Synthetic materials

Violet-Green, 1964, Acrylic lacquer on vacuum formed plastic, 47 x 35 1/4 x 5 inches, Courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art

© 2022 The Estate of Craig Kauffman/Artists Rights Society ARS/NY

Red-Blue, 1964, Acrylic lacquer on vacuum formed plastic, 89 5/8 x 45 1/2 x 5 inches, Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art

© 2022 The Estate of Craig Kauffman/Artists Rights Society ARS/NY

We have just watched a documentary film produced by PBS, which noted the supposed lack of respect given to West Coast artists by New York critics and curators. That’s not necessarily true, as our research shows. Major galleries like Pace showed the Southern Californians, and some knowledgeable critics responded, with a sense of history of synthetic materials in art. Don’t forget that Kauffman’s first group show in New York was a big success. The exhibit titled “5 at Pace” included two vacuum-formed works, both of which went to East Coast museums. “Red-Blue”, 1964 was immediately acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, through the Larry Aldrich fund. “Violet-Green”, 1964 was acquired by Frank Stella and Barbara Rose, and later donated to the Cleveland Art Museum. And the show was very positively reviewed by a major New York critic, Lucy Lippard.

Writing for Art International, Lippard praised Kauffman’s innovative work. Her piece “New York Letter” starts with “We have been a long time in picking up [Naum] Gabo’s pioneering suggestions about synthetics as prime sculptural media. They have been used in isolated instances for the past 40 years, but only now is their potential beginning to be fully realized. The bold colors and spatial experiences possible with opaque and transparent surfaces, and their flexibility and variety, are made to order for the current time.” Singling out Kauffman for praise, she wrote: “Kauffmann is the most original of the five, partially due to his technique of vacuum molding plastic into a relief colored from behind with acrylic paints. the single forms on solid grounds are semi-biological, semi-mechanistic, a combination peculiar to Picabia, who is brought to mind.”

Edward Ruscha, William Reynolds, Larry Bell and Tony DeLap were also included in “5 at Pace,” held March 9–April 3, 1965

Quote from: Lippard, Lucy R. “New York Letter.” Art International IX, no. 4 (May 1965), pp. 52–59.