#SAI W20 Abstraction 09-10 Biomorphic Abstraction

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Marcel Duchamp (American, born France, 1887-1968). In the previous post, I mentioned the machine aesthetic of some of Hans Arp’s contemporaries. DADA/Surrealist artist and conceptual art progenitor Duchamp’s early works include cubist-derived abstractions that appear to depict nonspecific machine/insect hybrids. Paintings like this led to his monumental Large Glass, an enigmatic combination of unorthodox materials, obscure narrative, and invented science. 

The Passage from Virgin to Bride 1912. Oil on canvas, 23 3/8 x 21 1/4 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Lee Bontecou (American b. 1931). Bontecou’s early relief works attracted considerable attention, causing the artist to retreat from the art-world spotlight for a number of years. She used canvas and steel to construct scarred industrial surfaces pierced with mouth-like openings and pores. At times she also seems to borrow shapes and curves from artwork of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The picture at bottom shows the artist working in her studio in the mid-1960s.

Untitled 1961. Welded steel, canvas, wire, and rope; 72 1/2 x 66 x 24 3/4 inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Ugh Mulas (Italian 1928-1973). Lee Bontecou in her Wooster Street studio, New York 1964. Source.

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Louise Bourgeois (American, born France, 1911-2010). We looked at some ink drawings by this artist a few weeks ago. Bourgeois was at one time associated with the Abstract Expressionists, and her work appears to have an affinity with Surrealism, but she outlived both of those movements and produced difficult-to-categorize artwork into the early part of the 21st century. Examples of abstract biomorphism abound in her work, alongside dreamlike figuration and text-based imagery.

Untitled 1950. Gouache, pencil, and colored pencil on colored paper; 28 x 21 3/8 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Nature Study #1 1985. Bronze, dark and polished patina; 7 x 19 x 7 inches. Source.

Untitled 1997. Watercolor, ink, pencil, and opaque white on paper; 15 x 11 1/4 inches. Source.

Jitterbug 1998. Lithograph, 18 1/4 x 24 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The Red Sky (detail of a multi-part work) 2009. Watercolor, ink, gouache, pencil, colored pencil, and etching on paper; 11 panels total. Source.