Tomma Abts Tomma Abts Foreword by Lisa Phillips Essays by Laura Hoptman Jan Verwoert and Bruce Hainley Contents Foreword 6 Lisa Phillips Acknowledgments 8 Laura Hoptman Tomma Abts: Art for an Anxious Time 10 Laura Hoptman Paintings 17 The Beauty and Politics of Latency: On the Work of Tomma Abts 92 Jan Verwoert Drawings 99 Margit Carstensen’s Blog 120 Bruce Hainley Paintings in the Exhibition 133 Biography 134 Bibliography 136 Contributors 139 Foreword Tomma Abts’ paintings have been described as Bruce Hainley and Jan Verwoert also Toby Devan Lewis Emerging Artists Exhibitions quiet, uncanny, and disquieting. They seem contributed texts to the book that greatly Fund, and support for the publication by the J. autonomous; her uncompromising biomorphic illuminate Abts’ work. Hainley’s blog-inspired text McSweeney and G. Mills Publications Fund at the and geometric forms do not portray a subject not only offers a narrative of personal discovery New Museum. but instead, in the artist’s own words, become and examination of Abts’ paintings, but the blog We deeply appreciate the cooperation of the something “quite physical and therefore ‘real.’” structure presents an interesting parallel to lenders to the exhibition, who are thanked individually It is the strange and evocative presence of these Abts’ process. Verwoert’s essay is an engrossing elsewhere. Finally, I want to give my thanks to the paintings, along with the questions they pose look at the politics of abstraction, and he offers entire New Museum staff for their efforts in to current discourses in painting, that make this clear reasons why Abts’ work is so relevant to our bringing Tomma Abts’ work to a wider audience. exhibition especially relevant today. contemporary culture. Tomma Abts and Laura Hoptman, Kraus We are very pleased that the exhibition Lisa Phillips Family Senior Curator, have worked closely on the will travel to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Toby Devan Lewis Director, New Museum development of the exhibition and the production I would like to thank our Hammer colleagues of this book. We are extremely grateful to the Ann Philbin, Director; Gary Garrels, Chief Curator; artist for sharing her vision and energy, and to and Ali Subotnick, Curator. All three are enthusiastic Laura Hoptman for her commitment to the artist’s Abts supporters and willingly signed on as a work and for championing this first U.S. exhibition venue for the exhibition early in the development and major publication. She has also provided a of the project. thoughtful look at Abts’ paintings that offers new The exhibition would not have been possible insight into how the artist’s works relate to historical without the support of Hilary and Peter Hatch abstraction, as well as the telling differences that and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Additional set Abts’ work apart. support for the exhibition was provided by the 6 7 Acknowledgments Working on a monographic exhibition of a living Lewis Director; Lisa Roumell, our former Deputy Melanie guided the production of this volume until of greengrassi in London, Daniel Buchholz and artist is a completely different experience from Director and Chief Operating Officer; John its final stages with equanimity and expertise. Christopher Müller of Galerie Daniel Buchholz in creating a group show in part because it is a kind Hatfield, Deputy Director; Alice Arias, Director of Craig Garrett at Phaidon Press gave invaluable Cologne, David Zwirner and Bellatrix Hubert of of self-portrait of that artist — personal, intimate, Finance & Administration; and my curatorial input editorially and contributed his expertise to David Zwirner gallery in New York, and Giti and reflective of what that artist wants her work colleagues, Richard Flood, Chief Curator; the overall design of the book. The New Museum Nourbakhsch of Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch in to say to her audience. This is the case with this Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Projects; is particularly grateful to Phaidon publisher Berlin all deserve our thanks. Cornelia in first solo exhibition in the U.S. of Tomma Abts’ Benjamin Godsill, Curatorial Associate; and Richard Schlagman, whose enthusiasm for Abts particular was an advocate both for the artist and paintings. It has been her exhibition from start Amy Mackie, Curatorial Assistant. First Benjamin, made the partnership between the museum and for this exhibition from its inception. Christopher to finish, and it is she who deserves first then Amy worked on the details of the exhibition Phaidon happen, brilliantly, and on short notice. provided invaluable suggestions for the book, acknowledgment for her concentration and and the book, neither of which could have This publication is a special one, and this is and Bella gave crucial help with photography and dedication. She has the New Museum’s deepest happened without their detail-oriented due not only to Tomma’s work and Melanie’s and storage when we needed it most. thanks, and mine as well. It is a privilege to show organizational abilities. Oksana Salamatina and Craig’s care, but to a beautiful design by Miko The exhibition has been funded by the her beautiful work. Shari Zolla expertly discharged their registrarial McGinty and the important contributions by guest Lily Auchincloss Foundation and Hilary and Peter The creation of this monographic publication, duties, and Hendrik Gerrits, Joshua Edwards and essayists Bruce Hainley and Jan Verwoert. Our Hatch. We are very grateful to them. on the other hand, has been a fascinating their crew installed the show flawlessly. Eungie deepest thanks to all. Tomma’s collectors also must be singled out collaboration between the artist, our essay Joo, Curator and Director of Education and Public Our colleagues at the Hammer Museum — for the generous loan of their works. That Tomma contributors, our designers, the New Museum, Programs, enriched the visitor experience of the Ann Philbin, Director; Gary Garrels, Chief and I know most of them personally is a testament and Phaidon. It reflects us all. We are proud that exhibition, and Regan Grusy, Director of Curator; and Ali Subotnick, Curator — are to their involvement with the artist’s vision. We are it is the first of its kind for this artist, and are sure Development, and her team worked tirelessly with enthusiastic Tomma Abts supporters who made grateful to them for their crucial contribution to that it heralds much rich and controversial our generous funders. Without all of them, the a West Coast venue possible. this benchmark show. scholarship to come. show would not have been possible. Tomma’s representatives all participated in There are many others who have contributed In the creation of this publication, special this exhibition, supporting it with generous Laura Hoptman to making this vision a reality. At the New Museum thanks are due to Melanie Cohn, the New Museum contributions of information, diplomacy, and Kraus Family Senior Curator, New Museum my thanks go to Lisa Phillips, the Toby Devan Publications Manager and the book’s co-editor. discernment. Cornelia Grassi and Lindsay Jarvis 8 9 to the expression of the spiritual, if not the tran- flush of confidence that comes from popularity, scendent. Certain pre-World War I European were ramping up the proportions of their works abstractionists — Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Kupka from easel to mural size, Abts’ handful of little the best known among them — might have agreed pictures arranged around a fairly commodious with Walt Whitman, who claimed that God could gallery at first seemed modest in a stubborn, even be described in the form of a simple square. For slightly mean way. This first impression was the chroniclers of the history of abstraction, this immediately mitigated by a moment’s concentration visionary and sometimes expressionistic3 version on a picture like Eerke (2000). Painted edge Tomma Abts: Art for an Anxious Time of “symbolic” or “transcendental” abstraction to edge with a precision that was not fussy but gave way in the decades after World War II to a accurate like a rapier slash, Eerke had an Laura Hoptman decidedly structural one. Taking as inspiration intensity — a presence — that completely belied its Malevich’s notions of the concrete “realism” of a small size. What was true for Eerke was true for all non-illusionistic, two-dimensional form, as well of the dozen or so paintings in this early ensemble. as Mondrian’s parameters of form and color, some Each one was like a magnet, a vacuum, a vortex — postwar abstractionists — among them Piero sucking space and concentration. The effect was Manzoni and the so-called “hard-edge” American powerful and thrilling. painters Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly — created The composition of Eerke is deceptively abstract objects, self-contained, non-relational and straightforward, consisting of a series of triangular decidedly inorganic in the logic of their composition. shapes ranged like teeth around the periphery of These oppositions — biomorphic versus the picture plane. Unevenly spaced and in some I. The Binaries of Abstraction geometric, illusionistic versus anti-illusionistic, cases slightly overlapping, the triangles seem transcendental versus structural, expressionistic to possess the thickness of blades in a shallow Art history is an Enlightenment-born discipline, forward binary definition. As the art historian versus hard-edged — together function as a three-dimensional space. This trompe l’oeil relief and, true to this history, it describes objects by Meyer Schapiro pointed out, all art is represen- definition of abstraction over the past century. effect is created entirely by subtle gradations of comparing and contrasting them with their tational, and although a work of art does not They also serve as a kind of teleology of color, a combination of violets and midnight blues familiars. Ever since abstraction was introduced necessarily need to have a subject, it always has abstraction, which, if followed, ended perhaps poised between natural and unearthly.