Robert Irwin (1928–2023) was one of the most eminent and influential post-war American artists, who, over the course of six decades, developed and refined what he terms “conditional” or “site-conditioned” art. His practice, which is often associated with the California-based Light and Space movement, encompassed painting and sculpture, installations, landscape projects, and interventions in public space. His actual medium was the viewer’s perception itself. The artist’s works dissolve conventional modes of reception to enable new forms of individual experience and an awareness of the aesthetic potential of our everyday surroundings.
Particles and Waves, installation view, Palm Springs Art Museum, 2024
Courtesy the Palm Springs Art Museum
Courtesy the Palm Springs Art Museum
Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945–1990
Group Exhibition
Palm Springs Art Museum
Through February 23, 2025
Particles and Waves examines how concepts and technologies from the realms of advanced scientific research impacted the development of abstract (or non-figurative) styles of artwork in postwar Southern California. Between 1945 and 1990, many artists in Los Angeles produced visually abstract artworks while closely engaging with scientific ideas, mathematical theories, and materials or processes derived from physics and engineering. The exhibition unites several generations of artists working in diverse materials and styles to examine how subfields of scientific investigation inspired a range of non-figurative artworks by practitioners concerned with light, energy, motion, and time. By drawing interdisciplinary connections between the work of early abstractionists and contemporary practitioners, the exhibition considers abstract artwork from Southern California in a new way.
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