If there’s one thing abstract art is not, it’s straightforward. Packed with meaning, often beguilingly simple in design, the style has the power to simultaneously inspire and bewilder.
Some may think a series of seemingly arbitrary curves and lines are empty or over-simplified. But Daniella Luxembourg, art dealer and one half of New York gallery Luxembourg & Dayan, would argue the devil doesn’t always lie in the details — but sometimes in the lack thereof. ‘Abstract art was once one of the most radical and thought-provoking movements,’ says Luxembourg.
This month, she joined forces with friend and famed architect Daniel Libeskind (of Manchester’s Imperial War Museum) to release ‘Figures Toward Abstraction: Sculpture 1910 – 1940’ at Luxembourg’s gallery.
Nu assis bras autour de la ambe droite, by Henri Matisse, conceived 1918, cast 1930. Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
Inspired by a letter artist Alberto Giacometti wrote to Henri Matisse in 1947, which explained his unintentional decision to create abstract sculptures, the exhibition breathes life into an ongoing conversation between Luxembourg and Libeskind about abstraction in art, architecture, history, and life.
‘I think abstraction at the beginning of the century has to do with the pure essence of sculpture,’ Luxembourg explains. ‘You didn’t need the image to create the movement. You could make an abstract movement without putting details into where are the legs, or where is the head.’
Though Luxembourg credits Giacometti and Matisse as pillars of the exhibition, ‘Figures Toward Abstraction’ features an array of artists like Julio González, Henri Laurens, Jacques Lipchitz, and Jean Tinguely. Additionally, Rudolf Belling’s groundbreaking Dreiklang (1919) is on display for the first time in the US.
The show’s levels of abstraction range from Lauren’s tangible Femme accouchée (1927) to Lauren’s hard-to-decipher cubism and Gonzalez’s interpretable bronze works. In total, the exhibition features 13 sculptures surrounded by an installation designed by Libeskind, who's clean, minimalist aesthetic lets the sculptures do all the talking.
Objet désagréable a jeter, by Alberto Giacometti, conceived 1931, cast 1979. Right, Figure, dite cubiste I, by Alberto Giacometti, conceived c1926, cast 1962-3
Figure, dite cubiste I, by Alberto Giacometti, conceived c1926, cast 1962-3. Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
Le Tiaré, by Henri Matisse, conceived 1930, cast 1954 . Right, Le rêve (Le baiser), by Julio González, conceived 1934, cast 1980
Le rêve (Le baiser), by Julio González, conceived 1934, cast 1980. Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
Dreiklang, by Rudolf Belling, conceived 1919 (cast at a later date). Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
INFORMATION
‘Figures Toward Abstraction: Sculpture 1910 – 1940’ is on view until 1 July. For more information, visit the Luxembourg & Dayan website
ADDRESS
Luxembourg & Dayan
64 East 77th Street
New York, NY 10075
-
Audi launches AUDI, a China-only sub-brand, with a handsome new EV conceptThe AUDI E previews a new range of China-specific electric vehicles from the German carmaker’s new local sub-brand
-
Inside Izza Marrakech: A new riad where art and bohemian luxury meetHonouring the late Bill Willis’ hedonistic style, Izza Marrakech fuses traditional Moroccan craftsmanship with the best of contemporary art
-
Clocking on: the bedside analogue timepieces that won’t alarm your aestheticWe track down the only tick-tocks that matter, nine traditional alarm clocks that tell the time with minimum fuss and maximum visual impact
-
Henni Alftan’s paintings frame everyday moments in cinematic renditionsConcurrent exhibitions in New York and Shanghai celebrate the mesmerising mystery in Henni Alftan’s paintings
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next DoorThe Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New YorkViolet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American WestThe artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990sNew York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black menThe late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in PhiladelphiaArtist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
