| Elusive
Resemblances
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text by Dan Cameron
The techniques and effects of color-saturated abstract painting
have been applied to a broad range of distinct ends since Kandinsky
first evoked the spiritual dimension of non-representation nearly
a hundred years ago. We have experienced transcendence, decay, heroism,
abjection, neo-classicism, self-critique and even abstraction-asrepresentation,
all in the name of a courageous effort to support the mission of
abstraction in the face of powerful vested interests set against
it. Of course one needn’t look hard to find quarters of the
art system where fierce resistance to abstraction is still clung
to in the name of either traditional or progressive values—for,
after all, hasn’t abstract art been the New Academy for at
least half those hundred years?
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