The audio tour for John Chamberlain: Choices shares perspectives on select key works from the exhibition.
www.guggenheim.org/chamberlain

Exhibition Website

John Chamberlain's Involvement with Abstract Expressionism

Access a slow-looking description of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This oil-on-canvas painting by František Kupka from 1912 to 1913 is titled "Localization of Graphic Motifs II." The nonrepresentational composition, measuring about six-and-a-half feet square, is full of repeating forms. The colors blue, grass green, violet pink, and red orange stand out as they recur and diminish across the canvas, creating a visually deep space that recalls a room of mirrors. At the painting’s center is a large white triangular space around which the colorful, stacked, repeating forms seem to twist, almost like a whirlpool or fractal. The lines and forms are rendered with soft brushstrokes applied softly back-and-forth, producing the impression that waves of color are pulsing or vibrating.  

Kupka was interested in capturing dynamism. The painting contains a sense of movement and grandiosity with these centripetal forms whirling inside it. Kupka spoke about the fragmentary nature of sensory information, and a painting like this suggests the binocular structure of vision, presenting staccato moments over time, as in cinema or stop-motion videos.  

Kupka called his vibrating lines “stereoscopic bridges”—markings that guide sight and the perception of depth. Through streaming waves of color that appear to emerge out of and converge in the pictorial space, he investigated the science of vision, optics, and energy. Upending painting’s static nature, Kupka embraced the experiential aspect of the image.

Orphism - Verbal Descriptions

Description of Localization of Graphic Motifs II (Localisations de mobiles graphiques II), 1912-13

As part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Summer of Know series, artist Ad Minoliti and activist Adam Werner discussed social and artistic responsibility, and building community on digital platforms, with moderation by X Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum.

Photo: Ed Marshall

Archivo de la Memoria Trans
https://archivodelamemoriatrans.tumblr.com/

Queer Ancestors Project
https://www.queerancestorsproject.org/

The Feminist School of Painting
http://fschool.kadist.org/

Cromoactivismo
https://www.facebook.com/Cromoactivismo-1430319627007557/

Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal Seguro y Gratuito
http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/

Summer of Know

Conversation: Ad Minoliti and Adam Werner (2019)

Listen to audio about exhibitions and artworks at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark building is home to a collection of modern and contemporary masterpieces.

Description of Localization of Graphic Motifs II (Localisations de mobiles graphiques II), 1912-13

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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