Susan Rothenberg: Moving in Place

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Fort Worth, Texas

Through Jan. 3

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In the early 1970s, when Susan Rothenberg was a young painter living in New York, minimalism was the rage and “figuration was all but extinct,” said Kimberly Straub in Vogue.com. So how did Rothenberg make a name for herself? She “decided to make huge paintings of horses.” Rothenberg didn’t particularly like horses or have much knowledge of them. “She based her decision solely on finding a recognizable image she could deconstruct” in expressionistic paintings that pulse with kinetic energy. This “tight-knit selection of 25 canvases” from throughout her career shows how the artist forged her unique aesthetic.

Horses turned out to be the perfect subject with which to make an artistic statement, said Gaile Robinson in The Dallas Morning News. “Even in a simple line form, they speak of mass and motion,” and they have deep roots in art history. Yet Rothenberg left the motif behind when she moved to “the wilds of New Mexico” in 1990. Her new surroundings revealed a darker side of the animal world. “Fearful encounters such as The Chase and Dogs Killing Rabbit became her subject matter, and her canvases began to swirl with frenzied action.” More recently, she abandoned realistic images entirely, producing paintings that “show disembodied arms and hands dancing about the canvas.” None of Rothenberg’s paintings is perfect. “Her draftsmanship leaves something to be desired,” but she compensates with exuberant brush strokes that boil each scene down to its essentials. Three decades after Rothenberg first went her lonely way, figuration is back “in vogue,” and her own early art is a big reason why.