Sonja Sekula was born in Lucerne in 1918 and moved to the east coast of the USA in 1936, after which she became part of the circle of artists and associates in New York; a heady time, and according to the catalogue notes, "it was much more the moment of transition - from Europe to America, from Surrealism to American Abstract Expressionism, and from literature to visual art - to which Sonja Sekula was dedicated" - an engagement with abstraction, surrealism and expressionism without being bounded by any of them, a preference which the same notes (and the exhibition as a whole) argue was at least partly responsible for Sekula not receiving the recognition and canonical status of many of the contemporaries with whom she shared influences, styles and friendships.
I hadn't come across Sekula before, but on the strength of this exhibition, I wouldn't say that I'm convinced. She comes across as technically sound, and probably conceptually so too - if somewhat protean - and the presentation of her (varied) work amidst that of her more lauded contemporaries both locates her in that milieu and highlights stylistic similiarities that certainly do exist. But for the most part, Sekula's pieces simply don't zip with the same freshness as those others (which include Matta, Newman, Pollock, Gorky, Rothko and Louise Bourgeois - naturally, all welcome encounters), even after some time spent learning how to 'read' them...they're good, not great.
I hadn't come across Sekula before, but on the strength of this exhibition, I wouldn't say that I'm convinced. She comes across as technically sound, and probably conceptually so too - if somewhat protean - and the presentation of her (varied) work amidst that of her more lauded contemporaries both locates her in that milieu and highlights stylistic similiarities that certainly do exist. But for the most part, Sekula's pieces simply don't zip with the same freshness as those others (which include Matta, Newman, Pollock, Gorky, Rothko and Louise Bourgeois - naturally, all welcome encounters), even after some time spent learning how to 'read' them...they're good, not great.
