Geometric Abstraction: Squaring the Circle; Circling the Square
By David Markus
Moholy-Nagy's self-mimetic abstraction.
Yeardley Leonard does not paint circles. Her new exhibit at Elizabeth Dee-a series of works composed entirely out of ninety degree angles-is meant, according to her press release, to "recognize the evolution of the reverential circle into a square." What, exactly, a reverential square is, I'm not sure, but Leonard certainly possesses a circle of reverence for its rectilinear geometry. Her vivid, intersecting bars of color suggest power grids, energy currents, a bling-bling era "Broadway Boogie Woogie."
Interestingly, an exhibit showcasing the painter of this last work suggests a geometric iconography diametrically opposed to the rectilinear reverence manifest in Leonard's works. This is in part due to its location in a space geographically and architecturally antipodal to Chelsea's white boxes: Frank Lloyd Wright's UES Guggenheim, a building that genuflects before the circle like no other.
The curators refer to Mondrian to Ryman as an exhibit intended to contextualize the top-billed Brancusis currently making rounds on the ramps of Wright's anti-box. And contextualize it does, but only to the extent by which it diverges from the latter; for, if anything, the juxtaposition of these two shows reveals a deep rift within the bedrock works of abstract art.
The pivot of the Guggenheim's current layout is a quote from Brancusi: "What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things." For Brancusi these "things" are organic. With minor exceptions, his works arise from and refer back to figures in nature. However, the majority of the Mondrian to Ryman works display a strict attention to geometric form that finds little, if any, correspondence with Brancusi's abstract "essences."
Indeed, one of the great paradoxes of geometric abstraction is that, in furthering the minimalism of someone like Brancusi, it arrives at a place that is once again representational. Representational, that is, of the basic forms-the circles and squares-that (particularly at the Guggenheim) compose our surroundings.
Perhaps we might look at this rift as being purely the result of subject matter (human vs. architectural). However, even the most geometric works of art cannot help but refer to their progenitor's species. Following claims that Wright had sought to create a space indifferent to the works it would display, the revered architect responded, "on the contrary, it was to make the building and the painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never existed in the World of Art before." The relationship between geometrically abstract paintings and their viewers is similar, if not in intent, then in effect. The canvasses of Robert Mangold, Moholy-Nagy, and Mondrian seem only to defer, rather than absolve, consideration of the human form. Instead of simply presenting a subject, they beckon us to consider our own subjectivity in relation to their seeming lack thereof.
The Guggenheim is the only space that could simultaneously do justice to while detracting from the once cutting edge abstract naturalism of Brancusi's works. Seen in the context of the museum's vast, sloping curvatures, it is their primitivism, not their progressivism, which is invoked. Residing in their glass cages, they appear to be the cultural remains of an ancient civilization set within a space of eternal futurism that is more George Jetson than Umberto Boccioni. This trans-historical mind trick suggests a cyclicality that belies Yeardley Leonard's proposed evolutionary progression.
Indeed, it might lead one to consider the inherent contradictions in her work. Back in Chelsea, we are given the opportunity to view works at an appropriate distance without having to worry about toppling to our demise. Stepping back far enough from one of Leonard's paintings (Midnight Sun, 2004), rectilinearity gives way to shifting, almost curvaceous, swaths of color, suggesting that all she has done (indeed, all modernity has done) is impose a filter through which the natural topography of the external world can be glimpsed-albeit in pixilated form.
The square was revered in classical times too, although perhaps only in imperfectly "analog" manifestations. Yeardley, by contrast, is keen on its association with the cinema, the television, the computer screen. However, if anything detracts from the notion that rectangular perfection is the overriding geometry of our lives, it is the imperfectly squared wall of Elizabeth Dee Gallery, which deforms the stripes of paint (ridiculously catalogued as commodities) Leonard has installed to compliment her paintings.
If the circle cannot help but reference the globe on which we reside, the square (which, in painting, cannot help but reference the canvas on which it resides) might be associated with our attempts at ordering the world. This geocentricity and self-mimesis is apparent in Robert Mangold's "Circle Painting 1," a circular canvas with a square painted within it. Here, the unorthodox geometry of the canvas is punctuated by the curvature of the Guggenheim walls, which seem to resist applicability to hung paintings. That Mangold frequently inverts this geometric procession, instead portraying circles within squares, suggests the hall of mirrors-like effect of nature influencing art influencing nature.
In Carl Andre's "Trabum" (1977), Logs of wood have been squared and arranged into a cube-like structure. Yet once again the circle emerges as a defining element, not only via the sloping ramp of the Guggenheim-which lends the work a tilted dynamism it would not otherwise possess-but in the ostensible tree rings on the outer edges of the logs. These incidental finger prints suggest that however we may structure our world according to angles and grids the face of nature permeates throughout, and, ultimately, the square is wrought askew.
A number of artists currently exhibited in Manhattan seem keenly aware of precision's fallibility, evoking geometric forms that simultaneously reflect the whimsicalities of human perception. Jay Kelly's lovely, miniature patternings of projected light, which can be seen at Jim Kempner Fine Art (his only New York representation) recall the airy geometry of Paul Klee. Their soft edges have an almost filmic quality, as if the overlain circles and squares which dapple his works were distorted by too narrow a depth of field.
Also at Jim Kempner is a work by Frank Stella entitled Battering Ram. Here, a variety of mediums (lithograph, etching, aquatint, relief, engraving, screenprint) combine in a raucous tableau of dayglo colors and intersecting patterns. Geometry emerges only in the form of actual fragments from the outside world. Rather than conceptual iteration, the veteran artist relies on mechanical reproduction; diagrammatical spheres, patterns of linking squares, and what appears to be the grill of an automobile all grace the surface of his busy canvas.
The excellent Ground-Field-Surface exhibit at Robert Miller Gallery also provides several square meals for thought. Joseph Marioni's Red Painting (2004) is a canvas whose (almost) monochromatic surface falls just barely short of fulfilling its title. The red acrylic paint strives, as if in a single, impatient thrust, to coat its black linen ground. If you listen carefully, you might hear Elsworth Kelly scoff.
In Richard Serra's Two Rectangles Floor to Ceiling a similar theme is at play. Despite the title, the huge architecturally arranged canvases appear to be perfect squares. Consulting the catalogue, one finds that they are exactly two inches taller than wide-a fact which draws into play the inaccuracies of our visual judgment.
Most striking, however, are the paintings of Robert Greene, whose colors are matched, in jubilance, only by the names attributed to them (Crush orange or Vacation blue, anyone?). These works are composed of strips of vellum, painstakingly arranged into speckled fields of color invoking television static or the pixilation of computer screens. Close inspection reveals surfaces which are flaky, visceral, even painterly. In suggesting a conjunction between digitization and strict rectilinearity (each has perfectly square proportions) these works also bear thematic similarities to the paintings of Yeardley Leonard. If, then, we have finally found something praiseworthy in the evolution of the "reverential square," it is only by having come full circle.
--
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By David Markus
Moholy-Nagy's self-mimetic abstraction.
Yeardley Leonard does not paint circles. Her new exhibit at Elizabeth Dee-a series of works composed entirely out of ninety degree angles-is meant, according to her press release, to "recognize the evolution of the reverential circle into a square." What, exactly, a reverential square is, I'm not sure, but Leonard certainly possesses a circle of reverence for its rectilinear geometry. Her vivid, intersecting bars of color suggest power grids, energy currents, a bling-bling era "Broadway Boogie Woogie."
Interestingly, an exhibit showcasing the painter of this last work suggests a geometric iconography diametrically opposed to the rectilinear reverence manifest in Leonard's works. This is in part due to its location in a space geographically and architecturally antipodal to Chelsea's white boxes: Frank Lloyd Wright's UES Guggenheim, a building that genuflects before the circle like no other.
The curators refer to Mondrian to Ryman as an exhibit intended to contextualize the top-billed Brancusis currently making rounds on the ramps of Wright's anti-box. And contextualize it does, but only to the extent by which it diverges from the latter; for, if anything, the juxtaposition of these two shows reveals a deep rift within the bedrock works of abstract art.
The pivot of the Guggenheim's current layout is a quote from Brancusi: "What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things." For Brancusi these "things" are organic. With minor exceptions, his works arise from and refer back to figures in nature. However, the majority of the Mondrian to Ryman works display a strict attention to geometric form that finds little, if any, correspondence with Brancusi's abstract "essences."
Indeed, one of the great paradoxes of geometric abstraction is that, in furthering the minimalism of someone like Brancusi, it arrives at a place that is once again representational. Representational, that is, of the basic forms-the circles and squares-that (particularly at the Guggenheim) compose our surroundings.
Perhaps we might look at this rift as being purely the result of subject matter (human vs. architectural). However, even the most geometric works of art cannot help but refer to their progenitor's species. Following claims that Wright had sought to create a space indifferent to the works it would display, the revered architect responded, "on the contrary, it was to make the building and the painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never existed in the World of Art before." The relationship between geometrically abstract paintings and their viewers is similar, if not in intent, then in effect. The canvasses of Robert Mangold, Moholy-Nagy, and Mondrian seem only to defer, rather than absolve, consideration of the human form. Instead of simply presenting a subject, they beckon us to consider our own subjectivity in relation to their seeming lack thereof.
The Guggenheim is the only space that could simultaneously do justice to while detracting from the once cutting edge abstract naturalism of Brancusi's works. Seen in the context of the museum's vast, sloping curvatures, it is their primitivism, not their progressivism, which is invoked. Residing in their glass cages, they appear to be the cultural remains of an ancient civilization set within a space of eternal futurism that is more George Jetson than Umberto Boccioni. This trans-historical mind trick suggests a cyclicality that belies Yeardley Leonard's proposed evolutionary progression.
Indeed, it might lead one to consider the inherent contradictions in her work. Back in Chelsea, we are given the opportunity to view works at an appropriate distance without having to worry about toppling to our demise. Stepping back far enough from one of Leonard's paintings (Midnight Sun, 2004), rectilinearity gives way to shifting, almost curvaceous, swaths of color, suggesting that all she has done (indeed, all modernity has done) is impose a filter through which the natural topography of the external world can be glimpsed-albeit in pixilated form.
The square was revered in classical times too, although perhaps only in imperfectly "analog" manifestations. Yeardley, by contrast, is keen on its association with the cinema, the television, the computer screen. However, if anything detracts from the notion that rectangular perfection is the overriding geometry of our lives, it is the imperfectly squared wall of Elizabeth Dee Gallery, which deforms the stripes of paint (ridiculously catalogued as commodities) Leonard has installed to compliment her paintings.
If the circle cannot help but reference the globe on which we reside, the square (which, in painting, cannot help but reference the canvas on which it resides) might be associated with our attempts at ordering the world. This geocentricity and self-mimesis is apparent in Robert Mangold's "Circle Painting 1," a circular canvas with a square painted within it. Here, the unorthodox geometry of the canvas is punctuated by the curvature of the Guggenheim walls, which seem to resist applicability to hung paintings. That Mangold frequently inverts this geometric procession, instead portraying circles within squares, suggests the hall of mirrors-like effect of nature influencing art influencing nature.
In Carl Andre's "Trabum" (1977), Logs of wood have been squared and arranged into a cube-like structure. Yet once again the circle emerges as a defining element, not only via the sloping ramp of the Guggenheim-which lends the work a tilted dynamism it would not otherwise possess-but in the ostensible tree rings on the outer edges of the logs. These incidental finger prints suggest that however we may structure our world according to angles and grids the face of nature permeates throughout, and, ultimately, the square is wrought askew.
A number of artists currently exhibited in Manhattan seem keenly aware of precision's fallibility, evoking geometric forms that simultaneously reflect the whimsicalities of human perception. Jay Kelly's lovely, miniature patternings of projected light, which can be seen at Jim Kempner Fine Art (his only New York representation) recall the airy geometry of Paul Klee. Their soft edges have an almost filmic quality, as if the overlain circles and squares which dapple his works were distorted by too narrow a depth of field.
Also at Jim Kempner is a work by Frank Stella entitled Battering Ram. Here, a variety of mediums (lithograph, etching, aquatint, relief, engraving, screenprint) combine in a raucous tableau of dayglo colors and intersecting patterns. Geometry emerges only in the form of actual fragments from the outside world. Rather than conceptual iteration, the veteran artist relies on mechanical reproduction; diagrammatical spheres, patterns of linking squares, and what appears to be the grill of an automobile all grace the surface of his busy canvas.
The excellent Ground-Field-Surface exhibit at Robert Miller Gallery also provides several square meals for thought. Joseph Marioni's Red Painting (2004) is a canvas whose (almost) monochromatic surface falls just barely short of fulfilling its title. The red acrylic paint strives, as if in a single, impatient thrust, to coat its black linen ground. If you listen carefully, you might hear Elsworth Kelly scoff.
In Richard Serra's Two Rectangles Floor to Ceiling a similar theme is at play. Despite the title, the huge architecturally arranged canvases appear to be perfect squares. Consulting the catalogue, one finds that they are exactly two inches taller than wide-a fact which draws into play the inaccuracies of our visual judgment.
Most striking, however, are the paintings of Robert Greene, whose colors are matched, in jubilance, only by the names attributed to them (Crush orange or Vacation blue, anyone?). These works are composed of strips of vellum, painstakingly arranged into speckled fields of color invoking television static or the pixilation of computer screens. Close inspection reveals surfaces which are flaky, visceral, even painterly. In suggesting a conjunction between digitization and strict rectilinearity (each has perfectly square proportions) these works also bear thematic similarities to the paintings of Yeardley Leonard. If, then, we have finally found something praiseworthy in the evolution of the "reverential square," it is only by having come full circle.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
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