Jackson Pollock's 'Mural': Energy Made Visible
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Curated by David Anfam
From April 23 through November 16, 2015 the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural:’ Energy Made Visible. The exhibition is curated by David Anfam, Senior Consulting Curator, Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, and a preeminent authority on Abstract Expressionism. This touring exhibition focuses on Jackson Pollock’s Mural (1943, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City), following its 18-month campaign of conservation and cleaning at the Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles. The immensely dynamic Mural is the largest painting Pollock created and it has exerted a seismic impact on American art down to the present day. Commissioned in the summer of 1943 by Peggy Guggenheim for her New York townhouse, Mural established a new sense of scale and audacity for the Abstract Expressionist movement, anticipating the classic ‘poured’ abstractions that Pollock would begin four years later. Setting Mural into context, the selection includes Pollock’s newly-restored Alchemy, as well as works by the artist’s wife Lee Krasner, David Smith and Robert Motherwell. Crucially, it also sheds new light on Pollock’s relationship to such photographers of action and energy as Herbert Matter, Barbara Morgan, Aaron Siskind and Gjon Mili. The exhibition travels to the Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin and then to the Museo Picasso, Málaga. Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural:’ Energy Made Visible is organized by The University of Iowa Museum of Art.
A fully-illustrated book by David Anfam, published by Thames & Hudson, accompanies the exhibition.