Word: abstracted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...founder of abstract expressionism honored at the Whitney...
...retrospective, this show is by no means "definitive." Quite a few key works are absent. The Art Institute of Chicago refused to lend Excavation, 1950, the biggest and most ambitious of de Kooning's biomorphic abstractions, while from the celebrated Women series of the early '50s, those shark-grinning popsies before whose dumpy and threatening torsos so much critical rhapsody has been laid, three of the main paintings (owned by Australia, Iran and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City) are missing. Nor do we get to see Police Gazette, 1954-55, or Gotham News...
...artist of the 20th century," writes its director, Tom Armstrong, in the catalogue, "Willem de Kooning has added to the vocabulary of painting, altered the perception of what painting represents." Jorn Merkert's catalogue essay asserts that de Kooning "played perhaps the decisive role" in the development of abstract expressionism (notwithstanding de Kooning's own generous tribute to Pollock as the one who "broke the ice"). The purpose of canonization is well in hand; once again-though one must except Curator Paul Cummings' measured and enlightening essay on de Kooning's drawings-the work...
Despite periods of fruitful negotiations, and despite some valuable treaties, both sides bristle with nuclear arms, the number and sophistication of which increase every year. In seeking to reduce world tensions it is not sufficient to deal with abstract equations and the relative capabilities of this weapon over that. What is at issue is not just the capacity of these weapons for destruction, but the intentions of the governments that control them: the superpowers must each be convinced of the good intentions of the other...
...this year, 278 Americans who had volunteered to serve their country in uniform returned home from combat in coffins. The week most of them died, President Reagan reminded the public that the U.S. had "global responsibilities." That notion, a bit textbookish to most citizens, is a good deal less abstract to the 2.1 million members of the American military. The grittiest responsibilities are theirs...