The New Social Environment#205
Abstract Art: A Global History with Pepe Karmel
1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific
This talk is produced by The Brooklyn Rail. Learn how you can donate ✨🌈
Author of “Abstract Art: A Global History” Pepe Karmel will be in conversation with Rail ArtSeen Editor Amanda Gluibizzi and art historian Alexander Nagel. We’ll conclude with a poetry reading from Chia-Lun Chang.
In his fresh take on abstract art, noted art historian Pepe Karmel chronicles the movement from a global perspective, while embedding abstraction in a recognizable reality. Moving beyond the canonical terrain of abstract art, the author demonstrates how artists from around the world have used abstract imagery to express social, cultural, and spiritual experience.
Karmel builds this fresh approach to abstract art around five inclusive themes: body, landscape, cosmology, architecture, and man-made signs and patterns. In the process, this history develops a series of narratives that go far beyond the established figures and movements traditionally associated with abstract art. Each narrative is complemented by a number of featured abstract works, arranged in thought-provoking pairings with accompanying extended captions that provide an in-depth analysis. This wide-ranging examination incorporates work from Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America, as well as Europe and North America, through artists ranging from Wu Guanzhong, Joan Miró, Jackson Pollock, to Hilma af Klint, and Odili Donald Odita. Breaking new ground, Karmel has forged a new history of this key art movement.
In this talk
Pepe Karmel
![Pepe Karmel Pepe Karmel](/web/20210423020817im_/https://brooklynrail.org/media/files/pepekarmel.jpg?nf_resize=fit&w=250)
Alexander Nagel
![Alexander Nagel Alexander Nagel](/web/20210423020817im_/https://brooklynrail.org/media/files/nagel_alexander.jpg?nf_resize=fit&w=250)
Amanda Gluibizzi
![This is a sunny portrait of the Rail's Art Editor, Amanda Gluibizzi with houses in the background and a blue sky. Gluibizzi is wearing a yellow shirt and sunglasses. This is a sunny portrait of the Rail's Art Editor, Amanda Gluibizzi with houses in the background and a blue sky. Gluibizzi is wearing a yellow shirt and sunglasses.](/web/20210423020817im_/https://brooklynrail.org/media/files/gluibizzi_amanda.jpg?nf_resize=fit&w=250)
The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poem, and we’re fortunate to have Chia-Lun Chang reading.
Chia-Lun Chang
![Chia-Lun Chang Chia-Lun Chang](/web/20210423020817im_/https://brooklynrail.org/media/files/_91a9299-3%e6%8b%b7%e8%b2%9d.jpg?nf_resize=smartcrop&w=130&h=130)