Forever Now presents the work of 17 artists whose paintings reflect a singular approach that characterizes our cultural moment at the beginning of this new millennium--they refuse to allow us to define, or even meter our time by them. This phenomenon was first identified by the science fiction writer William Gibson, who used the term “atemporality” to describe a cultural product that paradoxically doesn’t represent, through its style, its content or its medium, the time from which it comes. Atemporality, or timelessness, manifests itself in painting as an ahistorical free-for-all, where contemporaneity as an indicator of new form is nowhere to be found, and all eras co-exist. This profligate mixing of past styles and genres is a hallmark for our moment in painting, which artists achieve by reanimating historical styles or creating a contemporary version of them, incorporating motifs from throughout twentieth-century art into a single painting or a body of work, or radically paring their language down to the most archetypal forms. Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume features work by an international roster of artists including Richard Aldrich, Joe Bradley, Kerstin Brätsch, Matt Connors, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Dianna Molzan, Oscar Murillo, Laura Owens, Amy Sillman, Josh Smith, Mary Weatherford and Michael Williams.
Laura Hoptman is Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Featured image, by Nicole Eisenman, is reproduced from Timeless Painting.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Art in America
Seventeen artists are examined in this catalogue for a MoMA exhibition, arguing, somewhat paradoxically, that atemporality or timelessness is the defining characateristic of our current world. Work from painters like Matt Connors, Amy Sillman and Mary Weatherford reflects the tendency today to mix up historical styles and techniques on the canvas.
The New York Review of Books
Jed Perl
...when artists, critics, and curators want to take the pulse of contemporary art, painting inspires much of the deepest, most heartfelt, and heated discussion.
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"Igitur" (2008), by Charline von Heyl, is reproduced from The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, published to accompany the MoMA exhibition closing April 5. Curator Laura Hoptman writes, "Contemporary artists working atemporally choose to reanimate, reenact, or sample from the history of modernism in part because of this aura of perpetuity, the durability of which their paintings, in a way, test. Certainly they relieve geometries and gestures, monochromatic surfaces and glyphs, of modernism’s burden of progress and liberate them from the chronological conveyer belt that may or may not have ground to a halt in the era of postmodernism, some thirty years ago. But instead of emphasizing the pastness of these styles or, for that matter, their future significance, atemporal artists challenge them, without a trace of parody or a soupçon of nostalgia, to be relevant again in our “endless digital Now,” as William Gibson has described our time. Counter to the fear of chronological malaise that atemporal tendencies in culture strike in the hearts of some, this is a hopeful, even invigorating quest, one that encourages artists to explore a vast, synchronic landscape of information in search of a broader, bolder notion of culture." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 12 in. / 184 pgs / 135 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $50.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $70 ISBN: 9780870709128 PUBLISHER: The Museum of Modern Art, New York AVAILABLE: 10/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
The Forever Now Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Text by Laura Hoptman.
Forever Now presents the work of 17 artists whose paintings reflect a singular approach that characterizes our cultural moment at the beginning of this new millennium--they refuse to allow us to define, or even meter our time by them. This phenomenon was first identified by the science fiction writer William Gibson, who used the term “atemporality” to describe a cultural product that paradoxically doesn’t represent, through its style, its content or its medium, the time from which it comes. Atemporality, or timelessness, manifests itself in painting as an ahistorical free-for-all, where contemporaneity as an indicator of new form is nowhere to be found, and all eras co-exist. This profligate mixing of past styles and genres is a hallmark for our moment in painting, which artists achieve by reanimating historical styles or creating a contemporary version of them, incorporating motifs from throughout twentieth-century art into a single painting or a body of work, or radically paring their language down to the most archetypal forms. Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume features work by an international roster of artists including Richard Aldrich, Joe Bradley, Kerstin Brätsch, Matt Connors, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Dianna Molzan, Oscar Murillo, Laura Owens, Amy Sillman, Josh Smith, Mary Weatherford and Michael Williams.
Laura Hoptman is Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
