1. Tomma Abts at the New Museum: Press Release
Since abstraction was introduced into Western European art at the beginning of the twentieth century, art history has defined it as an artistic language that freed itself from subject matter to concentrate instead on content; that content was an essential expression of an idea or feeling, rather than a representation of an object from the real world.
2. Abstract Paintings
A hallmark of Abts' work is that it is composed of forms painstakingly assembled into compositions that are as complex as they are contradictory.
3. Tate Modern announces the winner of Turner Prize
The idea that the artistic act can be empowered in such a way hasn't been a part of the mainstream contemporary painting discussion for at least a decade, but it seems peculiarly pertinent for our uncertain times.
4. Art Today: Abstraction in Europe
In this climate, Abts' paintings delivered a shock to the eye, as well as to the prevailing taste; small in size, subdued in palette, they were, and are, profoundly nonrepresentational. This exhibition, the first solo show of the artist's work in the U.S., consists of fourteen works painted over the past eight years.
5. Tomma Abts: Tate Modern Retrospective
Since abstraction was introduced into Western European art at the beginning of the twentieth century, art history has defined it as an artistic language that freed itself from subject matter to concentrate instead on content; that content was an essential expression of an idea or feeling, rather than a representation of an object from the real world.