Albertina, Vienna
This is a comprehensive tribute to Alex Katz from the rich holdings of Albertina Museum's collection, whose principal works by the artist had been lent out in 2022 to the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museo Nacional Thyssen - Bornemisza in Madrid.
Katz has been considered—analog to Miles Davis and “cool jazz”—the inventor of “cool painting.” Katz found the motifs for this highly reserved style of painting in the well-heeled leisure society of his art world circles as well as in the landscapes of Maine. The depicted individuals are almost exclusively friends and literary figures, and quite a few hail from New York’s dance scene.
Katz thus ascertained just what reality he was surrounded by—albeit in an abstract and radical manner. By doing so, he succeeded in placing his emotional and vibrant subjects at a cool distance. Even before pop art hit the scene, he had already set out into the realm of figurative painting, characterized by equal measures of rationalism, sensuousness, and abstraction. His art would seem to be purely figurative. Upon closer inspection, however, an infinitely high degree of abstraction is revealed.
More information at: Albertina Museum