Customer Reviews

Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective

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This handsome volume explores Brice Marden's illustrious career as an abstract artist of New York city from the 60's unto the present day. The reproductions seen here are first rate in quality color and the writing is direct along with Marden's interesting interview. A must-have for anyone who thoroughly enjoys abstraction and modern art --especially for those who are following Brice Marden's remarkable journey with large, great paintings.

It is a bit difficult to review a good artbook when you do not like the artist it is centered upon. As an artbook, this catalogue for the recent retrospective at the MOMA is a model, with magnificent illustrations and a comprehensive study of Brice Marden's career, as well as a very clear checklist of the works in the exhibition. Now my opinion on Brice Marden is that he is basically a decorative abstract artist (especially in his late works), overrated by the art market, and that he does not compare to giants of the likes of Robert Ryman or Agnes Martin who really transcend the tradition of abstract painting, taking it to new heights.

I've always admired Marden's work and have read other publications about it, but this one is different. It's much more than a catalogue of work and it's well beyond being a good book about a painter--it's actually a treatise on what it was like to be an artist during the change-over from the modern to the postmodern time period, along with the technical trappings and considerations that can accompany such a transition.

The text is a combination of essays from five different authors and covers both the struggles and the influences that Marden has experienced over the course of his career which began around 1963, the year he received his MFA. Quite surprising was the level of detail that was mentioned concerning his own studio practice such as the binders of his paint, i.e., the switch from wax medium to the terpineol that he now mixes his oils with.

Brice Marden's recipe for success as an artist lies in how he blends the most formal of influences from the West with all the formalism the East has to offer. The text brings forth this fact masterfully, never forgetting to mention that this artist's early work was heavily infuenced by that of contemporary Americans, while his recent paintings were produced under the overt sway of Han-dynasty tomb figures and garden rocks.

In its depth of coverage of Brice Marden, this book is unrivaled. In its account of the plight of an individual growing into an artist during a time of great aesthetic change, this book is vital.

When I saw his paintings at the SF Moma I was blown away. Especially his Cold Mountain work. I think Brice Marden is a great painter. This is a well written book and it shows a lot of his earlier minimal paintings, but leaving out a few paintings from the mid 90's. Interested to see what he does next.

I received the item very fast but thanks that the postman knows me as part of the addres information was missing. Probably because it is an odd address for people overseas. We have a different system here. Apart from this, everything was ok