Abraham Thomas and Stephanie Buhmann have a conversation about the Austrian-American artist Frederick Kiesler. Recognized as one of the important avant-garde artists of the 20th Century with roots in Europe and the United States of America, Frederick Kiesler (1890 – 1965, born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich Kiesler) closely associated with key members of De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop-Art. He exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; was represented by two of the most powerful American art dealers of the postwar era, Sidney Janis and Leo Castelli, and was subject of countless magazine and newspaper articles. As a pioneering multi-disciplinary artist, he never belonged to one movement and explored various artforms simultaneously, ranging from architecture, theater and furniture design to sculpture, painting, and expansive installations. In their brief presentations and proceeding conversation, which will allow for a Q & A segment with the audience, Abraham Thomas and Stephanie Buhmann will discuss some of Kiesler’s radical ideas and how they manifested in his "Model for the Universal Theater for Woodstock, New York" (1931), currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a series of fragmented paintings from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which Kiesler himself had coined Galaxies, and which will be featured in a major retrospective of the artist’s paintings and sculptures at Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland, in 2024.
New York City, NY; NYC