ROBERT MOTHERWELL – OPENS
2015-05-25Typically composed as single-color surfaces on which he has painted three charcoal lines, the Opens were a primary occupation for Motherwell from 1967 through the 1970s, and briefly into the 1980s. Although it has been common practice to locate Motherwell alternately within the histories of midcentury American painting and Minimalism, the Opens exemplify the cerebral, content-fueled character that sets his work apart: the fragmentary rectangles offer an intense conceptual engagement with dualities of interior and exterior, and with perceptions of nature and space.
Coinciding with the centennial of Motherwell’s birth, the exhibition comes amid a groundswell of appre-ciation of his significance. In 2012, the Dedalus Foundation (founded by Motherwell in 1981) and Yale University Press published a major catalogue raisonné of Motherwell’s work. The Art Gallery of Ontario and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York have also produced remarkable studies on Motherwell in recent years, and the Opens themselves are the subject of a dedicated collection of essays and scholarly criticism published in 2010. In February of this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened an exhibition of Motherwell’s monumental paintings, collages, prints, and illustrated books drawn from its holdings and those of the Dedalus Foundation.
Opposite – Untitled (In Orange with Charcoal Lines), ca. 1970
Exhibition runs through to June 20th, 2015
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
10011 New York
USA
