Joan M. Marter

A collection of essays that discuss abstract expressionist art.

The International Context

Abstract Expressionism

Simon Anderson

Newark Museum

Off Limits is the first examination of the Rutgers group, artists who came together on the Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus during the 1950s and revolutionized art practices and pedagogy. Based on interviews with artists, critics, and dealers from the period, the book connects the initiation of major trends such as Happenings, Pop Art, and Fluxus to the faculty, students, art curriculum, and events at the university. It is the first book to look not only at the work of individual artists, but to consider how interactions between these artists influenced their groundbreaking work. Rutgers was clearly the place to be for experimental artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Allan Kaprow's first Happening was presented at Rutgers. Roy Lichtenstein's first Pop paintings, George Segal's earliest figurative tableaux, Lucas Samaras's radical exploration of media, and proto-Fluxus events by Robert Watts and George Brecht all took place on and around the campus. The innovative group rejected Abstract Expressionism for art based on the immediate experience of urban and industrial life, creating startling new artforms which remain startling and provocative. Led by the theoretical writings and art practice of Kaprow, the group created a New Art—art beyond the limits of the conventional and predictable, even beyond accepted notions of progressive trends. Lichtenstein recalls in an interview, “Kaprow showed us that art didn't have to look like art.” Along with Lichtenstein, Kaprow, Segal, and Watts taught at Rutgers and challenged one another to take art “Off Limits” — beyond the limits of the conventional, the predictable — even beyond the progressive, as defined by Abstract Expressionist gesturalism. Their art incorporated the gritty environs, the technological, the everyday, making art radical, outrageous, disturbing, and humorous.

Rutgers University and the Avant-garde, 1957-1963

Off Limits

This book explores the achievements of a group of young women artists who learned about the New Art through an extraordinary faculty of innovators at Douglass College. New Art rejected the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, advocating that art should be based on everyday life and that "anything can be art."

Visual Arts at Douglass College

Women Artists on the Leading Edge

Tracey R. Bashkoff

Megan M. Fontanella

Pioneering artists in the post-World War II era alternatively embraced artistic freedom and gesture-based styles, nontraditional materials and countercultural references. French art critic Michel Tapié even declared the existence of un art autre (art of another kind) a radical break with all traditional notions of order and composition, in a movement toward something wholly other. This catalogue accompanies the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 19491960, which especially highlights works that entered into the collection during the tenure of then-director James Johnson Sweeney. Featuring nearly 100 works by Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Burri, Asger Jorn, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Soulages, Antoni Tàpies and Zao Wou-Ki, among others, this collection-based exhibition explores the affinities and differences between artists working continents apart in a period of great transition and rapid creative development. This fully illustrated exhibition catalogue includes essays by Tracey Bashkoff, Megan M. Fontanella, and Joan Marter; an illustrated chronology; and short biographies of the artists.

International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960

Art of Another Kind

Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)

Lauretta Dimmick

Donna J. Hassler

This publication, the first of two volumes, presents a definitive new catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's distinguished collection of American sculpture. The Museum's holdings accurately document the history of American sculpture and its development as a profession, from the artists who lived in Italy and carved in marble and those who studied in Paris and cast in bronze, to those who worked only in the U.S. and were pioneers in the techniques of their arts. It begins with an introduction to the history of the collection, and includes a summary biography of each of the 61 sculptors. The entries for each of the 198 objects incorporate the most up-to-date scholarship as well as documentation from the archival material at the Museum. Contains 227 illustrations, 29 of which are in color.

American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A catalogue of works by artists born before 1865

The Drawings

Theodore Roszak

How do students develop a personal style from their instruction in a visual arts program? Women Artists on the Leading Edge explores this question as it describes the emergence of an important group of young women artists from an innovative post-war visual arts program at Douglass College. The women who studied with avant-garde artists at Douglas were among the first students in the nation to be introduced to performance art, conceptual art, Fluxus, and Pop Art. These young artists were among the first to experience new approaches to artmaking that rejected the predominant style of the 1950s: Abstract Expressionism. The New Art espoused by faculty including Robert Watts, Allan Kaprow, Roy Lichtenstein, Geoffrey Hendricks, and others advocated that art should be based on everyday life. The phrase “anything can be art” was frequently repeated in the creation of Happenings, multi-media installations, and video art. Experimental approaches to methods of creation using a remarkable range of materials were investigated by these young women. Interdisciplinary aspects of the Douglass curriculum became the basis for performances, videos, photography, and constructions. Sculpture was created using new technologies and industrial materials. The Douglass women artists included in this book were among the first to implement the message and direction of their instructors. Ultimately, the artistic careers of these young women have reflected the successful interaction of students with a cutting-edge faculty. From this BA and MFA program in the Visual Arts emerged women such as Alice Aycock. Rita Myers, Joan Snyder, Mimi Smith, and Jackie Winsor, who went on to become lifelong innovators. Camaraderie was important among the Douglass art students, and many continue to be instructors within a close circle of associates from their college years. Even before the inception of the women’s art movement of the 1970s, these women students were encouraged to pursue professional careers, and to remain independent in their approach to making art. The message of the New Art was to relate one’s art production to life itself and to personal experiences. From these directions emerged a “proto-feminist” art of great originality identified with women’s issues. The legacy of these artists can be found in radical changes in art instruction since the 1950s, the promotion of non-hierarchical approaches to media, and acceptance of conceptual art as a viable art form.

Where is American art in the new millennium? At the heart of all cultural developments is diversity. Access through recent technology engenders interaction with artists from around the world. The visual arts in the United States are bold and pulsating with new ideas.

Joan M. Marter

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