Joan Mitchell
Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings
Kunsthaus Bregenz
18| 07 – 25 | 10 | 2015
Curators of the exhibition
Yilmaz Dziewior and Rudolf Sagmeister
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| Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell with her dog Georges, 1954 © Walt Silver |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Ground Floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter © Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Ground Floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter © Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 1st floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter © Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 1st floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 1st floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 1st floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 2 nd floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation und Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 3 rd floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation und Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Retrospective. Her Life and Paintings Installation view 3 rd floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo: Markus Tretter ©Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Kunsthaus Bregenz |
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| Joan Mitchell Edrita Fried, 1981 oil on canvas (quadriptych) 118 x 315 in. (299.7 x 800.1 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation |
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| Joan Mitchell Minnesota, 1980 oil on canvas (quadriptych) 102.5 x 244 5/8 in. (260.4 x 621.4 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation courtesy Cheim & Read, New York |
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| Joan Mitchell Untitled, 1954 oil on canvas 71.75 x 67.75 in. (182.3 x 172.1 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation |
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| Joan Mitchell La Chatière, 1960 oil on canvas 76.5 x 59 in. (194.3 x 149.9 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation courtesy Cheim & Read, New York |
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| Joan Mitchell Untitled, 1964 oil on canvas 108 1/8 x 79.5 in. (274.6 x 201.9 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation |
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| Joan Mitchell Untitled, 1961 oil on canvas 90 1/8 x 81 1/8 in. (228.9 x 206.1 cm) © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation |
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| Joan Mitchell Un Jardin Pour Audrey, 1975, in Joan Mitchell's Vétheuil studio with Iva (dog) Photographer unknown, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Archives © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundationion |
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| Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell and Norman Bluhm in his studio, June 1971 Photographer unknown, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Archives © Estate of Joan Mitchell, collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation |
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| Joan Mitchell KUB Billboards Seestraße, Bregenz Photo: Rudolf Sagmeister |
Together with the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and in cooperation with the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York, Kunsthaus Bregenz is presenting a large-scale survey exhibition of the legendary artist Joan Mitchell (1925 1992). The show’s focus is on painting, ranging from the early work of the 1950s to her last years, presenting nearly thirty paintings by one of 20th century art’s most significant protagonists.
A large part of the exhibition is dedicated to the first Extensive public presentation of archival materials, providing an extraordinary insight into the artist’s fascinating life. Film, photographs, and other ephemera shed light on Joan Mitchell’s personality and her relationship to such cultural figures as Elaine de Kooning, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Frank O’Hara, and Samuel Beckett. Vorarlberg architect Bernardo Bader has developed a display for these archival materials, enabling them to enter into a compelling dialogue with the artist’s works.
In 1959 Joan Mitchell participated in documenta II, and herwork is in the collections of important museums in the USA and France. In recent years a younger generation of artists has rediscovered her work. This renewed dialogue has been largely due to her emancipated attitudes and the unique position her painting enjoys, located between the USA and Europe. Born in Chicago in 1925, she traveled a lot as a young woman, splitting her time between New York and Paris. Around 1959 she began living in Paris full time, in 1968 moving to Vétheuil, a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. As a child, Mitchell was already drawn to European art. She and her father visited the Art Institute of Chicago, where Mitchell’s favorite works were by Van Gogh, Manet, and other 19th and 20th century French painters. Her early work still displayed an affiliation to the New York School, but her gestural application of paint changed by the end of the 1950s on moving to France when Joan Mitchell began citing such painters as Vincent van Gogh as role models. Even if differing associations, ranging from the light of changing seasons to trees and other plants, emerge in her images, they still confidently assert themselves as purely abstract painting. Such oscillations between the figural, the referential, and the abstract constitute the appeal of Joan Mitchell’s work that reaches far beyond just younger artists.
The exhibition gathers together works from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and from private collections, some of which have rarely or never been publicly shown before.
Text: Yilmaz Dziewior
Exhibition Schedule
Joan Mitchell
Kunsthaus Bregenz
18| 07 – 25 | 10 | 2015
Joan Mitchell
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
14 | 11 | 2015 – 22 | 02 | 2016
* All images are courtesy of Kunsthaus Bregenz