The Challenge of a Straight Line and ‘Making Art Concrete’ – Getty Museum

How might you paint a perfectly sharp and clean straight line without blobs of paint or an unsteady hand creating a visually uneven edge?

In concert with the Getty Museum‘s exhibition “Making Art Concrete: Works from Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros” (September 16, 2017 through February 11, 2018), Pia Gottschaller of the Getty Conservation Institute demonstrates three of the edge-painting methods that were used by the Concrete Artists. From the exhibition site:

After World War II, avant-garde artists in Argentina and Brazil began to question the role of art in society. Intent on creating a new type of object, they rejected long-established traditions in painting—including all forms of representation— and pursued the possibilities of geometric abstraction. They aimed to create artwork so precise in conception and execution that it formed its own material, or “concrete,” reality.

In the 1940s and ‘50s, development programs in both countries spurred new industries and manufacturing techniques. In this context, Concrete Artists (as they became known) began to experiment with novel formats, shapes constructions, and materials, including paint and supports intended for household or commercial use.

Learn more about these constructions and materials in Breaking the Frame:

And Painting in an Industrial Age:

Read more about the ‘Making Art Concrete’ exhibition at Getty.edu.

Next: Relighting “Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)” by Georges Seurat from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.