Abstract Art

To look at Elizabeth Scott's quilts is to see a world of life and a world of art. They refer back to her African ancestors' way of making fabrics, and they resemble abstract art. They reflect her parents and grandparents and growing up on a South Carolina plantation. They include the world around, from stars to insects, that everyone can recognize. And they embody emotions that everyone knows.Scott, who will be 82 Feb. 7, learned quilting at her mother's knee in South Carolina. But as an adult she gave it up for decades of being a Baltimore wife and mother and working at a succession of jobs.

The Russians are here, and they look good. But they're speaking a foreign language, so it's not easy to understand them.The art gallery of the University of Maryland at College Park has organized an impressive traveling exhibition of 13 contemporary Russian artists. They are not of a single generation, having been born between 1925 and 1958, but all are influenced to some degree by the early 20th-century Russian avant garde movement known as constructivism. Hence the show's cumbersome title, "Russian Constructivist Roots: Present Concerns."

Although abstract art often seems far removed from everyday reality, some abstract artists are emulating patterns and rhythms they find in nature. It may not be easy to pin an exact label on the resulting abstractions these artists produce, but you can at least get a feeling for the underlying structures in both organic and inorganic forms.That's the curatorial premise behind "Structural Archetypes," an eight-artist exhibit at the Art Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park. Curated by artist and art administrator Julie Nelson, the show is this year's edition of an annual "Crosscurrents" exhibit that features regional artists and curators who will be familiar to devout gallery-goers in the area.

VENICE, Italy -- They are off and running for the first jewel of international contemporary art's triple crown. The Venice Biennale would be the Derby, if Europe's unprecedentedly enormous art summer were a series of horse races.There are no real winners and losers in these events and the prizes are not taken very seriously. But for fuss, fury and outrageously self-indulgent fun by often outlandishly self-important people, it's right up there with Churchill Downs -- except that Venice is a long, long way from Kentucky, Toto, and even a longer way in spirit and appearance than in geographical distance.

Say "geometric abstraction" and a lot of people get intimidated. Not only is it abstract, which means we can't immediately identify with it as relating to the world around us, but geometric seems hard and cold as opposed to organic, or warm and cuddly (at least in comparison).The show of painter Sean Scherer's geometric abstractions, at Grimaldis, may surprise those who expect this art to be forbidding. Yes, if you ask him, he'll say it has roots in the work of early 20th-century Russian suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich, and that sounds pretty esoteric.

You can argue endlessly over abstract art -- over why it came about, whether it was a good or a bad development in the history of art, whether it's soulless or reflects man's highest aspirations and ideals, whether it's a dead end, whether it's dead. What you can't do is deny its status as the most central and potent movement in 20th century art.Similarly, you can argue with a lot of things about "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century," the museum-filling show that just opened at the Guggenheim in New York.

The history of 20th century art can seem much too complicated and difficult to follow, with its confusing succession of isms: Cubism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism, etc. What's this all about, anyway?Well, there's no better way to understand art than to look at it, and the Baltimore Museum of Art is now offering an excellent opportunity to follow visually the art of the century's first half. Two new shows containing prints, drawings and photographs take us from the dawn of cubism to the threshold of abstract expressionism; those who want to cross the threshold need only visit the museum's modern wing to see how abstract expressionism developed from what went before it."

Howie Lee Weiss' big, bold charcoal drawings feature so many oversized smiling, laughing and generally happy faces that at first the viewer feels surrounded by a gigglefest. There's a temptation to see these as pleasant, somewhat repetitious images and to move on. But Weiss is a serious artist, with a serious philosophy to communicate.There are three typical elements of a Weiss drawing, seen in various combinations: the human being represented by the face or the full figure; plants, which stand for the natural world and creativity; and a grid-like pattern of squares in various sizes.

BEIJING -- At first glance it seemed like a sure ticket to a fat commission: a big sculpture to adorn the entrance of the Beijing Hilton.But when Towson State University professor Jim Paulsen was offered the project, the promised reward was something other than cash: a paid trip to China, a lecture tour of five cities and the opportunity to be the first foreigner to design a public sculpture in Beijing in the 45-year history of the People's Republic of...

Since a photograph has to be a picture of something or other, even if just a blank piece of paper, "abstract photograph" might seem a contradiction in terms. But not if we remember that abstract art doesn't only mean non-representational art. It also means, according to the reliable H. W. Janson's "History of Art," "the process [or the result] of analysing and simplifying observed reality."And since this has been a century of abstract art of one kind or another, it's no surprise that many photographers have attempted abstraction.