The decade of the 1980s was defined by the rise of globalism through the deregulated free-market economy, the re-emergence of populist conservatism, and anti-communist insurgencies that were tied to the Iran-Contra scandal, leading to the dramatic collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Additionally, as Tiananmen Square protests were violently suppressed in China in June 1989, it was clear that not all pro-democracy movements succeeded outside the US and the West.

In New York City, painting culture was indicative of this decade’s sentiment: on one hand, it was seen as a revolt against the Minimalist and Conceptual art of the previous decade with a new figuration, charged with emotional intensity and physical, expressive application, evidenced in Neo-Expressionism led by Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Eric Fischl, and David Salle, among others. On the other hand, abstract painting was able to explore both the intellectual framework that conceived the cool, calm, and detached collective ethos in Minimalism and the hot, spirited, individualistic insistence of Expressionist interrelation. While the formal structure was assertively deployed in the former, expansion of expressive form was seen in the latter. As abstraction has survived its critical rhetoric from Abstract Expressionist idiom in the mid-1960s and continued to evolve with different tendencies in the 1980s, so too did Al Held (1928–2005) and Frank Stella (1936–2024), both of whom shared each of their pictorial ambitions differently in respective evolutions. While Al Held’s “Alphabet Paintings” explored the interplay between positive and negative space in hard-edge geometric forms to create an illusion of depth, Stella’s “Irregular Polygons” series broke with the conventional rectangular format of easel painting. Similarly, in the works of Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007) and Judy Pfaff (b. 1946), each has independently undertaken issues of spatial constraint and expansion in their conceptions of form and fragmentation. Whereas Murray insists on psychological implications hidden below her often domestic and urban subject matter, Pfaff spontaneously disassembles and assembles painting, sculpture, and architecture as a synthesis of living environment.

In the context within the three decades of 1960s to the 1980s, during which the artistic formations of Held, Stella, Murray and Pfaff came to their full maturities, despite their personal commitments to advance the language of abstraction in the painting firmament, the fundamental issues of two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, flatness and depth, boundary, and material application were being fearlessly examined, explored, and evaluated. This exhibition, curated by Michael David, features a selection of works made in 1980s and ’90s, when all four artists were deeply preoccupied with their shared visions of painting in space, from which the picture plane is an endless profusion of ideas and pictorial discernments, wherein the language of abstraction is not reduced and detached from past and contemporary history.

- Phong H. Bui

October 18–December 7, 2025
Opening: October 18, 6–9 p.m.

Location:
Art Cake
214 40th Street, Brooklyn
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Admission:
The exhibition is free and open to the public

• Saturday, October 18th, 6-9pm: Opening reception and cooking performance by Rirkirt Tiravanija, Tomas Vu, and co.
• Saturday, November 8th, 4pm: Panel discussion
• Sunday, December 7th: Closing reception and poetry reading

Since May 2022, Rail Curatorial Projects has undertaken an ongoing series of group exhibitions entitled “Singing in Unison: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy” as a collective effort to mobilize the art of joining and social intimacy against self-isolation and social distancing, In these exhibitions, we perceive each artist as the player of a particular instrument, having a unique and distinct sound of their own, producing a significant contribution to the total sound of the symphony.

The series has featured works made by both trained and self-taught artists, by young artists—including children from the legendary Studio in a School—and more established ones. Additionally, there are contributions from artists working during and after incarceration, as well as those who are living with various mental health conditions. Although the culture at large has frequently aimed to assimilate us all into having a similar sound, Rail Curatorial Projects is committed to celebrating each artist’s particular vibrancy, while at the same time providing a context in which they can be in dialogue with one another.

To date, ten iterations of varying sizes have been presented in this series of exhibitions, featuring a total of over 200 artists across seven venues: Art Cake, Below Grand, The Scully Tomasko Foundation, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, TOTAH, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Industry City, SLAG&RX, and Ruttkowski;68. Each version featured Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio’s neon work Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy; cooking performances by Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tomas Vu, and their graduate students from Columbia University; space activations, including performances from dancers, poets, and musicians; and each has been dedicated to and included a portrait of one of our recently deceased mentors and friends. The early exhibitions in the series all included several artists, and we have now also begun to feature two artists in conversation: when presented in this more intimate context, the similarities and differences in the artists’ practices highlight alluring and compelling aspects of their thinking and art-making processes.

Founded in October 2000 and currently published 10 times annually, the Brooklyn Rail provides an independent forum for arts, culture, and politics throughout New York City and far beyond. The journal features criticism of music, dance, film, and theater; and original fiction and poetry, covers contemporary visual art in particular depth. In order to democratize our art coverage, our Critics Page functions with a rotating editorship, which such luminaries as Robert Storr, Elizabeth Baker, Barbara Rose, Irving Sandler, and Dore Ashton have helmed.

The Rail further fulfills its mission by curating art exhibitions, panel discussions, reading series and film screenings that reflect the complexity and inventiveness of the city’s artistic and cultural landscape.

To learn more, visit brooklynrail.org
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