Much excitement in the lead-up to this on my part, going back to last year when I first heard about it, and the exhibition pretty much justifies all of that anticipation. It leads off with overviews of post-war abstraction in each of the US and Europe, and figuration in both Europe and the Americas (first room), then jumps spectacularly to minimalism, post-minimalism and conceptual art (large second room) before sliding into pop art and thereafter into four 'thematic chapters' ("the legacy of pop", "the natural world", "constructed worlds" and "between public and private").
Have actually been twice now - last weekend with Kelly (+ Glenn), Tamara and Vanessa, and the weekend before on my own (by way of a birthday/non-birthday activity) - with more trips to come, too, so these thoughts are by way of synthesised response...
.jpg)
The main event for me was always going to be the abstract expressionist stuff, and the show leads off with pieces by three of its most famous artists - one of Rothko's untitled canvasses of wave-blocks of colour, de Kooning's "...Whose Name Was Writ in Water" and an "Untitled (Green Silver)" by Pollock. All three are characteristic of more or less the most famous periods/styles of their respective painters (I could have wished that one of the two Rothko selections in the show would have been one of his solid swathe/banded ones, rather than the earlier Surrealist-influenced piece and the blotchy, less intensely pulsating transitional work which actually made the cut, but I guess the curators/assemblers might have thought that including one would be slightly otiose given that there's one in the NGV's permanent collection) and collectively make a most pleasing introduction.
In that first room, my other favourites are Pierre Soulages' "Peinture, 195 x 130 cm, mai 1953" (the representational/non-representational black on white with shadows cross), Adolph Gottlieb's amorphous and immensely aesthetically satisfying "Mist", and Jules Olitski's deliciously colour-drenched "Lysander 1". Morris Louis' "Saraband" seems to have been a winner with other folk (I quite liked it too, but more the first time than the second); Jesus Rafael Soto's "Vibration" and Asger Jorn's "A Soul for Sale" also much fun; and definitely experienced the hypnotic quality of Ellsworth Kelly's "Dark Blue Curve" with which Kelly was much taken (and which Tamara thought was altogether too 'insurance company logo').
As to that last, actually, a key part of the whole exhibition is the sheer size and scale of many of its components - it really adds to the experience to be able to immerse in them. That was a big thing (pun unintended) in the next room, too - the most untraditional, installation-oriented part of the show. There, I liked Sol LeWitt's colour-pencilled gridded wall drawing a lot, and also enjoyed walking on (Carl Andre's "5 x 20 Alstadt Rectangle" metal carpet squares on the ground) and into (Bruce Nauman's "Floating Room (Light Outside, Dark Inside)") the art. It's a cool room and if its constituents were generally perhaps a bit too 'Concept' to really speak to me, I like it being there.
Pop art has always been a non-event for me (I find it hollow and vacuous, which may be the point but that doesn't make me like it any more) and I don't like the stuff collected here under the "legacy of pop" umbrella any better. The "natural world" pieces, though, are brill in all different ways: Nigel Cooke's "Mummy" is cute and profound (I picked up on the fruit-stuffed-with-dynamite on my first pass, but missed the little head) in that 'illustration from a really cool children's book' style that so often appeals to me; Olafur Eliasson's horizon photographs are delightful; Elger Esser's minimalistic, stark "Ameland Pier X, Netherlands" is the kind of scene I dream of on good nights; Dave Muller's cloud and balloon panels are close to the most simply whimsical things in the whole exhibition.
As to the rest, not much of it was my cup of tea, though it was neat to see a Gregory Crewdson original-sized print (I liked it but prefer the more anonymously forboding dreamscapes of his that I've previously seen in magazines and whatnot to the 'naked dirty mother arriving at the dinner table' one here) and Rachel Whiteread's plaster cast of a basement is simply ace.
So!
Have actually been twice now - last weekend with Kelly (+ Glenn), Tamara and Vanessa, and the weekend before on my own (by way of a birthday/non-birthday activity) - with more trips to come, too, so these thoughts are by way of synthesised response...
.jpg)
The main event for me was always going to be the abstract expressionist stuff, and the show leads off with pieces by three of its most famous artists - one of Rothko's untitled canvasses of wave-blocks of colour, de Kooning's "...Whose Name Was Writ in Water" and an "Untitled (Green Silver)" by Pollock. All three are characteristic of more or less the most famous periods/styles of their respective painters (I could have wished that one of the two Rothko selections in the show would have been one of his solid swathe/banded ones, rather than the earlier Surrealist-influenced piece and the blotchy, less intensely pulsating transitional work which actually made the cut, but I guess the curators/assemblers might have thought that including one would be slightly otiose given that there's one in the NGV's permanent collection) and collectively make a most pleasing introduction.
In that first room, my other favourites are Pierre Soulages' "Peinture, 195 x 130 cm, mai 1953" (the representational/non-representational black on white with shadows cross), Adolph Gottlieb's amorphous and immensely aesthetically satisfying "Mist", and Jules Olitski's deliciously colour-drenched "Lysander 1". Morris Louis' "Saraband" seems to have been a winner with other folk (I quite liked it too, but more the first time than the second); Jesus Rafael Soto's "Vibration" and Asger Jorn's "A Soul for Sale" also much fun; and definitely experienced the hypnotic quality of Ellsworth Kelly's "Dark Blue Curve" with which Kelly was much taken (and which Tamara thought was altogether too 'insurance company logo').
As to that last, actually, a key part of the whole exhibition is the sheer size and scale of many of its components - it really adds to the experience to be able to immerse in them. That was a big thing (pun unintended) in the next room, too - the most untraditional, installation-oriented part of the show. There, I liked Sol LeWitt's colour-pencilled gridded wall drawing a lot, and also enjoyed walking on (Carl Andre's "5 x 20 Alstadt Rectangle" metal carpet squares on the ground) and into (Bruce Nauman's "Floating Room (Light Outside, Dark Inside)") the art. It's a cool room and if its constituents were generally perhaps a bit too 'Concept' to really speak to me, I like it being there.
Pop art has always been a non-event for me (I find it hollow and vacuous, which may be the point but that doesn't make me like it any more) and I don't like the stuff collected here under the "legacy of pop" umbrella any better. The "natural world" pieces, though, are brill in all different ways: Nigel Cooke's "Mummy" is cute and profound (I picked up on the fruit-stuffed-with-dynamite on my first pass, but missed the little head) in that 'illustration from a really cool children's book' style that so often appeals to me; Olafur Eliasson's horizon photographs are delightful; Elger Esser's minimalistic, stark "Ameland Pier X, Netherlands" is the kind of scene I dream of on good nights; Dave Muller's cloud and balloon panels are close to the most simply whimsical things in the whole exhibition.
As to the rest, not much of it was my cup of tea, though it was neat to see a Gregory Crewdson original-sized print (I liked it but prefer the more anonymously forboding dreamscapes of his that I've previously seen in magazines and whatnot to the 'naked dirty mother arriving at the dinner table' one here) and Rachel Whiteread's plaster cast of a basement is simply ace.
So!
