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Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles opens The Painting Factory. Abstraction After Warhol

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles presents The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Warhol, an exhibition on view APRIL 29, 2012–AUGUST 20, 2012.

Julie Mehretu Black City 2007 Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

This exhibition explores the recent transformation of abstract painting into one of the most dynamic platforms in contemporary art. The exhibition will address a painting tradition that was once seen as essentially reductive but has now become expansive, merging popular culture and current technology into its vocabulary, including works by Tauba Auerbach, Mark Bradford, DAS INSTITUT (Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder), Urs Fischer, Wade Guyton, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Seth Price, Sterling Ruby, Josh Smith, Rudolf Stingel, Kelley Walker, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Wool.

Ironically, one of the places where this fresh approach to abstraction was germinating was the studio that might seem the farthest from the practice of the abstract tradition, Andy Warhol’s Factory. The Factory was a haven for all sorts of brilliant artistic misfits, but was also a laboratory where the historical and contemporary innovations in art and culture could be remixed and reconstituted. Especially after Warhol refocused on painting in the late 1970s and 1980s with series like Shadows, Oxidations, and Rorschachs, he transformed pure abstraction into an impure product that opened up new directions. He thrived on the increasing confusion between high art and progressive popular culture and the challenge to conventional methods of painting by the techniques of mechanical reproduction. These confrontations simultaneously undermined and expanded the accepted approaches to painting.

The Painting Factory: Abstraction after Warhol is presented by the Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation.

Major support is provided by Mr. Bob Manoukian, Parx Casino, Maurice Marciano, Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr., and the Aishti Foundation.

Additional generous support is provided by The James and Eleanor Randall Foundation, Steven F. Roth Family Foundation, Margaret and Daniel S. Loeb, and Kelly Wearstler. In-kind media support is provided by Los Angeles magazine. – www.moca.org

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