Against Kandinsky

"Against Kandinsky" examines the schism between Expressionism and Geometric Abstraction--the two canons which have competed for stylistic and theoretical supremacy in Modernist history. Within this historical context, Wassily Kandinsky occupies a unique position as both the originator of Expressionistic painting and a tireless defender of the intuitive mode of abstraction. "Against Kandinsky" consists of four sections, each presenting a case for a certain resistance against the styles and ideas that Kandinsky represented. It looks at the history of twentieth-century abstraction from a broadened perspective of cultural and social history that emphasizes the parallels between European and American art, with work by Carl Andre, Eric Bulatov, Willem de Kooning, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Hannes Meyer, Lucia Moholy, Walter Peterhans, Liubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Frank Stella.