Zwirned David

Art & Beauty Magazine - Numbers 1, 2 & 3: Numbers 1, 2 & 3 : Drawings by R. Crumb

Exploring the origins of Josef Albers' groundbreaking Homage to the Square in the exquisite palettes of day and night Using minimal means--paint straight from the tube, applied meticulously with a palette knife--and a focused selection of colors, Josef Albers' sustained, serial investigation into rhythm, mood and spatial movement is explored in this lavishly produced volume that looks solely at his respective grey and yellow paintings, exploring two distinct color palettes pervasive to his oeuvre. Highlighting the rich diversity of effects Albers drew from a narrow range of colors, this publication centers around the groundbreaking "Homage to the Square (A)" (1950), the inaugural painting in the series that would occupy the artist until his death in 1976. The pairing of two palettes--black, white and grey and an array of yellows--stems in part from Albers' 1964 series of lithographs, Midnight and Noon, which brought together these two opposing color sets in a single portfolio. Together they address the limitless possibilities the artist found in color and form in relation to light. The impossible simultaneity of "midnight" and "noon" moreover speaks to Albers' transcending of what he called "factual facts" in favor of the play of perception and illusion possible in art. Opening with an introduction by Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, that contextualizes these works and their color palettes, this volume also includes Albers' own writing on Homage to the Square. Additionally, Elaine de Kooning's historic text and Colm Toibin's recent writing explore this body of work from different perspectives and time periods. Published on the occasion of exhibitions at David Zwirner's New York and London galleries in 2016 and 2017, this beautifully illustrated publication looks at one of the most influential abstract painters of the 20th century.

This gorgeously produced monograph focuses on the period during which Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) developed and refined his investigations of serial, reductive and permutational forms and compositions, a body of work that has had a profound influence on 20th-century contemporary art and painting. Included here are four of the ten iconic "yellow cloth paintings," a series featured prominently in the historic 1998 exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and numerous late paintings by the Italian master. Lavishly reproduced, these immersive plates draw attention to the idiosyncratic perspectival and color-driven decisions that give the work its abstract power. In addition to an essay by art historian Laura Mattioli, founder of the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), the book includes a fantastic array of contributions by contemporary artists, including John Baldessari, Lawrence Carroll, Vija Celmins, Mark Greenwold, Liu Ye, Alexi Worth and Zeng Fanzhi. Each of the artists offers a personal response to Morandi's work, and to the 2015 David Zwirner exhibition this book accompanies. Working in different mediums across many disciplines, this diverse list of contributors is a testament to the reach of Morandi's paintings and their influence on contemporary art.