Reading the Art World: Susan Davidson

For the 20th episode of our podcast "Reading the Art World," host Megan Fox Kelly speaks with Susan Davidson, author of the new book “Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting,” published in August by Hatje Cantz. Reading the Art World. The book accompanies an exhibition at The Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth and the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien in Vienna— the first presentation in more than a quarter century to fully examine the mastery of Robert Motherwell (1915–1991), a major figure who shaped postwar art.

“It was a wonderful opportunity for me to delve into an aspect of Motherwell's work that I hadn't really thought of beyond the Elegies which everybody knows. And so, I became really focused on showing the complexity and the development of the work and taking us away from what everyone thinks they know and presenting works that hadn't been seen quite so often or other series " — Susan Davidson

As an art historian and curator, Susan Davidson is an authority in the fields of surrealism, abstract expressionism and pop art. In her previous role as Senior Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Susan oversaw the stewardship of the institution's collection in addition to organizing notable exhibitions that include Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, John Chamberlain, Jackson Pollock's Paintings on Paper and Peggy and Kiesler: The Collector and the Visionary. Prior to joining the Guggenheim's constellation of museums, Susan was collections curator at The Menil Collection in Houston. Susan has deeply engaged with the work of Robert Rauschenberg, serving as their curatorial advisor to the artist from 2001 until his death in 2008 and as a board member to the Rauschenberg Foundation from 2009 through 2014.

The book and exhibition highlight the abstracted-figurative works that dominated Motherwell’s first decade of painting as he emerged in the New York art world in the early 1940s. The exhibition will travel to the Bank Austria Kunstforum Vienna on October 12th and runs through January 14th, 2024.

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