Les cahiers d'Alain Truong

06 mai 2008

European Prints and Drawings au Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

Rembrandt. Self-Portrait Wearing a Soft Cap (The Three Moustaches), ca. 1634. Etching. 2002 Blanton Ball Purchase

AUSTIN.- More than any artist, Raphael was responsible for the creation of a new classical style in the High Renaissance, in turn the foundation of later European style. Until the twentieth century, and the triumph of the avant–garde over the academy, Raphael was the most revered painter in the world. He is still the most widely admired draftsman. This exhibition brings together nearly fifty prints and drawings that interpret the master's designs and demonstrate their profound influence. The works range from an exceptional group of engravings by his collaborator Marcantonio Raimondi, to virtuoso reproductive prints of the eighteenth century, all the way to contemporary American examples.

Between the early seventeenth and mid–eighteenth century, Central Europe – modern Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic – saw a dazzling interpretation of Baroque style. Artists like Karel Skréta, Paul Troger and Franz Anton Maulbertsch, are remarkable for their vigor, extravagance and gift as grand–scale decorators. Their works, however, are scarce in this country, and they remain little known. The Suida–Manning Collection includes an important group of drawings of the period, while Leo Steinberg's collection offers a comparably rich representation of the period's printmakers. This exhibition unites their finest examples, along with some choice recent acquisitions, for the first time.

The second in a series of three exhibitions featuring selections from the Blanton's substantial collection of etchings, this presentation focuses on nineteenth–century artists' rediscovery of the medium through earlier masters, such as Jacques Callot and Rembrandt, and the divergent approaches they took to the material. With the invention of lithography in the 1790s and photography in 1835, etching suffered a decline in popularity among artists and connoisseurs. But by the 1850s, artists in England and in France, including Seymour Haden, J.A.M. Whistler, Camille Corot, Charles Daubigny, Charles Meryon and Maxime Lalanne began to experiment with etching as a means of original artistic expression independent of book illustration. This exhibition charts the course of that visual dialogue as it progressed through the efforts of Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro and into the early years of the twentieth century.

Jasper Johns, Ale Cans, 1964. Color lithograph from Seven Stories. The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002

Il y avait 128 ans, naissait Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (May 6, 1880 – June 15, 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a breakdown and was discharged. In 1933, his work was branded as "degenerate" by the Nazis, and this was a contributing factor to his suicide. At the onset of the First World War in September 1914, Kirchner volunteered for military service, but suffered a nervous breakdown in 1915 and was discharged, recovering for the next two years in sanatoriums in Taunus and Davos, Switzerland. In a self portrait in 1915, he depicted himself with an amputated hand (this did not actually happen). In 1918, he settled in Davos, living in a farm house in the Alps; from this time onwards his main subject matter was mountain scenes. On 3 July 1919, he wrote in a letter from Davos, " Dear Van de Velde writes today that I ought to return to modern life. For me this is out of the question. Nor do I regret it.... The delights the world affords are the same everywhere, differing only in their outer forms. Here one learns how to see further and go deeper than in 'modern' life, which is generally so very much more superficial despite its wealth of outer forms." His reputation grew with several exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland in 1920. In 1923, he moved to Frauenkirch-Wildboden. The art gallery in Basel staged a substantial exhibition, which led to the foundation of the "Rot-Blau" (red and blue) artists association by Swiss painters, Paul Camenisch, Albert Müller and Hermann Scherer. Kirchner made his final visit to Germany 1925–1926. His reputation grew through the rest of the decade with a monograph and the first part of a catalogue raisonné of his graphics in 1926, a mural commission by the Folkwang museum in 1927, and a presence at the Venice Biennale in 1928; he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1931. In 1933, Kirchner was labelled a "degenerate artist" by the Nazis and asked for his resignation from the Berlin Academy of Arts; in 1937, over 600 of his works were confiscated from public museums in Germany and were sold or destroyed. In 1938, the psychological trauma of these events, along with the Nazi occupation of Austria, close to his home, led to his suicide. In 1913, the first public showing of Kirchner's work took place at the Armory Show, which was also the first major display of modern art in America.[8] In 1921, U.S. museums began to acquire his work and did so increasingly thereafter.[8] His first solo show was at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1937. In 1992, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, held a monographic show, using its existing collection; a major international loan exhibition took place in 2003.[8] In November 2006 at Christie's, Kirchner's Street Scene, Berlin (1913) fetched $38 million, a record for the artist. (www.wikipedia.org).

05 mai 2008

"Time & Place: Milano-Torino 1958-1968" au Moderna Museet à Stockholm

Lucio Fontana, Conzetto spaziale, 1967, © Lucio Fontana/BUS 2008. Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milano

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.-Moderna Museet was created, and forged an identity, with one foot in New York and the other in Paris. And for many years, it seemed as though art from around 1960 appeared to be entirely shaped by those two cities. In hindsight, however, it is obvious that other “creative pockets” arose in entirely different places, with just as radical artistic projects. In connection with Moderna Museet’s 50th Anniversary in 2008, three exhibitions will focus on three such places around the world: Rio de Janeiro, Milan/Turin and Los Angeles. The idea is to explore the period when Moderna Museet was created from an international perspective, by featuring a representative selection of works of art, architecture, design, literature, film and music never before shown together in Sweden.

Three separate catalogues will be produced for the Time & Place exhibitions by Steidl publishers.

The exhibition about Milan and Turin explores an exceedingly dynamic period in Italian 20th century art. In the 1960s, a new concept for art was established here, entailing a shift from the emotionally charged abstract expressionism to a more idea-based visual expression in muted colours. This exhibition seeks to present some of the key artists on the scene of these two emblematic cities in Northern Italy in 1958-1968.

For instance, it explores the relationship between the older generation’s artistic ambitions and those of the younger artist group often referred to with the collective name of Arte Povera.

The first part of the exhibition features works by Gianni Colombo, Lucio Fontana, Dadamaino, Bruno Munari, Piero Manzoni, Giulio Paolini and others, focusing on the development of themes such as monochrome painting, the fascination for spatial representation and experiments in the field between visual art and design, and not forgetting the strong drive to develop conceptual art as a genre.

The second part of the exhibition has a more documentary tone, giving visitors an experience of specific settings and the spirit of the time, using photos, objects and other documentation. It also highlights a number of seminal exhibitions and events that took place during the period.

The third part of the exhibition presents several of the artists who are strongly associated with the Arte Povera movement, with its entirely unique way of relating to the process, the idea and unconventional materials. Visitors will have the opportunity to see works by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Pennone, Giulio Paolini and others.

In connection with the exhibition, Moderna Museet will also host a programme of films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and other Italian film-makers.

Curator: Luca Massimo Barbero, associate curator, the Guggenheim Museum, Venice. Project manager: Cecilia Widenheim, curator Moderna Museet. Time & Place: Milano-Torino 1958-1968 is sponsored by Scania.

Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale. I Quanta, 1960. © Lucio Fontana/BUS 2008. Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milano

Piet Mondrian au Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Red, Black, Blue and Grey, 1920. Oil on Canvas. Collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (c) 2008 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International Virginia

PITTSBURGH.- A leader in abstract painting of the twentieth century, Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872 – 1944), was best known for his Neo-Plasticism (a Dutch movement founded and name by Mondrian) abstractions of rigid forms consisting of rectangular shapes of red, yellow, blue, or black, separated by thick, black, rectilinear lines. Mondrian explained Neo-Plasticism as absolute harmony of straight lines and pure colors underlying the visible world. This exhibition of 24 paintings, many of which have never been on view in the US, includes a selection spanning 1907 through 1937. The pictures range from early abstract landscapes such as De Rode Wolk (The Red Cloud), painted in 1907 to Mondrian’s Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow completed in 1937.

Mondrian was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism. This consisted of a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the use of the three primary colours.

Piet Mondrian, Mill, 1917. Oil on Canvas. Collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. (c) 2008 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o. HCR International Virginia

04 mai 2008

“Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976” au Jewish Museum, NY

Installation view of “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976” at the Jewish Museum. (Photo: Julien Jourdes for The New York Times)

Roberta Smith writes:  Art is long, art criticism is often very, very brief, its Internet afterlife notwithstanding. Its viability relies on a mixture of prose style, sound-bite-able concepts, timing and its ability to clarify visual experience. Naming a major art movement can also help. Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg met many of these requirements. Tenacious Jewish intellectuals formed by the leftist ferment of New York between the wars, both became disillusioned socialists who turned to art and especially the new painting they saw emerging around them. In the late 1940s, and ’50s, they were Abstract Expressionism’s most prominent champions, often in diametric opposition to each other. Cordial mutual dislike was their bond.

Rosenberg and Greenberg are reunited in “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976,” a fast-moving exhibition at the Jewish Museum. Their names aren’t on the marquee, but their rivalry provides the structure for this exceedingly handsome if somewhat capricious show.  (Photo: Julien Jourdes for The New York Times)

“White and Hot” (1967) by Barnett Newman

Greenberg especially personified the arrogant critic brilliantly defining and then relentlessly pursuing his agenda. Writing with a clear, Olympian style that nonetheless had intonations of a sportscaster calling a horse race, he formulated a narrowing end game for modernism: All art mediums would remain discrete while being reduced, by successive innovations, to their essences.  (Photo: Saint Louis Art Museum, Barnett Newman Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

An untitled work of Jackson Pollock from 1951.

For painting, this meant abstraction, flatness and the elimination of touch. Pollock, dancing around the canvas flinging paint, was his ideal. At least until the late 1950s, when he decided that Newman’s and Rothko’s expanses of color pointed to the next big thing: Color Field painting.  (Photo: Portland Art Museum, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

Willem de Kooning’s “Gotham News” (1955)

Rosenberg famously characterized the painter’s canvas “as an arena in which to act” and found his ideal in De Kooning, whose canvases were thick with loaded brushwork, alive with elegant angst and widely influential. Rosenberg gave the new style its first name: Action Painting, pinpointing a performative aspect in postwar art that is still being explored.  (Photo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

“Twilight Sounds” (1947) by Norman Lewis

“Action/Abstraction” is not so much a historical survey as a series of lavishly illustrated talking points. It proceeds through various pairings and groupings that illuminate who Greenberg and Rosenberg promoted or ignored, where they differed or overlapped. Their oversights included much sculpture (excepting David Smith) and most painters who were not white and male, as indicated by a section titled “Blind Spots” that contains works by Norman Lewis, Grace Hartigan and Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife.  (Photo: Saint Louis Art Museum, courtesy Bill Hodges Gallery, New York)

The first gallery, a tour de force, lays out Abstract Expressionism’s greatest artistic rivalry in four works by Pollock and three by De Kooning. Pollock’s 1952 “Convergence” virtually explodes off the back wall, its imperious flings of red, yellow, blue and white pushed forward by a calligraphic undergrowth of black. The modest gallery pressurizes the large painting, but pressure becomes it. (Photo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo/The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

“Woman” (1949-50) by Willem de Kooning

The beginning of De Kooning’s many-splendored career is represented by increasingly fraught surfaces: the inky darks and searing whites of “Black Friday,” of 1948; the monstrous “Woman” of 1949-50 and the exultantly agitated “Gotham News” of 1955.  (Photo: Weatherspoon Art Museum/The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

“Liver and the Cock’s Comb” (1944) by Arshile Gorky

While sharing burning colors, the vibrating forms of Arshile Gorky’s hallucinatory “Liver and the Cock’s Comb” of 1944 clash with the martial push-pull of Han Hofmann’s “Sanctum Sanctorum” of 1961. (Photo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

Hans Hofmann’s “Sanctum Sanctorum“ (1962)

The similarities among these artworks exceed the differences, raising the falseness of dichotomies. Were Greenberg’s and Rosenberg’s views really so far apart, or did they just find certain aspects of art easier to talk about than others? (Photo: Berkeley Art Museum, Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

The show’s second half begins with ephemera reflecting the popular acceptance of Abstract Expressionism. Neither Greenberg nor Rosenberg was able to fully accept the art that followed, but here the similarities end. Greenberg more or less squandered his reputation in his relentless promotion of Color Field painting and related sculpture., which is represented by Helen Frankenthaler’s breakthrough stain painting “Mountains and Sea” of 1952. (Photo: Helen Frankenthaler Foundation)

An untitled 1962 work by Lee Bontecou

Rosenberg, meanwhile, kept looking, and writing. With his notion of new art as an “anxious object,” which he coined in the early 1960s, he expanded his ideas of action and painterly gesture to the early work of younger artists like Claes Oldenburg, Peter Saul, Jasper Johns and Lee Bontecou, all of whom are represented here.  (Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston /Lee Bontecou, courtesy of Knoelder & Company, New York)

Herbert Ferber’s “Surrational Zeus II” (1947).  (The Jewish Museum/Herbert Ferber Estate)

“Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976” is at the Jewish Museum through Sept. 21; 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, (212) 423-3271.

Lire l'article "Rivalry Played Out on Canvas and Page" de Roberta Smith http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/arts/design/02acti.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Michel Journiac, "Les icônes du temps présent" à Paris. Galerie Patricia Dorfmann

La galerie Patricia Dorfmann rend hommage au travail de Michel Journiac à travers un cycle d'exposition qui fait la part belle à la diversité des inspirations et des productions de l'artiste. Figure de proue du Body Art, il s'empare des débats politiques et sociaux à travers la mise en scène de son propre corps.

Michel Journiac, Les Fantasmes : l’enlèvement, 1974. Photographie originale noir et blanc.  50 x 40 cm (Courtesy, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. © Michel Journiac)

La Galerie Patricia Dorfmann présente le 1er volet d’un cycle d’expositions consacré à Michel Journiac (1935 – 1995), figure historique du Body Art. Cette série d’expositions montre successivement les différents thèmes liés à l’oeuvre de l’artiste comme la société, la famille, l’identité, l’objet, l’autre - dont certains restent encore peu connus du grand public.

Michel Journiac, Icône du temps présent – Jean Genêt, 1988. Photographie N&B sur toile, or et sang. 30 x 40 cm. (Courtesy Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. © Michel Journiac.)

Ancien séminariste qui « intimidait par sa douceur autant que par sa violence », peintre défroqué, Michel Journiac a inventé une attitude radicalement nouvelle, à la fois body art et art sociologique. En cela, il est un des artistes majeurs de l'après-guerre, au moins aussi important que Christian Boltanski ou Beuys. L'argent, le sacré, la femme, la peine de mort, le rapport du collectif au privé, il a traité toutes les facettes de l'existence; il a aussi, face au sida, ré envisagé son oeuvre.

Michel Journiac, Icône du temps présent – Jean Genêt, 1988. Photographie N&B sur toile, or et sang. 30 x 40 cm. (Courtesy Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. © Michel Journiac.)

Sociologique, dérangeante, visionnaire et relationnelle, l’oeuvre de Journiac est aujourd'hui redécouverte par toute une génération de jeunes artistes, indifférents comme lui à la "valeur" de l'objet.  Considérant que le corps est le donné fondamental, Michel Journiac prend celui-ci comme terrain d'investigation artistique. Il est son outil central, sa matière première, son support, l'objet même de son travail.

Michel Journiac, 24h dans la vie d’une femme ordinaire – Réalité, la lessive, 1974. Photographie N&B. 51 x 54 cm. (Courtesy Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. © Michel Journiac.)

En effet, à partir de 1968/69, rejetant la tradition artistique esthétisante au profit d'une création ancrée dans la réalité quotidienne, il réalise des actions où il se met en scène et fait de son corps un instrument d'expression et de connaissance. Mais, selon Journiac, "il n'y a pas de corps existant de façon absolue. Celui-ci est lié à toute une série de contextes, d'objets, vêtements, etc. A partir de là, je pense toute la question de mon travail".

Michel Journiac, Rituel de transmutation – Marquage, action de corps exclu, 1983. Photographie couleur. 80 x 107 cm. (Courtesy Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. © Michel Journiac.)

A l’occasion de cette première exposition, la Galerie Patricia Dorfmann a choisi de montrer unesélection d’oeuvres emblématiques dont la célèbre série de photographies les Vingt-quatre Heures de la vie d'une femme ordinaire, imaginée en 1974 à partir d'un sondage paru dans un magazine féminin, Michel Journiac travesti et perruqué se glisse dans les draps, le tablier ou la robe de soirée d'une ménagère attentive et lambda; se coule dans le gentiltragique de son quotidien. Seront aussi présentes les  Icônes du temps présent, série de portraits photographiques sur toile peinte à l’or où l’artiste a répandu son propre sang - images de garçons légèrement vêtus issus de revues pornographiques ou au contraire de célébrités (Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet, Billy Idol, James Dean, Franz Kafka, Malik Oussekine, Michaël Jackson, Arthur Rimbaud, Marlène Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe).

24 avr. - 31 mai 2008. Paris. Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. 61, rue de la Verrerie 75004 Paris - T. 33 1 42 77 55 41 - F. 33 1 42 77 72 74 - galerie@patriciadorfmann.com - www.patriciadorfmann.com

03 mai 2008

Il y avait 2 ans, disparaissait Karel Appel

Karel Appel (April 25, 1921-May 3, 2006) was a Dutch painter and sculptor, born in Amsterdam. He studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten there from 1940 to 1943 and had his first show in Groningen in 1946. He was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Jean Dubuffet; he joined the Nederlandse Experimentele Groep and joined CoBrA in 1948 together with Corneille, Constant and Jan Nieuwenhuys (see also Aart Kemink). His 1949 fresco 'Questioning Children' in the Amsterdam City Hall caused controversy and was covered up for ten years. As a result of this controversy Appel moved to Paris in 1950 and he developed his international reputation travelling to Mexico, the USA, Yugoslavia and Brazil. He is particularly noted for his mural work and lived between New York and Florence. He died on the 3rd of May 2006 in Zürich, where he was living at the time. He is buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. (www.wikipedia.org)

02 mai 2008

Print Lovers at 30: Celebrating Three Decades of Giving Honors the Nelson-Atkins Print Society

Sandro Chia, Italian, b. 1946 Untitled (Red Man), 1983 Color etching and drypoint, 26/36 35 5/8 x 23 11/16 inches (90.49 x 60.17 cm) Gift of the Print Society, F88-4 ©Sandro Chia

KANSAS CITY.- The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will honor the Nelson-Atkins Print Society’s 30th anniversary with the exhibition Print Lovers at 30: Celebrating Three Decades of Giving. The May 3–July20 exhibition, featuring 31 of the 79 prints donated by that group or its members, also acknowledges the extraordinary role played by the late Print Curator George McKenna, who infused the Print Society with his passion for works on paper and cultivated a collaborative method of acquisition.

McKenna began his career at the Nelson-Atkins in 1952 as registrar and later became curator of both the print and drawing collections. He presented 237 exhibitions at the Museum. At a yearly luncheon of Print Society members he would offer prints from local galleries as candidates for acquisition. Members present voted and the chosen works were donated to the Museum. McKenna retired in 1997 as curator emeritus. He died this past year.
Hugh Merrill, printmaker and professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, was invited to be guest curator for the exhibition and worked with Nelson-Atkins Chief Curator Deborah Emont Scott.

Merrill said the prints in the exhibition are examples of two broad categories of the printmaking art: those in which the artist is also the printmaker and those in which the artist works with a master printmaker. The solo artist/printmaker brings his artistry to the craft of printmaking. The artist working with a printmaker creates a special relationship between artist and master craftsman.

Artists/printmakers are represented in the exhibition by such artists as Tom Huck, Warrington Colescott, Eleanor Erkine and Craig Allen Subler. Artists who collaborate with printmakers are represented by Red Grooms, Robert Cottingham and Leslie Dill, among others. Ron Adams began as a printmaker working with artists Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella, then sold his business in 1987 to focus on his career as a solo artist/printmaker.

The exhibition is presented in four groupings: Major Trends reflects the stylistic and conceptual points of view modern and contemporary artists have explored, from photorealistic portraits to post-painterly abstraction. Social Justice, Humor and Parody confronts social order, provokes thought and awakens societies to the possibility of change. Beyond the Landscape explores the complex world of human and ecological interactions. Eccentric Eyes demonstrates the highly personal iconography, symbols and surreal visions printmaker artists have explored.

Robert Cottingham American, b. 1935 Art, 1992 Color lithograph, 50/60 41 7/8 x 41 3/4 inches (106.35 x 106.05 cm) Landfall Press, Publisher Jack Lemon, Printer Gift in memory of Dr. John W. Hardy by the Print Society, Miss Elaine Blaylock, Mr. John L. Coakley Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, B. Cutting, Mr. and Mrs. John R. Dixon, Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Everitt, Dr. Jeanne E. Fish, Dr. and Mrs. Leo R. Goertz, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gross, Mr. Edward R. Levy, Mr. and Mrs. George L. McKenna, Miss Sharon Seymour, Mrs. Lois Spears, and Mrs. Paula Thoburn, F93-2

01 mai 2008

Igor MITORAJ né en 1944, Torse d'homme

Igor MITORAJ né en 1944, Torse d'homme

Épreuve en bronze à patine verte signée en partie basse à droite, numéroté 206/1000. - H : 51 cm (avec socle).  Estimé : 3 000 / 4 000 € 

Artcurial Deauville 14800 Deauville. Art Moderne et Contemporain. Vente du 3 mai 2008

Gilbert & George au Philadelphia Museum of Art

They, Gilbert & George: George Passmore (English, born 1942) and Gilbert Proesch (English, born Italy 1943), 1986. Hand dyed black and white photographs

PHILADELPHIA.- From the outset of their joint career, Gilbert Proesch (English, born in Italy 1943) and George Passmore (English, born 1942) explored and redefined photography as a medium while bridging the gap between art and life. Dressed in suits and often displaying decorous manners, the duo presents an image at odds with the brutal sincerity with which they expose their deepest desires and fears. Documenting the reality of daily existence through the lens of their unique sensibility, the artists present a poignant and all-embracing vision of life where marginality and drunkenness, unhappiness and despair, nature and beauty are tenderly revealed.

This presentation of large-scale photographs by Gilbert & George traces their stylistic departure from subdued black-and-white and monochromatic compositions of the 1970s to bolder clashes of images and colors of the 1980s. Constantly aware of changes in the social and political climate, Gilbert & George address head-on the burning issues of the day—be they social marginality, the AIDS crisis, or multiculturalism—while at the same time defining a distinctive visual language. The quotations that unfold around the gallery space are by Gilbert & George, and their words address the viewer as directly and uncompromisingly as does their art.

A comprehensive exhibition of the work of Gilbert & George organized by Tate Modern in London is currently traveling in the United States. Its final venue will be the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, where it will be on view October 3, 2008, through January 11, 2009.

Seven Heroes, Gilbert & George: George Passmore (English, born 1942) and Gilbert Proesch (English, born Italy 1943), 1982. Hand dyed black and white photographs and photograms. Sonnabend Collection. (Detail)