These paintings from Allan Kaprow never had been seen
Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) is internationally renowned mainly as an action
artist. Not only did he coin the term Happening--he gave distinction to
this art form in New York in the late 1950s. Also his
environments--huge, changeable installations, made from material such as
car tires, drums and ice blocks - are regarded as milestones in recent
art history. Allan Kaprow did, however, began his artistic career as a
painter, not least in connection with his studies under Hans Hofmann; in
addition, he studied art history under Meyer Shapiro and composition
with John Cage. He was, therefore, not only open to theory at an early
stage, but also to various artistic and interpretative approaches. He
always moved be-tween the tension-filled areas of intuition, open form
and time reference on the one hand, and the reflexive practice as a
theoretician and art historian on the other. The exhibition at Villa
Merkel in Esslingen was, for the first time, exclusively dedicated to
his early paintings from the time between 1946 and 1957, and reveals the
role models the young artist chose to follow and work on, and, in
particular, his interest in questions on space as well as his endeavor
to somehow contextualize the achievements of Jackson Pollock and John
Cage. This extends to the works created during the mid-1950s, which he
called »action collages« and in which he -gradually incorporated
everyday materials and objects. The current book presents a large number
of -previously unseen paintings by Allan Kaprow.
Exhibition:
Villa Merkel Esslingen, 19/3-28/5/2017
