It is a major event when the Munch Museum now shows American and European post-war abstraction through the comprehensive exhibition “The Forms of Freedom”. With superstars such as Jackson Pollock, Helene Frankenthaler and Marc Rothko at the forefront, the exhibition shows how abstraction originated in the USA in the 40s with the so-called New York school, and spread to Europe with movements such as Art Informel and CoBRA. Among the major European artists included are Hans Hartung, George Mathieu, Karel Appel and Asger Jorn. An exciting part of art history The Munch Museum invites us into an eventful chapter in the history of modern art. After two bestial world wars, the West stood back disillusioned. To write poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric, wrote the philosopher Theodor Adorno in a collection of essays published in 1955. It was equally impossible for art to depict this reality that now lay in ruins. However, the development of the artwork that turned away from reality started long before. The artistic escape from reality, as the celebration of the absurd and the dreamlike – both in Dadaism and in Surrealism – manifested itself through the First World War and in the interwar period. Abstract Expressionism became the highlight. Free jazz and abstract painting were cultivated as an image of the open, democratic West, as a counterweight to the Soviet Union’s dictatorial view of art. OUT OF THE SHADOW: It’s wonderful to finally see a larger collection of works by Lee Krasner, formerly known as Mrs. Jackson Pollock. For many decades, she as an artist was well hidden in the man’s powerful shadow. She developed a Pollock-inspired, yet independent idiom that is softer and less violent than the man’s, but with a similar feeling for lines and rhythms in the visual expression. “Through Blue” (1963), oil paint on canvas. Photo: Ove Kvavik / The Munch Museum Lush and colorful The ideal in abstract expressionism was that the painter should stop creating an illusion of space in the picture, and rather embrace what was the painting’s fundamental characteristic: the surface. And it’s really hard. Forms and strokes that overlap each other quickly give an experience of depth that opens up a kind of landscape-like spatiality in the image. In Helene Frankenthaler’s wonderful “Blue pods” from 1976, we get an almost underwater feeling, where we seem to see through the masses of water into the blue. She creates tension between the smoldering, soft blue color and the hard, vertical yellow-white lines with unpainted canvas on each side. Here she punctuates the reading of the landscape and effectively brings us back into the color plane. PLASK: I feel like swimming into Helene Frankenthaler’s intensely blue painting. “Blue Bellows”/”Blå belger” (1976), acrylic on canvas. Photo: Robert McKeever / Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS) The great flat master is undoubtedly Jackson Pollock. It is a rare pleasure in Norway to be able to stand in front of an original Pollock painting. Those who have looked at screenshots or posters and thought that his paintings look like a messy jumble of lines and strokes must visit the Munch Museum to experience the vibrating and rhythmic play of lines in the original works. UNIQUE: I would argue that Jackson Pollock paintings cannot actually be reproduced. The exhibition thus provides a unique opportunity to study them in the original. “Untitled” (1949), paper, enamel and aluminum paint on chipboard. Photo: Robert Bayer / Fondation Beyeler, Basel © Jackson Pollock The dream of visual music The ultimate modernist dream was about creating visual music. The abstract compositions were to have as direct an appeal to the emotions as the sounds, rhythms, dissonances and harmonies of the music. In Marc Rothko’s “Untitled” from 1958, we really get such an experience. It is not a melody, but a sound created by strokes of color in various beige and pink values with a fire engine red base tone. MUSICAL: Mark Rothko is known for his meditative color fields. In line with the ideals of abstract expressionism, he tried to create a visual music. “Untitled, 1958”, acrylic and oil paint on canvas. Photo: Ove Kvavik / The Munch Museum Could have spanned a larger historical arc “The Forms of Freedom” is a thoroughly solid and professional presentation. Nevertheless, it is probably not an exhibition that really challenges our image of post-war abstraction. The exhibition presents the old, well-established narrative of the abstract idiom as a transatlantic phenomenon with the USA as its focal point. Especially since the exhibition (among other things) is being shown at the Munch Museum, I think it is strange that they do not draw the historical line a little further back, to the real rise of the non-figurative idiom in the 1910-20s with the Russian Wassily Kandinsky and the Swedish Hilma af Klint. In this way they were able to show how abstraction actually traveled back and forth across the Atlantic throughout the twentieth century. By making the expressionist Kandinsky a starting point, they were also able to open the door wide open into Munch’s world. Now, Edvard Munch was not someone who himself cultivated the abstract idiom. He was nevertheless definitely involved in a radical redefinition of painting’s ambition from representing the visible, external reality to depicting the inner life of the soul – in other words, the first step towards the aloof and later abstract painting. Nevertheless, “Shapes of Freedom” is an exhibition you absolutely must not miss! This is clearly one of spring’s major events on the art scene. news reviewer Photo: Ove Kvavik / The Munch Museum Title: “The Forms of Freedom” Place: The Munch Museum in Oslo Date: On view until 21 May 2023 Curator: Dr. Daniel Zamani Concept developer dissemination: Christin Fonn Tømte Project manager: Gisle Sandvand VIDEO: Mona Pahle Bjerke reviewer « Freedom’s forms” in Nyhetsmorgen 28.02.23. VIDEO: The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint was an ardent spiritualist, and believed herself to be a medium for spirits when she painted her pictures. 70 years after her death, her paintings have become a sensation and are displayed in the most prestigious museums in the Nordics. First posted on March 3, 2014.
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“The Forms of Freedom” at the Munch Museum – Reviews and recommendations
