Locks Gallery is pleased to announce its next exhibition, Post Painterly Abstraction, a group exhibition with seven artists spanning four decades. The term “Post Painterly Abstraction” was coined by the influential American art critic Clement Greenberg to describe the work of artists from the generation after Abstract Expressionism who moved “toward a physical openness of design, or towards a linear clarity.” This exhibition traces the path of Post Painterly Abstraction to the present day.
The exhibition includes Paul Feeley, head of the art department at Bennington College during the 1960s, when artists rejecting Abstract Expressionism for a more restrained, non-gestural style flocked to Bennington. Several early works by Judy Chicago will also be included. Chicago produced a significant body of minimal abstract works in the 1960s and early 70s before beginning “Dinner Party” of 1974–79, which was recently permanently installed at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition will also include several Optical paintings from the 1970s by Philadelphia artist Edna Andrade. Several of her Optical paintings are also included in Optic Nerve, a major survey of Op Art, currently at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Post Painterly Abstraction will also include recent works by artists exhibiting for the first time with the gallery. A large-scale fabric floor piece by Polly Apfelbaum will be shown. The 18-foot work is a companion to her piece in the Museum of Modern Art’s Comic Abstraction exhibition. Philadelphia artist and Venice Biennale exhibitor Odili Donald Odita will be showing his large-scale hard-edged abstract paintings. Recent abstract paintings by Andy Collins and Stuart Netsky in the exhibition play off of Abstract Expressionism as well as Color Field and Finish Fetish painting of the 1960s.
