogers, Morgan Spangle, Abby Taylor

Presented by the Dedalus Foundation with support from Industry City

Cover artwork: Carrie Moyer Motor Belly, 2012 Acrylic and graphite on canvas 54 x 72 inches Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York