The exhibition examined the creative interplay between Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel in transatlantic exchange and dialogue, from the mid-1940s to the end of the Cold War.
Following World War II, painting went in completely new directions. A new generation of artists turned their backs on the styles of the interwar period: Instead of figurative representation or geometric abstraction, painters in the orbit of Abstract Expressionism in the US and Art Informel in Western Europe pursued a radically impulsive approach to form, color, and material. As an expression of individual freedom, the spontaneous painterly gesture gained symbolic significance. Large-scale color-field paintings created a meditative space for ruminating the fundamental questions of human existence.
The exhibition included more than ninety works by around fifty artists, amongst them Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, K. O. Götz, Lee Krasner, Georges Mathieu, Joan Mitchell, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Judit Reigl, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. The over thirty international lenders included the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London, the Museo nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
The exhibition was organized by the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, the Albertina Modern, Vienna, and the Munchmuseet, Oslo, curated by Daniel Zamani. With generous support from the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève.