Artwork Title: Rational Irrationalism

Rational Irrationalism, 1969

Al Loving

We love how Loving layered the open cubes and juxtaposed warm and cool colors to create an optical play on three dimensionality on a flat support. Loving's work gained significant attention in the 1960's. He became the first African American artist to receive a one-person show at the Whitney. (http://nuprimaryblog.squarespace.com/blog/2015/6/16/the-nu-whitney-museum-of-american-art.html) Object Label In 1969, three years after Alvin Loving had moved to New York City from the Midwest, he had a solo exhibition at the Whitney. Unlike other African American artists whose art focused on the racial politics of the era, Loving was an abstract artist whose works from this period, including Rational Irrationalism, were built upon strict yet simple geometric shapes, often hexagonal or cubic modules. Inspired by German Abstract Expressionist Hans Hoffmann (who taught Loving’s mentor from Michigan, Al Mullen), Loving concentrated on the tension between flatness and spatial illusionism. He explored this tension using a hard-edged geometric vocabulary related to Minimalism and Op art—as in Rational Irrationalism, which utilizes a strategic layering of cubic forms and juxtaposition of warm and cool colors to create an optical play of three-dimensionality on a flat support. (http://collection.whitney.org/object/2284)
Uploaded on Nov 15, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

Arthur is a
Digital Museum