This book, by the curator of Potsdam's Museum Barberini, Daniel Zamani, provides new insight into the flourishing of the radical abstract in American and European art after 1945, as a reaction against the dominant styles of the interwar period. Works by more than 50 artists are collected here, among them Alberto Burri, Jean Dubuffet, Helen Frankenthaler, KOGötz, Franz Kline, Lee Krasner, Georges Mathieu, Joan Mitchell, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Judit Reigl, Mark Rothko, Hedda Sterne, Clyfford Still and Jack Tworkov.
After the Second World War, Western painting went in completely new directions. A young generation of artists turned their backs on the dominant styles of the interwar period: instead of figurative or geometric abstraction, painters - in the circuit of Abstract Expressionism in the USA and Art Informel in Western Europe - pursued a radically impulsive approach to form, color and material.
As an expression of individual freedom, the spontaneous artistic gesture took on symbolic meaning. Large-scale color field compositions created a meditative space to contemplate the fundamental questions of human existence.
The book here is also an exhibition catalog that has the full exhibition of the same name and content at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam and at the Albertina Moderne in Vienna.
Dimensions: H: 30 x W: 24 cm
Pages: 240, with 200 color illustrations
Language: English
Author: Daniel Zamani, Ortrud Westheider (ed.), Michael Phillipp (ed.)
Publisher: Prestel