Warhol and Pollock: Figurative and Abstract Art at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain , yesterday presented the exhibition Warhol, Pollock and Other American Spaces , which brings together the work of two key names in 20th-century art .

"We don't do exhibitions because they're blockbusters or not. Warhol and Pollock interest us because they're central to the history of art, aside from their celebrity, which interests us more as a social and intellectual terrain," said Guillermo Solana, artistic director of the Thyssen, in a press conference.

WE RECOMMEND: Vandalized Columbus painting restored at the Naval Museum, Spain

Comprised of more than 100 works , Solana defended the exhibition , which questions the "canon" of modern art history, by two artists who are conceptually opposites . "They represented the abstract and the figurative, the aniconic and pure iconism. Pollock was painting without an image, and Warhol was the image without painting," the director explained.

THE EXHIBITION THAT BREAKS BINARISM IN THE HISTORY OF ART

The exhibition deconstructs this “binary” scheme, in Solana’s words, showing how Pollock’s work is built on the “crossing out” of the figurative , while Warhol “is not simply a reproducer of icons,” but someone in whose work “an abstract pictorial dimension emerges.”

Looking at both artists together, we discover a new pictorial space in which figuration and abstraction blend and mask each other.

“It is a space constructed in layers, fragmented, multifocal, ambiguous, and in a sense queer,” Solana explained.

For her part, the exhibition's curator, Estrella de Diego, celebrated the fact that this project is finally seeing the light of day . "It's been the obsession of my life. I've been thinking for 25 years about these issues that have to do with the fact that we break art history down because it's easier for us," said De Diego.

When we say Renaissance, we know it's not Baroque, and when we say figurative, we know it's not abstract, but is this really the case?" the curator asked.

The exhibition catalog , produced with support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, includes texts by Estrella de Diego (curator) and Patrick Moore (former director of The Warhol Museum) and the transcript of a conversation between Estrella de Diego, Guillermo Kuitca (Argentine painter), and Guillermo Solana (artistic director of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza). Available in two editions, Spanish and English.

KEY DETAILS OF THE EXHIBITION

Focus: The exhibition focuses on the similarities and parallels between the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and the Pop Art of Andy Warhol, along with other American artists of the same period.

Content: The exhibition explores how both artists experimented with new spatial strategies in their work and how their work reflects the changes and contrasts in 20th-century American society.

Curatorship: The exhibition seeks to break with the canon of modern art that has typically viewed Pollock and Warhol as artistic antagonists, revealing points of contact in their careers.

Context: Warhol, a central figure of Pop Art, used consumer culture and mass reproduction to question the idea of ​​the unique work of art. Pollock, meanwhile, was a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism, famous for his dripping technique and gestural spontaneity. The Thyssen exhibition offers a new perspective on the relationship between these movements.

With information from Europa Press.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST NEWS HERE

*mcam