Alex Katz Goes to Venice

A body of never-before-seen work that Alex Katz created from 2021 through 2022 is currently on exhibit at Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice to coincide with the 60th Venice Biennale. 

 

Katz will be 96 years old in July. He not only continues to paint, sculpt and print, but he also flew from New York to Venice to see how the exhibit looked in the gallery space. “I came to Venice for five minutes because I want to see the show.” he said in an interview with ArtNews. “There are all kinds of problematics. The paintings are new to the audience, and I don’t know whether I’m ahead of the audience or not. I don’t know whether they’ll look good either.” 

 

Alex Katz: Claire, Grass and Water consists of large landscapes, paintings of water that were inspired by photos the artist took in Coney Island in winter and paintings of  fashion designs by mid-century American designer Claire McCardell.

 

Katz has always been interested in fashion. He has done a window display for Barneys and costumes for choreographer Paul Taylor,

 

“I think fashion and art relate a lot. Artists sometimes find fashion is commercial, but actually, they both are. And sometimes they both aren’t, too. I like fashion and how it makes something new and fresh.” Katz said in a Vogue interview. “As far as the art goes, I would rather have a 1930s Balenciaga coat in my living room than a Richard Serra. [Cristóbal] Balenciaga was a great artist in the 1930s into the 1940s. Very few sculptures from that period come close to his beautiful forms.”

 

Katz showed up at his wonderful retrospective at the Guggenheim last year in a white suit and yellow tie, while most of  the men at the opening, as well as the men in his paintings and sculptures, wore the usual ho-hum black suits. 

 

Alex Katz: Claire, Grass and Water will be on exhibit through September 29, 2024 at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

 

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The largest presentation of Helen Frankenthaler’s work in Italy will be on exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from September 27, 2024  through February 2, 2025. Helen Frankenthaler: Painting without Rules will feature work that she did between 1953 and 2002, alongside work by some of her contemporaries like Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

 

Frankenthaler’s work will also be part of an exhibit at The Fondation Vincent van Gogh in Arles, France. Star Gazing, a work that she created in acrylic in 1989 will be on view with van Gogh’s iconic Starry Night, 1888 and other nocturnal scenes done by other great artists. Van Gogh and the Stars will be on view from June 1 through September 8, 2024.

 

Frankenthaler’s soak-stained Color Field painting technique had a profound influence on art in the mid-twentieth century, and her mastery of woodcut and silkscreen printing captured the colors and feel of the Color Fields. An exhibition of her woodcuts will be shown at the STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery in Singapore from June 29 through August 25, 2024.

 

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Please contact us if you would like more information about the work of Alex Katz and Helen Frankenthaler available at VFA.

 

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April 24, 2024