Marina Kellen French Lecture

Breaking Free: The Pleasures and Terrors of Abstract Expressionism

In cooperation with Museum Barberini, Potsdam

In the late 1940s, Abstract Expressionism took the American art world by storm. As artist Barnett Newman wrote, in 1948, “We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our image.” But, whose image was “ours?” Abstract Expressionism was the first “international” style to originate in the US. And while the recognized practitioners—largely white men—were at first ridiculed, they soon reigned supreme over an exclusive new academy. Although these artists professed new freedoms and did not speak with one voice, their seeming hermeticism and the infrastructure that supported them was self delimiting and largely barred entry to women and artists of color, whose contributions were equally relevant.

This talk will consider those makers who exceeded the limits of the defined style from within and without, among them Ed Clark, Beauford Delaney, Philip Guston, Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, Johan Mitchell, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne, and Alma Thomas.

Free access to the live stream can be found on the day of the event on the Museum Barberini website.