PAUL MOGENSEN
Paul Mogensen (b. 1941, Los Angeles, CA) is a New York-based painter who has often been associated with Minimalism, although his mathematical, progressional work resists categorization. Rather than reproducing the reductive geometric abstractions of his Minimalist contemporaries, Mogensen uses an iterative format to activate the picture plane. His paintings are meant to be deciphered rather than easily comprehended: often full of movement, they actively draw the eye across the canvas. Each painting is calibrated according to the rules of elemental mathematics, particularly those deriving from Renaissance and Ancient Egyptian theorems. Mogensen uses such arithmetic progressions to determine the sequence and size of each color form. The resultant morse-code-like arrays call to mind the universalist ideas of early 20th century Russian artists and poets admired by Mogensen, such as Mayakovsky, Rodchenko, and Tatlin.
Mogensen was presented with the 2019 Award in Art by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Notable solo exhibitions include Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2021); Karma, New York (2018); Del Deo & Barzune, New York (2016); Wiener Secession, Vienna (1994); and Janus Gallery, Los Angeles (1981); and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1979), among others. His work was featured in a group exhibition at the Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria.
Mogensen’s work is represented in the collections of major museums in the U.S. and abroad, including Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Harvard Art Museums/ Fogg Museum, Cambridge; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Menil Collection, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; New York Public Library, New York; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
Courtesy Karma
Works at Karma
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