Unpainting – Contemporary Abstraction

Group Show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

9th September 2017 – August 2018

Unconventional and experimental approaches to the age-old discipline of painting

Despite routine declarations of its decline, abstract painting is an urgent and vital mode of artmaking that seems to exist in a state of constant reinvention.

This exhibition surveys Art Gallery NSW’s rich holdings of contemporary abstraction, including artworks by Daniel Buren, Morris Louis, Judy Millar, Dona Nelson and Sigmar Polke among many others.

Unpainting brings our attention to the Gallery’s extraordinary holdings of abstract paintings, focusing on unconventional and experimental approaches to the medium from the 1960s to the present day.

Curator Nicholas Chambers’ introductory essay in the accompanying publication proposes six frameworks to consider the selected works – unpainting, unhinged, unmanned, untitled, unravelling, unending – which highlight an attitude of experimentation, unbound to convention and often underpinned by a restless desire to disrupt the standards of the day.

Three of the contributing artists – Dona Nelson, Christine Streuli and Jessica Stockholder – are also interviewed about their practices and their works in the exhibition.

Exhibiting Artists:
Mark Bradford, Daniel Buren, Ian Burn, N Dash, Angela De La Cruz, Mikala Dwyer, Dale Frank, Katharina Grosse, Wade Guyton, John Hoyland, Albert Irvin, Bob Law, Richard Long, Morris Louis, Judy Millar, Dona Nelson, Sigmar Polke, Mel Ramsden (Art & Language), Robert Rauschenberg, Ugo Rondinone, Josh Smith, Frank Stella, Jessica Stockholder, Christine Streuli, William Turnbull, Andy Warhol.

AGNSW Contributors:
Nicholas Chambers – Senior Curator
Lisa Catt – Assistant Curator of International Art.

Further reading.