With works ranging from the early 1950s to brand-new commissions, this exhibition brings together multiple generations of artists who revolted against the aesthetic orthodoxies of their time: now-legendary figures as well as younger artists currently making waves. Borrowing its title from a featured work by the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, Abstract Resistance considers the metaphor of “resistance” as a complex force—both formal and political—and showcases works that boldly confront the formal tensions between abstraction and representation. It explores ways in which artists have appropriated codes of abstraction to go beyond expressions of psychic or physical force and confront global, social, and political events of their times. . . .

With works ranging from the early 1950s to brand-new commissions, this exhibition brings together multiple generations of artists who revolted against the aesthetic orthodoxies of their time: now-legendary figures as well as younger artists currently making waves. Borrowing its title from a featured work by the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, Abstract Resistance considers the metaphor of “resistance” as a complex force—both formal and political—and showcases works that boldly confront the formal tensions between abstraction and representation. It explores ways in which artists have appropriated codes of abstraction to go beyond expressions of psychic or physical force and confront global, social, and political events of their times. As its title suggests, Abstract Resistance proposes an alternative framework for an art that is aesthetically inventive, ethically engaged, and politically defiant.

With a formal emphasis on collage, assemblage, and photomontage, Abstract Resistance includes works by Francis Bacon, Lynda Benglis, Anthony Caro, John Chamberlain, Sarah Charlesworth, Bruce Conner, Willem de Kooning, Hollis Frampton, Lucio Fontana, Robert Gober, Philip Guston, Rachel Harrison, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ellsworth Kelly, Yayoi Kusama, Paul McCarthy, Robert Motherwell, Otto Mühl, Cady Noland, Gedi Sibony, Paul Sietsema, Kara Walker, Andro Wekua, and Cathy Wilkes.

Curator: Yasmil Raymond

Abstract Resistance is made possible by generous support from Michael Peel, Lisa and Pat Denzer, Leni and David Moore, Jr., and the Robert Lehman Foundation. Curatorial research is supported by Etant donnes: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art. Cathy Wilkes' installation is supported by the British Council.