Robert Motherwell / Open
May 17 – July 21, 2018

Robert Motherwell

Galerie Templon is delighted to present a spectacular series of paintings, never before shown in Paris, by the American master of abstract art, Robert Motherwell. The exhibition will feature around twenty works from the mythical Open series produced in the 1970s.

In 1967, under the title Open, Robert Motherwell created a new series of work focusing on the theme of the window, previously explored by many artists, including Matisse, as a metaphor for the relationship between the inner world of emotions and outer world of the senses.

Intimate and meditative, the Open works are made up of simple planes of color broken up by three lines rendered in charcoal and forming loosely rectangular shapes. Fragments drawn on blocks of colors conjure up Motherwell’s ties to minimalism as well as, especially, the artist’s conceptual and philosophical standpoint, expressed in his exploration of the dualities between content and absence, space and surface.

Motherwell’s interest in the ‘stark beauty of dividing a flat, solid plane’ raises the question of the way in which nature has been altered by humans along with strictly artistic issues, such as the ‘viscosity of paint, of color fields, of the skin of the world’.

Robert Motherwell worked on the Open Series for almost two decades, until the early 1980s. As the series progressed, the works become increasingly complex as the artist worked through all possible permutations of these very limited means.

 

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell was born in 1915 in the USA and died in 1991. A leading figure in abstract expressionism, he was a painter, printmaker, editor and art critic. Thanks to his interest in philosophy, literature and poetry, he forged ties with the surrealist artists he met on his travels in Europe in 1935 and 1939. His early works were influenced by the simple forms and blocks of color that inhabited Matisse and Mondrian’s art.

A theorist and spokesman for the post-war New York School, his work bridged the European and American continents, incorporating the concept of automatism and psychoanalysis into American abstract art which he then promoted as the spearhead of a new international avant-garde.

 

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell taught throughout his life. His work has been extensively exhibited by the world’s top museums: in 1965, MoMA in New York presented a major retrospective of his work which travelled to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels and Museum Folkwang, Essen. Other retrospectives have been held in Düsseldorf (Städtische Kunsthalle, 1976), Paris (Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1977) and London (Royal Academy of Arts, 1978). A major exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY) in 1983 went on to travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington) and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The artist’s work has not been shown in Paris for over ten years.

 

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell’s paintings feature in the collections of leading museums, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Menil Collection (Houston), National Gallery of Art (Washington), Tate (London), Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland), Hara Museum (Tokyo), Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao) and Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou (Paris).

 

Robert Motherwell / Open
May 17 – July 21, 2018 / Galerie Templon
Please visit the exhibition page >

Beyond Fashion
Mar 11 – Jun 4, 2023
The photographers brought together in the exhibition have looked anew at the potential of fashion photography creating an imagery...
+
Seattle International Film Festival
May 11–21, 2023
SIFF has always been a space for discovery and this year's theme celebrates just that, filmmakers and communities from...
+
ARTPIL / Prescription .139
Cinco de Mayo
Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire. Bobby Sands dies of hunger strike in Prison. Christopher Columbus lands...
+
World Press Photo 2023
Winners & Exhibitions Announced
Representing major events and moments overlooked by the mainstream media in 2022, the 2023 World Press Photo Contest winners...
+
FUTURES / Artists Nominated
Emerging Artists 2023
The new emerging artists selected for 2023 has been announced. The Futures platform members have selected a promising group...
+
ARTPIL / Prescription .138
Beauty Is Not Enough
You can no longer quiet me with the redness of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know....
+
Sony World Photography Awards 2023
WINNERS & FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
Sony World Photography Awards is the leading competition for photographers and artists working in photography. The Awards are regarded...
+
Nicole Eisenman. What Happened
Mar 24 – Sep 10, 2023
Nicole Eisenman, What Happened surveys the entire spectrum of the artist’s three decades of work in painting and sculpture,...
+
Beyond Fashion
Mar 11 – Jun 4, 2023
The photographers brought together in the exhibition have looked anew at the potential of fashion photography creating an imagery...
+
Seattle International Film Festival
May 11–21, 2023
SIFF has always been a space for discovery and this year's theme celebrates just that, filmmakers and communities from...
+
ARTPIL / Prescription .139
Cinco de Mayo
Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire. Bobby Sands dies of hunger strike in Prison. Christopher Columbus lands...
+
World Press Photo 2023
Winners & Exhibitions Announced
Representing major events and moments overlooked by the mainstream media in 2022, the 2023 World Press Photo Contest winners...
+
FUTURES / Artists Nominated
Emerging Artists 2023
The new emerging artists selected for 2023 has been announced. The Futures platform members have selected a promising group...
+
ARTPIL / Prescription .138
Beauty Is Not Enough
You can no longer quiet me with the redness of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know....
+
Sony World Photography Awards 2023
WINNERS & FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
Sony World Photography Awards is the leading competition for photographers and artists working in photography. The Awards are regarded...
+
Nicole Eisenman. What Happened
Mar 24 – Sep 10, 2023
Nicole Eisenman, What Happened surveys the entire spectrum of the artist’s three decades of work in painting and sculpture,...
+