Word: expressionist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...flap small wings. Some devices, slender granddaughters of Jean Tinguely's painting machines of the '50s, splatter paint around on the walls or (with more fetishistic suggestion) on women's shoes. No doubt to spare the clothes of the museum audience, these stay switched off, leaving dried Abstract Expressionist trickles as mementos. Peacock Machine, 1982, was originally seen spreading its tail in a formal- garden gazebo -- a charming conceit...
...perhaps the most important reason for Korngold's loss of nerve may be this: despite some sumptuous melodies and opulent orchestration, Heliane is simply not very good. It suffers from an incomprehensible libretto, based on a murky "miracle play" by a minor Expressionist poet, Hans Kaltneker. Korngold's literary instincts were never very sharp, and it was not until he turned to films that his natural dramatic gifts found their true outlet...
...would rise before the sun to row down the Charles to Boston and back, feeling the swing of the boat cast a therapeutic rhythm back into my days. I learned to tell Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 from No. 2; I fell in love with an Austrian expressionist named Fgon Schiele; I danced so hard the earrings flew off my head at a formal in the Fogg Museum...
There are small sculptures at Marlborough, Abakanowicz's hallmark figures, molded from resin-stiffened burlap. Headless and repetitious, they look "expressionist" but aren't: their true ancestors are ancient kouroi and Egyptian scribes planted on their plinths. It is amazing to see how much inward dignity Abakanowicz can give to a human figure made of cloth, and how many subtle variations she can infuse into a whole row of them. They are funereal: the wrinkled burlap reminds you of mummified skin. When Abakanowicz lines up 10, 20 or 30 more or less identical figures, as in Infantes, 1992, you think...
...wasn't by any means the only Latin American painter to make a mark in the Manhattan avant-garde of the '40s, but to see his place one needs to remember that the New York School of the '40s was not the exclusive pantheon of half a dozen Abstract Expressionist heroes that later critics and dealers made it seem. It was open and eclectic, perfused with Surrealist influence and much more curious about other cultures -- particularly those of Latin America -- than it would be 25 years later. Lam had a strong common interest with American painters who became his friends...