Dorothea Rockburne

This will not be a very informed post, but i just wanted to get these images up before another impulse took over. I went to MOMA yesterday and saw this piece by Dorothea Rockburne, an artist who (until now) has slipped through the cracks of my art history education. She was born in Canada in 1932 and educated at Black Mountain College, although she was significantly younger than Rauschenberg et al. The piece is titled A, C and D From Group/ And, 1970. I thought it was interesting to note the differences in its installation between 1970 (below) and 2008 (above).

Her early materials include graphite, cardboard, crude oil, chipboard and nails. i think this work is so elegant and so "felt," especially standing in front of the huge slabs or drapes or drafting tables or whatever they are. Her later work is a little on the "eh..." side. She was heavily interested in math, science and astronomy and has spent most of her later career making cosmos-esque paintings that have none of the strength in A, C and D. She turns away from "felt" materials and instead uses traditional paints on mostly handmade papers. Eh.... I am guessing her Black Mountain days finely tuned her Martian sensibilities, making work about physicality and strength and with a limited palette. Since then, it seems, she has turned Venetian. She is more in her head, more sensual and dependent on color and line. These are just my initial thoughts after seeing her work for the first time.