Why Abstraction?

In this conversation with Elisabeth Hodermarsky, Keely Orgeman, and Gregor Quack, the cocurators of Midcentury Abstraction: A Closer Look consider some of the standout objects in the exhibition, many of which are hidden gems of the Yale University Art Gallery’s collections that have rarely, if ever, been on view. The program features work in a variety of media by several artists active around the middle of the 20th century, including Hannelore Baron, Alberto Burri, Dorothy Dehner, Sam Gilliam, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Hedda Sterne. In addition to making visual connections among the objects, the curators focus on the artists’ innovative use of materials in the postwar era and on the influence of the Cold War on the production and promotion of abstract art at midcentury and beyond. As the talk will suggest, there was no single impetus for the emergence of abstraction. Rather, the artists found their own unique, markedly different points of entry. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.