Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, October 9, 2021: Jan Bouman, a Dutch artist, painter (#13 87)

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Artist of the Day, October 9, 2021: Jan Bouman, a Dutch artist, painter (#13 87)

Jan Bouman (1945-2019) was primarily inspired by the 1960s. Historically established in the context of the Cold War, the 1960s represent an extremely influential era which generated a significant number of disruptions and challenged the order of all things. In Europe, The Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall would permanently mark people and beliefs, while in the U.S, predicaments such as the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam war would forever influence generations to come.

From education to gender issues and ideologies, a re-definition of social standards in Western society ensued, with ground-breaking values and movements evolving in a cradle of inventiveness. Honesty and an void of emotions were key concepts in the highly influential movement of Minimalism, embodied by artists like Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Agnes Martin. Bored of the gestural elements of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalist artists focused on delivering artworks mainly gathering polished, clean lines and geometrical elements. The very first blossoming of Conceptualism was highly influenced by the purity of Minimalism but went further in rejecting all pre-existing conceptions inherent to art, similarly to what Pop Artists were trying to achieve by elevating popular culture to the status of high art. Several schools of philosophy deeply influenced creatives, Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti were artists fundamentally persuaded by the ideologies of Existentialism, who achieved worldwide fame through their depiction of the human form and the anguish often associated with the human condition. globally, a significant number of art movements resonated with the radical changes of the 1960s, often prone to their own regional distinctions. In Italy, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni initiated Spatialism, while in Germany, the Zero group espoused similar ideas under the leadership of Günther Uecker.

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