Description:
A vividly illustrated volume tracing the monochrome as a fundamental yet expansive strategy in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art.
Exploring a fantastic range of monochromatic artworks, Monochrome Multitudes upends traditional accounts of abstraction, revisits modernist ideas, and reveals the creative possibilities and global resonance of a seemingly reductive art form.
Bringing together examples spanning five continents, the book considers how artists such as El Anatsui, Mark Bradford, Lygia Clark, Lucio Fontana, Ellsworth Kelly, Yayoi Kusama, Kasimir Malevich, Gerhard Richter, Betye Saar, Amanda Williams, Haegue Yang, as well as little-known early cartoonists have experimented with monochrome compositions. Scholars of art history, film, music, law, disability studies, astrophysics, neurobiology, mathematics, and more reflect on monochrome artworks that build on foundational components of modernism. Together, they illuminate often overlooked cultural, political, racial, and gendered meanings of artworks; reveal the significance of materials ranging from fiber, wall paint, and videotape, to footballs, pantyhose, and candy; and engage North American art in a global dialog extending into Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Artworks are presented in monochromatic groupings--yellow, blue, white, red, gray, and black--and thematic sections trace connections across topics such as the body, the environment, urban space, sound, and media.
Brief description:
Orianna Cacchione is deputy director and curator of exhibitions at the University of Richmond Museums. She has curated and cocurated solo exhibitions of Tang Chang, Tiffany Chung, Abigial DeVille, Shubigi Rao, Cauleen Smith, Haegue Yang, Samson Young, and Zhang Peili as well as thematic exhibitions including Monochrome Multitudes and The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China. She coedited The Allure of Matter: Materiality Across Chinese Art and Imaginable Worlds: Art, Crisis, and Global Futures.
Review Quotes:
"Monochrome Multitudes is an exhilarating read that brings with it a groundbreaking approach to art history. A spirit of adventure suffuses every page and provides a visual and intellectual feast for any curious reader."
--Ann Temkin, Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA