Overview
In the autumn of 2006, The Museum of Modern Art will present Brice Marden: A Retrospective, the artist's first major American retrospective. The exhibition, which will travel to San Francisco and Berlin, will constitute an unprecedented gathering of Marden's work, with more than 50 paintings and an equal number of drawings, balanced across the artist's career. The accompanying catalogue is the first book to take readers through the full course of Marden's work as it has developed over more than 40 years from the early 1960s to the present, showing his gradual, deliberate evolution, along with his constant exploration of light, color and surface at every turn. Marden's first 20 years of work, characterized by the luminous monochrome panels for which he won his first acclaim, will for the first time appear alongside the celebrated production of the past 20 years, which followed a shift in the mid-1980s to calligraphic gestures in shimmering grounds, and another shift in the past decade to heightened color. Two of Marden's newest paintings appear here for the first time. Gary Garrels interprets Marden's work and places it in historical context. Carol C. Mancusi-Ungaro, of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art at Harvard, examines issues of materials, processes and conservation. Richard Shiff, Brenda Richardson and Michael Duffy explore Marden's early use of a grid and his engagement with time and space in the studio, as well as his observation of the elemental qualities of nature, his representational links to nature, and the distinctive emotional effects of the abstract monochrome works for which he was initially recognized. Marden himself addresses his workingmethods in an interview, and a comprehensive chronology, exhibition history and bibliography close the book out.
Synopsis
In the autumn of 2006, The Museum of Modern Art will present Brice Marden: A Retrospective, the artist's first major American retrospective. The exhibition, which will travel to San Francisco and Berlin, will constitute an unprecedented gathering of Marden's work, with more than 50 paintings and an equal number of drawings, balanced across the artist's career. The accompanying catalogue is the first book to take readers through the full course of Marden's work as it has developed over more than 40 years from the early 1960s to the present, showing his gradual, deliberate evolution, along with his constant exploration of light, color and surface at every turn. Marden's first 20 years of work, characterized by the luminous monochrome panels for which he won his first acclaim, will for the first time appear alongside the celebrated production of the past 20 years, which followed a shift in the mid-1980s to calligraphic gestures in shimmering grounds, and another shift in the past decade to heightened color. Two of Marden's newest paintings appear here for the first time. Gary Garrels interprets Marden's work and places it in historical context. Carol C. Mancusi-Ungaro, of the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art at Harvard, examines issues of materials, processes and conservation. Richard Shiff, Brenda Richardson and Michael Duffy explore Marden's early use of a grid and his engagement with time and space in the studio, as well as his observation of the elemental qualities of nature, his representational links to nature, and the distinctive emotional effects of the abstract monochrome works for which he was initially recognized. Marden himself addresses his workingmethods in an interview, and a comprehensive chronology, exhibition history and bibliography close the book out.
Library Journal
Artist Marden has created an influential body of work that is traced here from the earliest color field oil paintings and pieces involving grids to his interest in Chinese calligraphy and the current work for which he is best known. The artist made his mark as a minimalist in the 1960s and 1970s, though he remains uncomfortable with the label, saying he "feels like more of an abstract expressionist." This title accompanies the largest retrospective of Marden's work to date, organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and traveling to San Francisco and Berlin. Essays by Gary Garrels (curator, Museum of Modern Art, New York) and others attempt to place the artist in a broad historical context, and the book is indeed rigorous and comprehensive. Whether the artist is working with oil, ink, graphite, or charcoal, his lifelong fascination with light and its impact on the essence of color is central to each work. A candid interview with Marden will prove illuminating for students of painting, especially in its handling of the technical aspects of the artist's compelling oeuvre. For large contemporary art collections.-Douglas McClemont, New York Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.