Mary Heilmann – Save the Last Dance for Me (Afterall Books / One Work) - Softcover

Terry R. Myers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846380316 ISBN 13: 9781846380310

Publisher: Afterall, 2007

Synopsis

An illustrated study of Mary Heilmann's seductive 1979 abstract painting in hot pink and black, Save the Last Dance for Me. "You want beauty? I'll give you beauty!"-Mary Heilmann Mary Heilmann is one of the most important abstract painters of her generation. Her distinctively fluid, humorous, and bright canvases combine the modes of Abstract Expressionism with a vibrant Pop sensibility. Heilmannn's 1979 painting in hot pink and black, evocatively titled Save the Last Dance for Me, marked a shift in the artist's perspective. Heilmann describes it: "Now the work came from a different place. Instead of working out of modernist non-image formalism, I began to see that the choices in the work depended more on content for their meaning." This beautifully illustrated study of Save the Last Dance for Me explores the development of Heilmann's work, and the way it continues to engage us-psychologically, sensually, and socially. The three bright pink rectangles in Heilmann's painting seem to dance off the edge of the canvas, through a black field that seems dark as a nightclub after midnight-or perhaps the three are actually one pink rectangle, seen in a blissfully formal time lapse, moving across the dance floor/canvas. These definitively modernist geometric forms coexist with a sense of movement in real time. For many, abstraction may have been dancing its last dance in 1979, but Heilmann's bright pink rectangles boogie on.

About this title

Product Description

"You want beauty? I'll give you beauty!";Mary HeilmannMary Heilmann is one of the most important abstract painters of her generation. Her distinctively fluid, humorous, and bright canvases combine the modes of Abstract Expressionism with a vibrant Pop sensibility. Heilmannn's 1979 painting in hot pink and black, evocatively titled Save the Last Dance for Me, marked a shift in the artist's perspective. Heilmann describes it: "Now the work came from a different place. Instead of working out of modernist non-image formalism, I began to see that the choices in the work depended more on content for their meaning." This beautifully illustrated study of Save the Last Dance for Me explores the development of Heilmann's work, and the way it continues to engage us;psychologically, sensually, and socially.The three bright pink rectangles in Heilmann's painting seem to dance off the edge of the canvas, through a black field that seems dark as a nightclub after midnight;or perhaps the three are actually one pink rectangle, seen in a blissfully formal time lapse, moving across the dance floor/canvas. These definitively modernist geometric forms coexist with a sense of movement in real time. For many, abstraction may have been dancing its last dance in 1979, but Heilmann's bright pink rectangles boogie on.Mary Heilmann was born in San Francisco and has lived and worked in New York since 1968.

Review

"Relayed in meticulous detail with a breathy precision, Myers's engagement with Heilmann's painting has the same jaunty movement he describes in the work, two-stepping from Henri Matisse to Piet Mondrian to early 1980s New Wave. ... the subtle ambiguity, ambience and energy in the painting is also manifest in the book. ... Though sometimes the series' format (heavy description followed by close analysis) feels like a steady formula brewed thick, the sheer depth and simplicity of the project is ultimately breathtaking. From Jan Verwoert's Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous (2006) to this most recent essay by Myers, these books are a welcome antidote to art criticism as advertisement or academic-tenure insurance. Like Myers's book, the One Work series is a necessary and significant shift in how we perceive art."
-- Art Review, April 2007 (Andrew Berardini)

About this edition

• Publisher: Afterall
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1846380316
• ISBN 13: 9781846380310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112