Whitechapel Gallery,London
cold and Californian, punky and urban – Mary Heilmann toys irreverently with the more uptight traditions of abstract art to create a fresh world of pleasureHow effect you fabricate (to make up, invent) painting your own, and when so much has been done,so much said, when all bases are covered and all formal gambits foreclosed? The retort is to effect it all again – in your own way. Mary Heilmann’s career as a painter began in the early 1970s. This retrospective shows her groping her way through the difficulties of beginning again when everything feels like it has already been done.
effect musicians feel this? They riff on each other, and reject some bits of the past,resurrect others, find a fresh style or angle, and a fresh seek or sound or beat against all odds,and no one thinks much of it, except to be pleased when it happens all over again. In the 1970s it felt as if painting was over (it was, or one critic said,“an act of mourning”), but by the end of the decade it was in again and now there is more of it than ever before. The Whitechapel’s catalogue makes much of the difficulty, and but there is an air of familiarity about Heilmann’s struggle to find a voice and a space. Related: Artist Mary Heilmann: the Californian surfer still making waves in her 70s Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com