The current marquee exhibition at IMMA is strangely high-concept. Based around the collection of minimalist composer and Ab-Ex scenester Morton Feldman, the show is a welcome opportunity to see some high-water American mid-century abstraction along with some, um, rugs.
Feldman's relationship with the irascible set (and the strong influence of post-war NY painting on the development of his compositional style) has meant that Feldman's music has become the de facto soundtrack to late American modernism. This relationship seems crystallized in the use of his music in scoring Hans Namuth's short films of Pollock's and de Kooning's studios, among the most iconic documents of the Abstract Expressionist generation, as well as his elegiac Rothko Chapel.
I had given myself the idea that this was going to include some Barnett Newman's and I was disappointed that it didn't, I also kinda felt like there was a lot of talk about the Pollocks, but as far as i remember, there were only two (one I can't remember at all, the other was absolutely stunning, the name escapes me, but it was enamel and gesso on paper, and had a pulsing lyricism I don't normally expect from Pollock, especially on a small scale)
Feldman's artistic and personal relationship with the New York art scene, ends up providing a really subtle and interesting structure for the show, especially as big, blue chip shows like this can often feel bulky and white-elephantish, the inclusion of the aforementioned Namuth films, as well as a (really hypnotic) film of Mondrian's last studio, helped flesh out and illuminate the overlapping artistic narratives, alluded to in, for eg., a little Philip Guston drawing dedicated to "mortyfeldman" or naming a piece after critic/poet/fire-island casualty Frank O'Hara. I mean a major problem I have with this sometimes is that, and this is really tempting for somebody like me who is a bit too romantic about this era, it becomes way too fetishistic about '50s NYC as a kind of garrulous bohemia, too author-centric, too nostalgic.
A nice thing to be able to say though, is that the work in the show is so top notch that it makes those criticisms feel pretty irrelevent. The Towering Franz Kline for eg. is really virtuoso and thrilling in a way that you don't really see anymore, its dexterity amplified by a thrilling lack of futzing around. Which is funny because the put it right next to a Philip Guston where a gnawing indecision seems to be the only structure for the canvas. (this pairing is pretty much the highlight of the show, and pretty much all the Guston's in this show are awesome and revelatory for me) where rash-like, inflamed reds and pinks disintegrate like a tissue used as a cloth into a meaty dead flesh grey (giving off weirdly ectoplasmic turqoise halos).
Elsewhere, more ink drawings by Guston, some of them feeling real contemporary, have a kind of half-interested verve, that is, a dashed off yet fine-pointed facility with line and an easy way of electrifying a page.
I don't really know what else to say, it is a major disappointment that the final room is a collection of rugs he bought. I mean I guess the curators felt they really needed to the biographical concept of the show, but I really care more about it being a good show to be honest, which, I mean, it was.
Show Runs until 27th June
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