Word: abstractions
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Serra is still interested first and last in space and form, process and material, the working parameters of abstract art. But he also knows that by operating at this beckoning, intimidating scale, with this rough, forged-in-fire material, he sets loose associations--with the curves of the human body, with mineral formations and architectural space--that carry his work into complicated psychological territory. If he starts with complex solid geometry, he doesn't end there...
...enough, then its meaning doesn't have to be tacked down to a one-liner," he says. "People can move into it in a lot of different ways." So to enter and circulate within the distorted bowl of his Torqued Ellipse IV is to find yourself inside a resolutely abstract geometric volume that is also somehow a womb, a crater, an inlet and a chamber. By its powerful address to both the body and the subconscious, it sets in motion some very deep mental reflexes, including the ones having to do with anguish, awe and desire...
Today, Fitzsimmons and McGrath Lewis put things in a simpler, if more abstract...
...paintings by, say, Utrillo or Vlaminck - delicate streetscapes suffused with morning light and dusky melancholy. Indeed, those artists, along with Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Derain, were among Atget's contemporary admirers. The Surrealists adopted him as one of their own, enchanted by his gaudy fairgrounds and prostitutes, his near-abstract depictions of stonework and staircases, and the way he sometimes reflected his own image in store windows. Later photographic greats - Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams - admired his ability to combine straightforward documentation with almost painterly finesse...
...these self-proclaimed kings of "Concept-Art-Heritage-Rock-Covers" move swiftly through their set. With their razor-witted reinterpretations, AC/DC's '70s classic T.N.T. becomes Nam June Paik, named after the grandfather of video art; Devo's Whip It barely misses a beat as an anthem to Abstract Expressionism, Drip It; while Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'N' Roll has even more attitude as I Shot Andy Warhol ("I'm Valerie Solanas, I'm a no hoax, baby"). But art students beware one of the final tracks. In this, the Histrionics transform Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild...