In an attention-compromised age when images are instant and prevalent, abstract painting serves as a contradiction, acting as a conduit for the mark of the original, individual artist. Variations: Abstract Painting Today presents 29 artists whose work reflects the language and style of abstraction. The exhibition looks closely at the claim of an abstraction that is timely and comments on a studio practice. Artists featured in Variations use abstraction to consider the past while creating a vision for the present.

Variations presents a diversity of modes and styles used in abstract painting today. While most of the work in the exhibition has been recently created and acquired, additional paintings culled from LACMA’s collection are used to illustrate how artists have reanimated techniques and forms using other sources that are appropriated from popular culture, photography, and collage, essentially creating a new variation of abstract painting. Artists such as Albert Oehlen, Howardena Pindell, Gerhard Richter, Amy Sillman, and Christopher Wool are featured alongside Mark Bradford, Mark Grotjahn, Sterling Ruby, and Analia Saban.

*image (left)
Mark Bradford,
Shoot the Coin, 2013,
mixed media on canvas.
Photo: Ben Westoby.
Courtesy White Cube.