The Humanism
of Abstraction
CARRIE MOYER | DAVID REED | JOHN ZINSSER
October 20 - November 17, 2016
The Gallery at Industry City
Foreword
Sara Roffino
To wander along the path that leads from the New York School to abstract painters working in New York today
affords ample opportunity for divergence. One can consider the waves that have passed—from minimalism to
neo-expressionism to identity politics and relational aesthetics, to name a few—and still find that at the end
of the road painters are facing many of the same concerns, albeit in different terrain, as did their counterparts
of the mid-twentieth century. This exhibition takes its name from a 1970 speech titled “On the Humanism of
Abstraction” that Robert Motherwell gave in conjunction with an exhibition of his work. This essay offers a
glimpse into the ways in which three prominent abstract painters, Carrie Moyer, David Reed, and John Zinsser,
have incorporated, rejected, or otherwise dealt with the legacy of twentieth century abstraction. Framing this
exhibition with regard to Motherwell’s statement that “all our forms of communication are abstractions from
the whole context of reality,” allows for readings beyond the formal, perhaps even a decoding of these paintings that extends outside the strictly art-historical. Yet, while facing their present realities, these artists—all of
whom have lived in New York for at least 30 years—have remained committed to the brush, to the application
of paint, to painting itself.
As a gay civil rights activist in the ’90s, Carrie Moyer has had extensive first-hand experience with punk and agitprop aesthetics, in addition to being a trained modern dancer. Without making overtly political paintings, her
personal history and art historical references—among which Elizabeth Murray holds a significant place—undoubtedly make them radical. She would likely agree with Motherwell’s belief that abstraction is “a most powerful weapon.” Starting with collage, Moyer physically constructs shapes and layers in paper before approaching the canvas, where paint is applied via pouring, to create a broad range of visual effects in which meaning is
evoked not only by shape and form but also by the wide variety of surface textures. In Tickler, 2012, for instance,
Moyer’s analog graphic approach combines with her mastery of color and surface; the flat black background
is interrupted by illusionistic forms, with the luminosity of the glitter and shadow below the scythe-like shape
pushing it out into space.
David Reed’s interest has long been the brush mark, though his experimentations with scale and presentation
are also evidenced in his early 2016 installation wherein single paintings were divided into sections, and their
imagery extended across several canvases. His two pieces here, Color Study #3-#8 [For painting #650 - #656,
study A], 2016, and Color Study #15-#21 [For painting #650 - #656, study A], 2016, are one-fifth scaled investigations that were executed in preparation of those larger works, which were made with a combination of
brush application and the use of laser-cut stencils—creating a highly gestural stroke that also recalls the artist’s awareness of Pop and Minimalist strategies. Reed, noting the ways in which media and technology have
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greatly broadened the color spectrum, has said, “painting has a wonderful history of giving emotional connotations to certain colors.” His color studies, therefore, are of-the-moment in their investigation of digitallysourced hues, while continuing a tradition that was evoked in Motherwell’s statement that “states of feeling,
when generalized, become questions of light, color, weight, solidity, airiness, lyricism, somberness, heaviness,
strength, whatever.”
Among the three artists in this exhibition, John Zinsser has remained in most direct discourse with the Abstract
Expressionists, upholding a belief in painting as a language beyond language, or a compromise between conscious and unconscious. His two 2015 works included, Blue Canyon, 2016, and Yellow Canyon, 2015, were created in response to motifs found within paintings by Theodoros Stamos, the youngest of The Irascibles. Originally
presented alongside Stamos’s works, Zinsser’s appropriation makes the differences between the two—and developments during the intervening years—more salient than their similarities. His large-scale monochrome
images in saturated out-of-the-tube colors are, in a sense, explained by the inclusion of his Biographic Thesis
Drawing: The Problematizing of Black and White, 2016, which literalizes his artistic concerns and influences in a
non-linear graph-like display.
Motherwell’s reference to humanism in the title of his 1970 talk conveys a sense of the particular weight and seriousness inherent in abstract painting—and a responsibility that requires us to consider both the material and
aesthetic choices made by Moyer, Reed, and Zinsser, as well as the larger intellectual and historical contexts
in which they are working. To accept that a picture is not a depiction of something in nature, but “a deliberate choice of a certain degree of abstraction,” requires one to think about it what it is that is being abstracted.
While these artists are clearly probing the possibilities of painting itself, what is perhaps more significant is their
ability to intertwine that history within their own lives. The results are paintings that are about painting itself,
where painting is the abstraction of all that is.
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About the Dedalus Foundation
The Dedalus Foundation was created by the artist Robert Motherwell in order to foster public understanding
of modern art and modernism. In fulfilling this mission, the Foundation operates programs in arts education,
research and publications, archives and conservation, and exhibitions, as well as in the guardianship and study
of Robert Motherwell’s art. During the fifty years of his career as an artist, Motherwell frequently discussed and
wrote about the role and importance of abstraction. The title for this exhibition is taken from a lecture he gave
in 1970, “The Humanism of Abstract Art.” The three artists whose work is being shown are important practitioners of abstract painting, and were also participants in a 1915 symposium at the Archives of American Art in
Washington, D.C., which considered the importance of Motherwell’s rich contribution to the development of
abstract art.
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Carrie Moyer
Hello Sunshine
2012
Acrylic and graphite on canvas
72 x 54 inches
Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York
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Carrie Moyer
Motor Belly
2012
Acrylic and graphite on canvas
54 x 72 inches
Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York
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Carrie Moyer
Tickler
2012
Acrylic and glitter on canvas
40 x 28 inches
Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York
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Previous page:
Top:
David Reed
Color study #3 - #8 [For painting #650 - #656, study A]
2016
Acrylic, alkyd, and oil on Dibond
16 x 109 1/4 inches
Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York
Bottom:
David Reed
Color study #15 - #21 [For painting #650 - #656, study A]
2016
Acrylic, alkyd, and oil on Dibond
16 x 109 1/4 inches
Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York
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John Zinsser
Blue Canyon
2016
Enamel and oil on canvas
56 x 52 inches
Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York
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John Zinsser
Yellow Canyon
2015
Enamel and oil on canvas
56 x 52 inches
Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York
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John Zinsser
Biographical Thesis Drawing: The Problematizing of Black and White
2016
Graphite and colored pencil on drawing paper
14 x 17 inches
Courtesy Taylor and Graham Gallery, New York
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Published in conjunction with the exhibition:
The Humanism of Abstraction
The Gallery at Industry City
October 20 - November 17, 2016
Exhibition organized by the Dedalus Foundation
Catalogue designed by Claire Altizer
Special thanks to Andrea Cerbie, Peter Luke Colon, George Ericson, Jack Flam, Kerrigan Kessler, Mike
Linskie, Mallorie Livingston, Katy Rogers, Morgan Spangle, Abby Taylor
Presented by the Dedalus Foundation with support from Industry City
Foreword text © Sara Roffino
Images of Carrie Moyer’s work © Carrie Moyer
Images of David Reed’s work © David Reed. Courtesy of the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York
Images of John Zinsser’s work © John Zinsser
Cover artwork:
Carrie Moyer
Motor Belly, 2012
Acrylic and graphite on canvas
54 x 72 inches
Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York