Wolf Kahn

In my last post I referenced the artist Wolf Kahn so, since I really love his work, I thought I'd post an example. The first thing that attracted me to his work, of course, was his fantastic use of color. The picture here is a tamer one from him but, even here, you can see that he goes for the jugular with color. They are almost corrosive, like something you'd see flowing in a chemical spill that can eat through rubber. Yet, in his paintings, these colors are fully controlled and come to represent the intensity of light or the coolness of shadows. I also like that his use of color communicates a time of year or day, even though the colors are not at all what you would see in real life.

He seems to focus on landscapes, although his style and approach visually evoke the work of abstract expressionists. The harnessing of the freedom and psychology of abstract expressionism for something as traditional as landscape painting is a really interesting juxtaposition (how's that for the kind of arty-farty analysis like you'd find in a text book?). But I'm serious. I like abstract works, but I have to admit that there's something even more effective in a marriage of abstraction with the concrete. Perhaps this is because I feel that so much abstract art these days is more of a regurgitation of experiments that were done way back in the 40s and 50s. Anyone interested in a ANOTHER artist who does color field or 'splatter' paintings? Not me! I'd like to see something unique and innovative.

After art emancipated itself during the late 19th and 20th centuries, maybe it can back away from the need to rebel, react, or grandstand.