Post Painterly Now

Post Painterly Now took its cue from a mid-century exhibition. In 1964 the critic Clement Greenberg brought together 31 painters, among them Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, who had set aside the emotive brushwork and dramatic drips of Abstract Expressionism to work more purely in shape, line and color. Their canvases were flat by design: color soaked into the surface or laid down in clear, shape-driven compositions rather than built up in layers of strokes.

Sugarlift's survey asked what that flatness means now, in an age even more used to it, when so much of the world reaches us through a smartphone frame at scroll speed. The 26 artists in the show tested whether color and shape held inside a rectangle, on canvas, on paper and sometimes on a screen, can still hold deep attention. Their answers ran from hard-edged paintings and fields of color to shaped panels, a white relief and freestanding sculpture.

The exhibition opened with a reception on June 17, 2021, its title set in white on a bright orange wall, and stayed on view through the summer.