form, color, illumination: Suzan Frecon painting
Publisher: The Menil Collection
Publish Date: 2008
Texts by Sarah Eckhardt, Matthias Frehner, Ulrich Loock, and Lawrence Rinder. Interview with the artist by Josef Helfenstein
This is the first major exploration of the works of American abstract painter and watercolorist Suzan Frecon (b. 1941), critically acclaimed for her sensitive arrangement of color, form, and texture, and for the philosophical resonance of her art. By restricting herself to nonrepresentational forms, earth-based colors, and, in the case of her watercolors, “found” pieces of paper, Frecon achieves an unequaled sense of balance and openness in her work. The book features ten oil paintings and thirty watercolors dating from the late 1990s to 2007.
form, color, illumination celebrates the uniqueness of Frecon’s painting and articulates how her work distinguishes itself within the history of abstract painting. The authors describe in-depth how her artistic process and materials are an integral part of her focus and aesthetic. Included is an essay revealing the “ethics” of her aesthetics––an argument for abstraction and an attention to truth that is not divorced from social and environmental concerns.
Details
Publisher: The Menil Collection
Artist: Suzan Frecon
Contributors: Sarah Eckhardt, Matthias Frehner, Josef Helfenstein, Ulrich Loock, Lawrence Rinder
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 9780300125528
Retail: $35 | £30
Status: Not Available
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 8 x 11 1/2 in (20.3 x 29.2 cm)
Pages: 112
Reproductions: 52 color, 2 b&w
Artist and Contributors
Suzan Frecon
Made over long stretches of time, Suzan Frecon’s (b. 1941) abstract oil paintings and works on paper invite the viewer’s sustained attention. In Frecon’s work, composition serves as a foundational structure, holding color, material, and light. Frecon mixes pigments and oils to differing effects, and the visual experience of her work is heightened by her almost tactile use of color and contrasting matte and shiny surfaces.
Sarah Eckhardt
Matthias Frehner
Josef Helfenstein
Josef Helfenstein is the director of the Menil Collection in Houston. Prior to that he was the director of the Krannert Museum at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He has written and lectured worldwide on modern and contemporary art, and he has published numerous catalogs, including Louise Bourgeois: The Early Work, Paul Klee Rediscovered, and The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World.
Ulrich Loock
Ulrich Loock was born in 1953 in Braunschweig, Germany. He was Director of Kunsthalle Bern from 1985–1997, Director of Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland from 1997–2001, and Deputy Director of Museu de Serralves, Porto, Portugal from 2003–2010. He currently lives and works in Berlin as an independent curator, art critic, and lecturer. He has curated numerous exhibitions of artists such as Michael Asher, Matthew Barney, Marlene Dumas, Robert Gober, Katharina Grosse, Eberhard Havekost, Maria Lassnig, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Gerhard Richter, Wilhelm Sasnal, Thomas Schu¨tte, Thomas Struth, Luc Tuymans, and Christopher Wool. Loock also wrote the essay for Al Taylor: Rim Jobs and Sideffects (2011), co-published by David Zwirner and Steidl.
Lawrence Rinder
$35