Ocula Report Visions of Brazil: Reimagining Modernity from Tarsila to Sonia 18 May 2019 : Fawz Kabra for Ocula Bridging almost a century of Brazilian art, Visions of Brazil: Reimagining Modernity from Tarsila to Sonia at Blum & Poe in New York (30 April–22 June 2019), hosted in collaboration with Mendes Wood DM, offers a rereading of Brazilian Modernism through the works of artists practising at different times, from the 20th century through to the...
Ocula Conversation Reiko Tomii In 1969, Horikawa Michio, schoolteacher and member of the artist collective GUN (Group Ultra Niigata), filled out the customs paperwork to mail a one-kilogram river stone from Niigata, the proverbial 'backside of Japan', to President Nixon. In return, Horikawa received a thank you note for this 'most unusual Christmas gift'—a muted anti-war...
Ocula Report Yun Hyong-keun in Venice: The Artist Behind the Paintings 4 May 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula 'He was not a "political" kind of person. He just wanted to be honest and straight. But it was not easy in Korea to live like that,' writes curator Kim Inhye on artist Yun Hyong-keun. For much of his life, Yun lived in proximity to some of the most tumultuous moments in modern Korean history, from which he emerged as a pioneer of abstract...
Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam, and arrived in the United States in 1926 via Hoboken, where he worked as a housepainter. After his move to New York the following year, the artist quickly became part of the city's vibrant art scene, forging friendships with artists and critics such as Arshile Gorky, Thomas Hess, Robert Motherwell, and Harold Rosenberg. In 1963, de Kooning took up full-time residence on the east end of Long Island, New York, a rural location that significantly impacted his painting from that point forward. As part of the New York School, de Kooning painted in a highly gestural and expressive manner using vigorous brushstrokes and vivid colour. He frequently used the female figure as inspiration, although painted it in a way that referenced primitve African art. In 1964 he received one of the greatest distinctions awarded in America, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1970 he began working in sculpture, creating works using bronze. His work is included in The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, New York. He died in Long Island in 1997.
Willem de KooningWoman, c. 1965 Pencil and charcoal on blue-lined ledger paper, laid down on matte board
Willem de KooningWoman in Rowboat, 1964 Oil on paper laid on masonite
Willem de KooningUntitled (Man in Water), 1971 Oil on paper mounted on canvas
Gagosian 
Related Press Painting’s Patriarchal Spirit Hyperallergic : 20 October 2018 LONDON—In 1981, the Royal Academy of Arts in London put on an exhibition of 20th century painting that changed the art world. A New Spirit in Painting was 'a manifesto,' the accompanying catalogue said; it showcased a set of contemporary, mostly European painters, whose work possessed qualities—figurative, narrative, emotional,...
Related Press Tumultuous Absorption Aesthetica Magazine : 13 February 2017 Two or three muted, but skillfully executed, pieces of portraiture slowly lead the viewer to paintings with the merest hint of figures, before dissolving entirely into realms of line, colour, light and rhythm. This is just the first room of the major Abstract Expressionism show at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, fresh from a groundbreaking run at...
Related Press There hasn’t been a major group show of Abstract Expressionism in Europe since 1959 Independent : 22 September 2016 In 1959, New York's Museum of Modern Art sent an exhibition to eight European cities—concluding at London's Tate gallery—with the calmly self-assured title of The New American Painting. It featured 17 artists, most of whom were associated with Abstract Expressionism, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz...
Related Press 8 Artist Haunts of Long Island and the Hamptons Paddle 8 : 28 July 2015 Malcolm Gladwell claims that "you can learn as much–or more–from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.” If the walls of these coastal homes could talk, we would be endlessly entertained with stories from the private lives of art power couples, from Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner to...
