Mary Heilmann
22 Jan - 11 Apr 2010
MARY HEILMANN
"Weather Report" - Drawings and Prints
22.1 – 11.4.2010
Mary Heilmann is one of the artists who have newly defined what abstraction is. Abstraction first means creating distance to the visual world and to life. But something that becomes distant must somewhere have a starting point. Colors, forms, figures exist in the real world; why deny it? Why repress associations that a red, a pink, a wave or a cube possess? Heilmann takes this further than others: she no longer separates abstract and concrete, form and life; her colors haven't for nothing something luminously Californian about them, since she grew up in that sunny state.
After studying poetry and ceramics in the midst of the very turbulent East Coast scene with its poetic manifestos and political demonstrations, she moved on to painting at the end of the 1960s, quite in reverse to the trend of the times. Her paintings have been inspired by pop and jazz; they consolidate experience. Always clearly composed, they are nonetheless never overawed by the composition.The brightly colored aquarelles and etchings, mostly made up of geometric forms, are more than just preliminary studies. They can pave the way for paintings, but also spin them out. With the customary Heilmann lightness and subtlety, they transform-in a self-referential, self-critical, deconstructive and ironical way-what can be seen, heard and thought. A series of her newest works are especially impressive that combine graphics and photography and so let the concrete become abstract and the abstract concrete.
Museum Ludwig is showing the first exhibition of Mary Heilmann's works on paper. It thus introduces this U.S. painter (*1940), still little known in Europe, to a German public. This print room exhibition presents a total of 18 works on paper, among which is a new series that combines prints and photos.
Curator: Dr. Julia Friedrich
"Weather Report" - Drawings and Prints
22.1 – 11.4.2010
Mary Heilmann is one of the artists who have newly defined what abstraction is. Abstraction first means creating distance to the visual world and to life. But something that becomes distant must somewhere have a starting point. Colors, forms, figures exist in the real world; why deny it? Why repress associations that a red, a pink, a wave or a cube possess? Heilmann takes this further than others: she no longer separates abstract and concrete, form and life; her colors haven't for nothing something luminously Californian about them, since she grew up in that sunny state.
After studying poetry and ceramics in the midst of the very turbulent East Coast scene with its poetic manifestos and political demonstrations, she moved on to painting at the end of the 1960s, quite in reverse to the trend of the times. Her paintings have been inspired by pop and jazz; they consolidate experience. Always clearly composed, they are nonetheless never overawed by the composition.The brightly colored aquarelles and etchings, mostly made up of geometric forms, are more than just preliminary studies. They can pave the way for paintings, but also spin them out. With the customary Heilmann lightness and subtlety, they transform-in a self-referential, self-critical, deconstructive and ironical way-what can be seen, heard and thought. A series of her newest works are especially impressive that combine graphics and photography and so let the concrete become abstract and the abstract concrete.
Museum Ludwig is showing the first exhibition of Mary Heilmann's works on paper. It thus introduces this U.S. painter (*1940), still little known in Europe, to a German public. This print room exhibition presents a total of 18 works on paper, among which is a new series that combines prints and photos.
Curator: Dr. Julia Friedrich