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Lyrical abstraction

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Lyrical Abstraction is an American abstract art movement that emerged in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC and then Toronto and London during the 1960's - 1970's. Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, occasional imagery, and other painterly and newer technological techniques. Lyrical Abstraction led the way away from minimalism in painting and toward a new freer expressionism. Painters who directly reacted against the predominating Formalist, Minimalist, and Pop Art and Geometric Abstraction styles of the sixties, turned to new, experimental, loose, painterly, expressive, pictorial and abstract painting styles. Many of them had been Minimalists, working with various monchromatic, geometric styles, and whose paintings publicly evolved into new abstract painterly motifs. American Lyrical Abstraction is related in spirit to Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting and European Tachisme of the forties and fifties as well.

Context

Lyrical Abstraction is a term that was originally coined by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. it is also the name of an exhibition that originated in the Aldrich Museum and traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art and other museums throughout the United States between 1969 and 1971. Between 1960 and 1970 Abstract Expressionism had waned, emerging directions such as Formalism, Color Field painting, Fluxus, Happenings, Minimalism and Pop Art had decidedly swerved the focus of the avant-garde away from subjective expressionism toward a more objective geometric precision and socio-political theatricality, commentary and observation. During the mid-sixties American painting was declared dead by various critics including Minimalist sculptor/critic Donald Judd citing three-dimensional, volumetric objects as the embodiment of visual truth. Pictorial illusionism as it appears in painting - which is flat and merely depicts space, was described as deceptive and outdated, in a European old-fashioned way. Formalist arguments generally put forth in the name of Clement Greenberg seemed dated and outmoded and missed the point of new painting being made after the mid-sixties altogether.

History

Lyrical Abstraction along with the Fluxus movement and Postminimalism (a term first coined by Robert Pincus Witten in the pages of Artforum in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to Dada and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of Eva Hesse. Lyrical Abstraction, Conceptual Art, Postminimalism, Earth Art, Video, Performance art, Installation art, along with the continuation of Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Hard-edge painting, Minimal Art, Pop Art, Photorealism and New Realism extended the boundaries of Contemporary Art in the mid-sixties through the seventies. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-sixties when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. Characterized by an overall gestalt, consistent surface tension, sometimes even the hiding of brushstrokes, and an overt avoidance of relational composition. It developed as did Postminimalism as an alternative to strict Formalist and Minimalist doctrine.

Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting of the forties and fifties is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in Action Painting there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility. The differences with Color Field Painting are more subtle today because many of the Color Field painters with the exceptions of Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly, Paul Feeley, Thomas Downing, and Gene Davis evolved into Lyrical Abstractionists. Lyrical Abstraction shares with both Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting a sense of spontaneous and immediate sensual expression, consequently distinctions between specific artists and their styles become blurred, and seemingly interchangeable as they evolve.

Abstract Expressionism preceeded Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, and the other movements of the sixties and seventies and it influenced the later movements that evolved. The interrelationship of/and between distinct but related styles resulted in influence that worked both ways between artists young and old, and vice-versa. During the mid-sixties in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere artists often crossed the lines between definitions and art styles. During that period - the mid sixties through the seventies advanced American art and contemporary art in general was at a crossroad, shattering in several directions. During the seventies political movements and revolutionary changes in communication made these American styles international; as the art world itself became more and more international. American Lyrical Abstraction's European counterpart Neo-expressionism came to dominate the eighties, and also developed as a response to American Pop Art and Minimalism and borrows heavily from American Abstract Expressionism.

Some Lyrical Abstractionist painters

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