ABOUT THE BURST SERIES BY ADOLF GOTTLIEB
Adolph Gottlieb once said, “The role of the artist, of course, has always been that of image-maker. Different times require different images.” Gottlieb witnessed multiple distinctly different times, and thrice significantly changed his method in order to respond to the evolution of culture. His oeuvre apexed with his Burst paintings, a series which he began in 1957 and continued to expand upon until his death in 1974. The visual language of the Bursts is simple and direct—the canvas is divided into two zones: top and bottom. The top zone is inhabited by one or more circular forms in a limited range of colors; the bottom zone is inhabited by a frenetic, gestural outburst of cacophonous, swirling energy, normally painted in black. For Gottlieb, the Burst paintings signified the ultimate expression of his big idea: that there are simultaneously existent polarities in the universe, such as darkness and light. Conventional wisdom tends to describe such forces as though they are dichotomous—as though light is fundamentally opposite of darkness. Gottlieb understood that light and darkness are points on a spectrum, and made of the same stuff dispersed in different measure. He considered polarities so similar that one can become the other with only the slightest nudge from the powers that be, and the two zones in his Burst paintings operate in a similar way. The circular forms seem to have it together, hovering confidently above what appears to be a fray. But both are part of the same picture, and neither is in a fixed state of being. What is up can come down, and what appears to be chaotic, under the proper circumstances, can coalesce and become one.
SOURCE: https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/adolph-gottlieb-burst
QUOTE BY ADOLF GOTTLIEB
“The role of the artist, of course, has always been that of image-maker. Different times require different images.”
WHAT I WISH FOR YOU TODAY
BE A MAKER OF (NECESSARY) CHANGE FOR YOURSELF AND FOR OTHERS.