Critiques of Pure Abstraction

Critiques of Pure Abstraction features paintings, photographs, and sculpture by 20 contemporary artists. In this exhibition guest curator Mark Rosenthal, Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, .DC, examines late 20th-century abstraction and the critical attitude of two generations of artists toward abstraction and its tenets. Critiques of Pure Abstraction is sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc. 

The artists in this exhibition practice abstraction but have distanced themselves from those of its previous forms that they regard as irrelevant and empty. Unwilling to accept the canons of abstraction on faith, they deliberately confront and question its attitudes, visual attributes, conventions, and totems -- even the exalted position of the (male) artist. With irony, wit, and irreverence, they purposefully manipulate and parody abstraction's practices and style to better reflect the real world and, sometimes, to impart social meaning to abstract painting. 

In spite of such differences in outlook, the work in Critiques of Pure Abstraction is just as sensual, in its own way, as that of its predecessors. The continued commitment to abstraction by the artists in this exhibition demonstrates that it remains a viable, if debated, option in the face of competing styles and movements, and an appropriate vehicle for the expression of a contemporary outlook some eighty-five years after its birth. 

Artists represented in the exhibition are Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Jonathan Borofsky, Daniel Buren, Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman, and Nam June Paik (early proponents of a critical approach to abstraction), as well as Ross Bleckner, Peter Halley, Mary Heilmann, Rachel Lachowicz, Jonathan Lasker, Annette Lemieux, Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, Mark Milloff, David Reed, David Row, Andres Serrano, and Rosemarie Trockel, who share an attitude that is cool, dispassionate, and guarded, yet attentive to history.