Al Loving
Al Loving. Barbara in Spiral Heaven, 1989. Mixed media on paper collage. Estate of Al Loving and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.
See think wonder
What do you see in the picture?
What do you think is happening and what was the artist trying to tell you with this picture?
What does this picture make you wonder about?
Biography
Alvin Demar Loving Jr.
Born on September 19, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan. Died June 21, 2005 in New York, New York.[1]
Born in Detroit in 1935, Al Loving (1935–2005) studied painting at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Unlike many African American artists whose art focused on the racial politics of the era, Loving was a staunch abstractionist. His early works were built upon strict yet simple geometric shapes—often hexagonal or cubic modules. Inspired by Hans Hoffmann (who taught Loving’s mentor Al Mullen), Loving concentrated on the tension between flatness and spatial illusionism. In the 1970s the artist became disenchanted with his earlier, hard-edge geometric paintings. Loving dispensed with notions of centralized composition, figure/ground separation, and pictorial frame in his later torn canvas and collaged paper works. He combined hundreds of pieces of cut and torn canvas or paper into an abundance of overlapping patterns and shapes, their rich and intuitive array of colors stretch irregularly, spiraling outward, surrounding the space, and engulfing the viewer. From https://www.alloving.org/
alloving.org
Hard-Edge Abstraction
In an interview, Loving explained: "For me at the time, it was about painting the square until it was 'enough,' and that meant until it obtained form. The square that I started with would always be gone; only I knew it was a square, that that reference was there. That freed me to just paint and let things evolve...[The square] was pure energy and focus.”[7] These geometric abstractions conveyed the brilliance of refracted light; they were not just experiments in color. Loving would often make polyhedrons of the same size, with different colors, and hang them together in different arrangements on the wall. The result was sometimes dozens of canvases stretching out over several feet; to view an entire composition would take time, more than just a glance, making his paintings a powerful expression of time, too.
Large Paper Collages
In the 1980s, Loving began to integrate other materials into his constructions, such as corrugated cardboard and rag paper. Loving quickly took a liking to the casualness of tearing cardboard and gluing it onto other pieces; in fact, he considered this practice abstract expressionist as well. The large paper collages gave him a sense of freedom because he was trekking through uncharted territory. Loving integrated circles and spirals into these collages as a nod to his African roots and as an expression of growth and continued life. Loving used materials such as cardboard and print. The cardboard is cut and overlapped to form a series of spirals. Each spiral has been carefully painted and placed to create dynamic color relationships.
Fabric Constructions
Inspired by a visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art's exhibition Abstract Design in American Quilts, in the early 1970s, Loving began to experiment with fabric constructions.[3] He started hanging strips of canvas from the walls and ceilings, playing with our perception of pictorial and sculptural ideals. Then, he reattached the fragments together with a sewing machine, creating large flowing fabric constructions. At first he painted the pieces of canvas, but later switched to dying the fabric. Other artists, including Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, and Richard Moch, were also using the sewing machine at this time to create fabric constructions. In fact, Loving considered himself within the context of abstract expressionism at this phase in his career; though he was not a painter but a material abstractionist.[7]
Assignment
This week we will study the work of Alvin Loving, an African America artist from Detroit, Michigan. Al Loving created abstract expressionist art. This is art that is not about people and objects, but about colors, and shapes and feelings. For this project, create a work of art that is inspired by the work of Al Loving and his abstract works of art. You may use whatever materials/media you have to: magazines, newspaper circulars, colored paper, cardboard (e.g. cereal boxes), markers, paint, pencils and anything else you have available.
. When you are working, listening to music may help with the creative process. Think about creating layers, using dynamic/moving lines to create motion, and working off the paper (having your art go off the page).
Student Work
Vocabulary
repeat
abstract
nonrepresentational
expressionism
collage
spiral
contrast
layer
nonobjective
pattern
movement
dynamic
static