PRESS

Groundings - dialogues between contemporary and historic members of American Abstract Artists

Curated by Jason Andrew

Featuring works by:
Alice Adams, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Iona Kleinhaut, Katinka Mann, Nancy Manter, Betty Parsons, Judith Rothschild, Edith Schloss, Esphyr Slobodkina, & Karen Schifano

Groundings examines the continuing legacy of American Abstract Artists by juxtaposing the works of historic and contemporary members of the organization. Having little abstract tradition of their own, American artists, many of them immigrants to this country, formed this group in New York in 1936 at a time when abstract art was met with strong, even critical resistance. Through this group, one of the earliest to be particularly inclusive of women artists, a new advocacy emerged providing opportunities to exhibit and a much-needed refuge for discussion related to new ideas and artistic theories.

Originators of this group channeled a Cubist-based tradition of cool structural abstraction in the face of prevailing Social Realism, and later held strong to this aesthetic during the dawn of the emotive and brutish school of Abstract Expressionism. Today, the group continues to expand in numbers and varying aesthetics.

This online exhibition, the first of its kind for the organization, brings together the work of ten women artists, five of whom are historic members and five of whom are contemporary members. Through the pairing of these artists, it is my intention to find aesthetic commonalities and compositional similarities that bridge decades of thinking and making. Throughout history, whether it be ancient, modern, or contemporary, art circulates a rhythm of evolution— one generation building upon the groundings of the former.

Betty Parsons | Katinka Mann

Betty Parsons may have been best known as a visionary gallerist who launched the careers of Rothko, Reinhardt, and Newman, but her true genius continues to be discovered in her own artistic pursuits. While her canvases took on the painterly approaches of post-war art, her sculptural assemblages are entirely her own. Often clunky and rough, these works take on an animated and spontaneous personality when Parsons applies color and pattern. It is contour that carries the character and narrative core in both Parsons’ paintings and sculptures.

Katinka Mann, like Parsons, relies on contour in her curved geometric works. Overtly manufactured, she cuts organic forms out of aluminum and attaches a contrasting often hard-edged shape to the cutout. “My work is influenced by Taoism. In Taoism, opposites are oneness. These paradoxes help change our perceptions of how we see space and form. My intent is to use visual elements, drawing me and others toward a new perceptual sensibility.” Embracing the flatness and clean aesthetics of minimalist, Mann uses color and texture to defy flatness.

11/9/2020 - ongoing

"Through her constructions, Katinka Mann seeks the very nature of light and its ability to create color and bold form. The artist uses light to create not only color, but the illusion of space and form. In the process she challenges our assumptions about each. In viewing the pieces, it is often difficult to discern between what is concrete and what is illusion where does a shadow end and the actual passage of space begin. Moreover, the pieces seem to capture the very nature of their creation: light seems to emanate from within, rather than as a reflection of the world around them.”

Heckscher Museum of Art @Bryant Library, Janie Welker, Asst. Curator of Photography, Exhibition Brochure, “Inner Light” 1/01

“There is a high-tech quality inherent in the glossy surfaces of Ms. Mann’s three dimensional photographic constructions and this gives them a very contemporary character. Ms. Mann’s freestanding pieces are part of a series of geometric constructions she has been exploring since the mid-1980’s. A vertical slit allowing an illuminated stripe and variable shadows is a complex feature in recent examples  It is a direction with considerable potential.”

New York Times, Phyllis Braff, 1/01

“Using photography to reinterpret earlier work, Katinka Mann has transformed shaped canvases into cut and folded wall reliefs that subtly tamper with the evidence before our eyes. Texture, dimension and above all, spatial relationships are redefined in terms of a new and remarkably effective approach to perception. Ms. Mann has employed light to color and model the original shapes, making interior spaces glow and exterior planes shimmer with unseen radiance. Her Polaroid and Cibachrome prints are then reshaped to confound notions of depth and surface, negative and positive, recession and protrusion. In “Grey” for example, a shadowed area is brought forward, physically defying its implicit depth. “Brown” turns an apparent hole into an advancing shape. In several works, highlighted textures are belied by the prints’ smooth, shiny surfaces. Colors that sparkle with the metallic luster of hot-rod enamel are also illusory, evoked by the nuances of reflected light.” 

New York Times, “Photographs That Confound” 

Helen Harrison 10/96

“Mann expresses fascination with the phenomena of light. She creates deep saturated transitional tones of color which are consistently changing. The surfaces create the appearance of a metallic finish”

Space 504 Gallery, “A Broad Spectrum” New York, NY l0/98

“Katinka Mann offers an alternative to this reading of the photograph. Mann uses her canvases as her actual models, transforms them and successfully directs them toward a new end. Oddly enough, by virtue of the transformation,, a precise understanding of her artistic process remains ambiguous. Directed by a keen eye for color and form, she imbues the architectonic emphasis for the exhibit with an equally emphatic and palpable sensitivity.”

Valerie Natsios, Former Editor NY Arts Journal, Central

Hall Gallery, “Lunar Sites”, Port Washington, NY ’84

“The kind of originality in Katinka Mann’s work reminds us that one the most powerful characteristics of contemporary art is the spirited license with which materials are creatively combined to invent modes of expression that often have lasting significance. What seems so special here is the way the glistening processed surface generate soft, effervescent visual qualities. Form, of course is Mrs. Mann’s basic sculptural subject, and one reacts strongly to the disciplined architecture of space and spatial illusion that simulates movement and a perspective that is impressively bold for the modest size of the weightless photo/sculpture construction.  These are decidedly original visual experiments, with a straight forward simplicity that keeps them from seeming contrived.”

New York Times “Originality Stands Out in Sculptural Variety”, Phyllis Braff  7/82

“Her canvas wood constructions are in a way bamboozlers, hoodwinking us into believing that they are things they are in reality not. The works are stationary, fixed to and suspended from the walls, and yet they appear to move through the gallery interior as if they were unmanned hang gliders or ingenious Concorde miniatures. The works can be big and yet they defy their size with an appearance of lightness. And for as simple as they are, the pieces are charged with romanticism. The canvas, which is unrelieved with  design or paint, shows that it has a multiple personality, generating stimulating patterns of light and shadow.”

New York Times, “ViewThrough A Classical Prism”, David L. Shirey, Central Hall Gallery, ll/77

"Katinka Mann is an artist who enjoys exploring the many possibilities of an idea in the variety of media. Her seminal concept for these formal studies, called "Space Sites," is one of assembling generally triangular geometric shapes that, while flat, are constructed in such a way as to create volume and mass. They are pure, minimal, and precisely constructed. When two planes meet, a directional line is produced that swings they eye zig-zag through the work. In this way, Mann brings movement to an otherwise solemn, inanimate art. At times she omits the center block, producing a shadow-box effect, or fills it in like a puzzle-part. While the large masses with their thrusting planes and angles are dominant, the thin line, similar to a dancer, becomes an equally important part of the orchestration. By carrying the rhythm of the whole, the line in its own delicate way becomes as much a presence as the mass. Small cut-out paper works, "homemade" paper with geometric motif, a lineup of little plastic boxes showing minimal two-dimensional "Space Sites" in flat aluminum, as well as shiny, polished stainless steel sculptures, round out a show that is very satisfying."

Arts Magazine, "Katinka Mann"

Hedy O'Beil, Hansen Gallery, 3/78

"Homage to the Hexagon" might well be the title of this show, for that six-sided polygon is the basic form of all of the artist's work. The constructions and they are clean and well crafted are designed to deceive. When viewed  from the front they appear flat and two dimensional, but as the viewer changes his position the dimensionality of the work emerges. Exuberant is one of the best of these. Chastely white, with the lateral planes painted yellow; this is a handsome piece.  The graphics, for the most part intaglio prints also are hexagonal. They are interesting as they demonstrate the effect of color on space, shape and movement. The artist has combined acquaint with low relief embossing to create a visually interesting work. In other graphics the artist has taken several copies of the same print and by cutting out parts and arranging them in three dimension space, she not only works with collage but also deals with real spatial relationships. Sometimes a print is fixed on a plastic form (graphmobile), naturally a hexagon, suspended in space so as to pick up reflections from surrounding objects. Katinka Mann is inventive and willing to experiment. She has narrowed the focus to one form, but she has explored it in many directions.  

Newday, "Gallery Features Six-Sided Figures"

Malcolm Preston,  Baiter Gallery, 2/1969