What's On? Winter 2015 Issue

Jan 17, 2016

A quarterly calendar of the best abstract art events around the world.

Frank Stella: A Retrospective

Open through 7 February 2016
Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York 10014
At age 79, Frank Stella may be one of the most important living American abstract artists. This retrospective at the Whitney spans 55 years of Stella's professional career. The exhibition offers viewers a detailed glimpse of the evolution of an extraordinarily prolific artist. Stella's work is in conversation with many other voices from art history, and yet is boldly modern. This retrospective demonstrates how Stella blurs the line between painting and sculpture, and charts his important contribution toward the contemporary urge toward multidisciplinary practice.

Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934–1954

Open through 13 March 2016
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 W 53rd Street, New York 10019
If you haven't yet had a chance to visit, this exhibition of the MoMA's extensive Pollock collection has been running since October. The works on display chart his entire career, including the pioneering drip works for which he became famous.

Moira Dryer at 11R

Open through 7 February 2016
11R, 195 Chrystie Street, New York City 10002
Moira Dryer was an abstract artist known in the 1980s for her softly engaging, large-scale, painterly works of geometric abstraction. She died in 1992 at the age of 35. This show will exhibit work Dryer made between 1985 and 1992.

Concrete Cuba

Open through 20 February 2016
David Zwirner, 537 W 20th Street, New York City 10011
As Cuba and the United States open their arms to each other once again, this optimistic exhibition of mid-20th Century Cuban geometric abstractionists from feels right on time. The name Concrete Cuba comes from Los Diez Pintores Concretos (Ten Concrete Painters), the name of the group of painters being displayed in this show.

Richard Aldrich, “Time Stopped, Time Started”

29 January - 5 March 2016
Gladstone Gallery, 515 W 24th Street, New York 10011
This exhibition presents Aldrich's newer abstract paintings and sculptures. The 40-year old Aldrich utilizes diverse mediums and materials, such as fabric, paint and records, to create abstract works that evoke a sense of time and memory.

Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture

Open through 3 April 2016
Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
This exhibition brings together Calder's kinetic sculptures, paintings and other objects, creating a full sense of the artist's aesthetic. The collection exudes both whimsy and power as it fluctuates between abstraction and representation, practicality and form.

John Hoyland: Power Stations – Paintings 1964-1982

Open through 3 April 2016
Newport Street Gallery, Newport Street, London SE11 6AJ
There are two great reasons to see this exhibition of large-scale works by John Hoyland, one of Britain's most important abstract painters. The first is simply to encounter so many of these majestic paintings in one place. The second is to visit the Newport Gallery, the long-awaited exhibition space of artist Damien Hirst. The 37,000-SF space, built exclusively to showcase Hirst's personal art collection, perfectly compliments the transcendental nature of Hoyland's work.

Picasso.Mania

Open through 29 February 2016
Grand Palais - 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris
This one-of-a-kind exhibition presents works by Pablo Picasso displayed alongside the works of 74 other artists. The show features 400 works of art, which chronologically trace Picasso's career while simultaneously demonstrating his impact and influence on every major art movement of the past century.

A New Look: 1960s and ’70s Abstract Painting at the AGO

Open through 27 March 2016
Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street, West Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 1G4
This exhibition is a reunion of sorts for an assortment of influential American and Canadian abstract painters from the 1960s and 70s. The artists, which include Frank Stella, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis and Kenneth Clifton Noland, were all part of a previous landmark exhibition at AGO in 1964, called Post-Painterly Abstraction. A curator's talk for this unique show will be held at the AGO in Jackman Hall on Wednesday, February 3 at 7pm.

Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Bilbao Collection

Open through 3 April 2016
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Avenida Abandoibarra, 2, Bilbao, 48001, Spain
This extraordinary exhibition includes paintings from several masters of abstraction, including Mark Rothko, Yves Klein (whose breathtaking Large Blue Anthropometry (ANT 105) is on display), Cy Twombly and Gerhard Richter.

Hard Edge, Abstract Sculpture 1960s–70s

13 February - 31 July 2016
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), 180 St Kilda Road, Southbank VIC 3006, Melbourne, Australia
This exhibition will focus on 13 influential abstract sculptures by Mid-20th Century Australian artists. The show will include the original model for the infamous work Vault, by Ron Robertson-Swann. Vault was intended for display in Melbourne's City Square, but the large, yellow, minimalist work was heavily criticized and torn down within six months of its installation. The now-iconic work is currently installed outside of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

Featured image: Photo credit Adagp, Paris