Explosion
Painting as Action
Stockholm -
2 June 2012
- 9 September 2012
Explosion explores the rich and complex cross fertilisations and borderlands of painting, performance and conceptual art. It traces this expanded idea of painting as action from late 1940’s until today. The exhibition will include works in different mediums by some 45 artists from many parts of the world such as the important Japanese Gutai group, among others Shozo Shimamoto, Sadamasa Motonaga, Saburo Murakami and Kazuo Shiraga, along with artists as Allan Kaprow, Jackson Pollock, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Klein, Ana Mendieta, Alison Knowles, Rivane Neuenschwander, Yoko Ono and Lawrence Weiner.
After the Second World War, a number of painters in different parts of the world began to attack painting’s fundamental assumptions in ways that were at once both aggressive and playful. Many artists attached as much importance to the creative act itself as they did to the painting that resulted from it. On this borderland between painting and performance, chance or the spectator were often recruited as co-creators of the work. This experimental, conceptual attitude to painting and art subsequently inspired a lot of other artists. In recent years, interest in performance art has increased, and with it interest in its roots.
The exhibition is divided into themes to mark out some different approaches and interests among the artists, for example: Dripping, throwing and shooting, Painting machines, Games and Destruction as creation. True to the expanding nature of the work in the exhibition, Explosion will reach beyond the walls of the museum and involve all kinds of events. Such as a performance program with Sadaharu Horio, Anastasia Ax, music by John Cage and Anna Pehrsson dancing a choreography by Deborah Hay.
The exhibition has been produced by Moderna Museet.
Curator: Magnus af Petersens
With support from
