Mothers of Invention at MoMA, Part 1
Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, April 15-August 13, 2017
Originally published May 20, 2017
For the past several months under the rubric of Mothers of Invention, I’ve been publishing posts that consider the achievements of women artists in recent art history. I’m back with a walk-through report of Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art in Spring/Summer, 2017
Etel Adnan, Untitled, 1965-66, oil on canvas
All photos mine unless otherwise identified
In Gallery 2: Carmen Herrera, foreground, and Lygia Pape
Another important aspect of the exhibition is the inclusion of artists who work/ed with fiber (I'm not calling it "fiber art," just as I don't call painting "oil art"). Sheila Hicks, still active and exhibiting in her 80s, is included along with Anni Albers, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Ruth Asawa and Lenore Tawney. The curators rightfully acknowledge the connection between the interlacement of warp and weft with that of the modernist and minimalist grid. “We were interested in the point and counterpoint of how fiber and textiles become their own abstract grid,” notes Meister in a video on the MoMA website.
In Gallery 4: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Ruth Asawa, Lenore Tawney
Following is a gallery-by gallery walk through with links at the end to videos of the curators in conversation.
Entering Gallery 1
Your first viewing of the exhibition is mostly Abstract Expressionism with a touch of Washington Color School and the surprise of a look-who-did-it-before-Pollock.
The curators made the most of the sight lines. From the entry, where we saw a small Etel Adnan placed on a charcoal gray wall, we begin to enter Gallery 1 with views of Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler, Trojan Gates, 1955, oil and enamel on canvas
I didn't immediately recognize this as a Frankenthaler, accustomed as I am to her lyrical, clear-hued stain paintings
View into Gallery 1 with Mitchell; two small works, one each by Elaine de Kooning and Pat Passlof; and Lee Krasner on the far wall. We will go clockwise around the room
Joan Mitchell, Ladybug, 1957, oil on canvas; photo from the MoMA website
Pat Passlof, Untitled, 1950, oil on paper
(At the recently opened Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation on the Lowser Easat Side, a selection of Passlof's paintings are always on view)
Gallery view with Lee Krasner, Dorothy Dehner
Lee Krasner, Gaea, 1966, oil on canvas
Dorothy Dehner, Encounter, 1969, bronze, six parts
Janet Sobel, Untitled, 1946, oil and enamel on composition board
Pollockian, eh? Look at the date. Pollock's first finished drip painting, Full Fathom Five, was completed in 1947
Behind the wall with the Frankenthaler is this corner with collages by Anne Ryan and a painting on paper by Alma Thomas
Anne Ryan, Collage, 353, 1949; cut-and-pasted colored paper, cloth, and string on paper
Alma Thomas, Untitled, 1968, acrylic on cut and stapled paper
Gallery 2
This gallery is filled with geometric abstraction in two and three dimensions. In Latin America geometric abstraction was, notes the wall text, "the primary currency for a new generation of avant-garde artists in the 1950s and early 1960s . . . Women artists were strikingly prominent and made formative contributions within the many progressive artistic circles in Latin America."
We've entered from the right, just beyond the blue construction by Bela Kolarova
The Gego scupture, center, Eight Squares, 1961, painted iron, will be our touchstone as we go counterclockwise around the room
Maria Freire, Untitled, 1954, oil on canvas, 36 x 48
These two vertical paintings followed Friere's Untitled painting
Left: Elsa Gramcko, Untitled, 1957, oil on canvas (you can see this painting on the wall in the installation shot below); right: Lidy Prati, Vibrational Structure from a Circle, Series B, 1951, oil on canvas
Installation view with Gego's Eight Squares to orient you. On wall from right (maintaining the counterclockwise tour): Gramcko, Pape, Herrera
Continuing counterclockwise from left: Lygia Pape, Orange, 1955, oil and tempera on board; Carmen Herrera, Untitled, 1952, synthetic polymer on canvas; on pedestal, Lygia Clark, The Inside is the Outside, stainless steel
Another view of Clark's sculpture with Louise Nevelson against the far wall
Louise Nevelson, Big Black, 1963, painted wood
Continuing counterclockwise, a wall of Gertrudes Altschul photographs, one of which is shown below
Untitled, 1952, gelatin silver print
Photo from the MoMA website
Passage between Galleries 2 and 3
Maybe this is considered a gallery, but I'm calling it a passageway because it felt that way, leading from the geometry of Gallery 2 to the achromatic and reductive sensibility of Gallery 3. To be honest, the narrowness of this space doesn't allow for the best viewing of the weavings--especially when you have tourist yahoos who insist on taking selfies in front of everything, thereby impeding the smooth flow between galleries. (Yes, I can be cranky, but curators are going to have to take this traffic issue into account when planning their installations.)
Anni Albers, Free-Hanging Room Divider, 1949, cellophane and cord
I love the relationship between this work and its detail with the Altschul photograph above--the stark palette, the shadows, the diagonal threads. I live for these conjunctions!
Detail below
Another Albers, also titled Free-Hanging Room Divider, with the same materials
Detail below
Gallery 3
Bridget Riley, Current, 1964, synthetic polymer and paint on composition board
Detail below
(I love the imperfection of the hand-painted line)
Jo Baer, Primary Light Group: Red, Green, Blue, 1964-65, oil and synthetic polymer paint on three canvases
Detail of the bottom corner of the right-most painting
Yayoi Kusama, Accumulation of Nets (No. 7), 1962, collage of gelativ silver prints
Detail below
Installation view of Eleanore Mikus painting, left, and three Anne Truitt drawings
Anne Truitt, Sumi Drawings, 1966, ink on paper
Installation view of Mikus, Truitt, and Agnes Martin
Right: Martin, The Tree, 1964, oil and pencil on canvas
Detail below
Addendum
For more on the work of women artists, Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists is at the Baker Museum of Art, Naples, Florida, through July 25, and will travel, culminating at the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut, in 2023. Info here.
Catalog viewable online here
My walk-through of the exhibition here