Ad Reinhardt

This book brings together the work of abstract painter Ad Reinhardt (1913–67) and key figure of the Light and Space movement James Turrell (born 1943). Turrell first encountered Reinhardt at a lecture at Pasadena Museum in 1962, and paid homage to the influence Reinhardt had on his own work through the exhibition Ad Reinhardt: Color Out of Darkness, held at Pace Gallery in early 2022. As curator, Turrell designed the presentation and lighting concept to illuminate his chosen works from Reinhardt’s geometric, monochromatic “red,” “blue” and “black” paintings. This book documents this immersive exhibition through numerous installation photographs taken under different lighting conditions, accompanied by prose and poetry from a wide range of contributors, written in direct response to the visual experience of seeing the exhibition. Contemporary artists, writers, scientists and poets explore the experiential nature of both Reinhardt and Turrell’s work.

The first monographic exhibition on the artist in Spain and one of the most complete surveys ever curated in Europe, Art Is Art and Everything Else Is Everything Else illustrates Ad Reinhardt’s tremendous influence on Abstract Expressionism as well as subsequent contemporary art styles. Reinhardt’s paintings are rarely representational and are instead composed of geometrics and eventually only color: canvases of all red, all blue, all black.
Organized with the institutional support of the Ad Reinhardt Foundation, this catalog includes a selection of approximately 50 paintings and works on paper, spanning Reinhardt’s career from early drawings, paintings and collages to later works characterized by a progressive reduction of color and form. Another focal point of the volume is Reinhardt’s passions and artistic pursuits beyond painting, including his slides, writings on art, illustrations in newspapers, books, magazines and pamphlets, and his comics satirizing the art world and politics.
Ad Reinhardt (1913–67) was born in Buffalo, New York, and studied art history at Columbia University from 1931 to 1935, after which he participated in the WPA Federal Art Project initiative. Reinhardt soon became an official member of the newly formed American Abstract Artist group alongside painters such as Josef Albers and Jackson Pollock. He exhibited regularly and taught at Brooklyn College for the remainder of his life.