February 2, 2010

From the old school, DIE ZEIT

The 94-year-old Carmen Herrera is celebrated as the discovery of the decade. Is the cult of youth past in art?

By TOBIAS TIMM - Carmen Herrera painted like lonely and quietly. They considered it the last six decades. Now she is 94 years old and suddenly, no, finally, their art is world famous. The New York Times dedicated to her an article on the front page. The Hot New Thing in Painting was in the title bar. And British Observer Herrera has named the occasion of a retrospective in Birmingham equal to the discovery of the decade. Since 23 January is the show from England in Pfalzgalerie Museum to see in Kaiserslautern. Shown is the amazing life work of an artist who has always worked steadfastly on to their minimal, geometric color fields. And so now suddenly worth more money than they had enjoyed in the past century ever.

Carmen Herrera is not the only late discovery that is currently being made. Many museums and galleries showing the art of suddenly very old, but little or no known contemporaries. The Serpentine Gallery in London, presented just as the political artist Gustav Metzger (born 1926) with a solo exhibition. The sculptor, who lives in Buenos Aires Magda, Frank (Born 1914) experiences next year with exhibitions in Venice, Valencia and Curitiba, a belated tribute. And the art dealers have recently become very interested in previously unexplored by artists beyond the normal age limit: The Berlin Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi caused some surreal new-erotic paintings and drawings by the Italian artist Carol Rama (born 1918) a sensation.

While only just ended boom years of the new stars were still cast in the schools. Gallery owners and collectors attended the tours of the art academies in the hunt for the next Young British Artists, the latest New Leipzig School. But now it seems the stories of quick success and the young no longer be trusted. Now the old turn. Gladly, the Ancients. Finally, the youth guarantee long gone, what it promises: the new.

Carmen Herrera drew about Op Art painting, as it is this art was still no name. Born 1915 in Cuba, she studied architecture in Havana, married an American, with whom she moved to New York, where she attended an art school. Their style, their subject, their task but it has only found in Paris, where she lived with your man from 1948 to 1954. Here she associated with artists like Yves Klein and exhibited with Josef Albers at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. Here is their first actual art, arrows, circles incurred huge commas nestle together on the canvas.

Back in New York, found their art, but little attention. She was a woman from Cuba, the clean, mathematical patterns painted, loved the straight lines, while their male contemporaries such as Jackson Pollock rumtropften with expressive colors. In the paintings from the forties Herrera had sometimes used more than two colors, but since the fifties, they reduced their form and color language. You nüchterte from its Swatches: Two gray triangles lie to each other before a black background (Equation 1958), a green, flat triangle shrink to float on a white background (Blanco y Verde 1959), a black square protrudes from the bottom in a yellow canvas (Tuesday , 1978). Sometimes she paints only in black and white, simple lozenges, strips, each taper. There can be no art, racing to a heart. However, the compositions are subtle and cool and - beautiful.

Six years ago, was first sold a painting by Carmen Herrera, since not only private collectors, but also the major museums such as MoMA and the Tate to buy her painting. It would have been nice if the art market had previously discovered, “said Herrera the New York Times “But perhaps corrupting.”

Over the long-misunderstood genius like Herrera appreciate not only addicted to the life stories of curious journalists. The duration of their work also makes it easier to the curators and the gallery: Here you can discover a whole life’s work and survey. The quality rating is easier, it can be traced phases of his work. Charlatans do not think so easy for forty years.

Unlike those young artists from Western middle-class families that are afloat in relevant ansaufen Bars Bohemian aura and one who lives with visits to the hottest cities ( “The artists and works in Istanbul, Los Angeles and Berlin”), a little variety in the brief curriculum vitae bring to try to have the old man a fascinating biography not work out.

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Generations of artists Call to Patricide

Gustav Metzger, for instance, born in 1926 in Nuremberg as the son of Orthodox Jews who escaped in 1939 with his brother to the Nazis - the parents and sisters were murdered. In London he became involved later, against war, nuclear weapons and environmental degradation. He developed an auto-destructive art, painted canvases with acid and boycotted the art market. And he is the inventor of the psychedelic light show, he was the one who melted at concerts by The Who first colored crystals in the spotlight.

Competition from Altkünstlern like Carmen Herrera and Gustav Metzger likes young to spook her career anxious artists. The late success but also brings hope. One only has to endure, it is promised, even if one is allowed to show his art for decades and not sold anywhere. Do not give up, is the watchword! Continue painting in peace.

< The Laughter of Carmen Herrera , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

I became a famous artist at the age of 94, Guardian weekend >