Minimalist artists series#

She initially pursued a career in dance, but, according to Kempkes ‘stopped because she disliked the lack of creative freedom’. Rosemarie Castoro was at the core of New York’s 1960s minimalist wave, sharing a Soho apartment with her then husband and famed ‘grid’ sculptor, Carl Andre.

(Image credit: © The Estate Of Rosemarie Castoro) ‘It’s astonishing that she does all of this in her head’, admires Kempkes of Okumura’s analytical and rigidly mathematical work. The São Paulo-born Japanese artist draws inspiration from a number of sources such as land art and the anti-establishment wave of Arte Povera. ‘I don’t think it matters that it’s not the same as it was,’ Okumura told us while preparing her colossal reel of wired mesh for her sculpture. Lydia Okumura’s immersive wired installation using intelligent optical colour fields was first realised in 1984, and is displayed here in an altered format. The artist still lives and works alone from her factory studio in Mokotów, the ‘hipster’ district of Warsaw, alongside her entire legacy of work. The drastic evolution of Czelkowska’s five-decade career will be laid bare, morphing through neo-primitivism, 60s abstraction to the introduction of stark-edged brutalist deconstructions. ‘When we asked whether she thought these heads were male or female, she wisely said they were a “third gender”’, Kempkes recalls. Czelkowska focused ‘obsessively’ on her signature ‘head motif’- three are displayed here – influenced by Etruscan and Minoan cultures.

Minimalist artists series#

Tensions eased in the late 50s following Stalin’s death and she began a series of ‘awkward’ and whimsical structures as a parody of the political system. When Wanda Czelkowska began her career, she was resistant to the rigid and restive mood of her native Poland, then under the shadow of communism.