To open his exhibition Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949–1962, exhibition curator Paul Schimmel breaks through a wall of gold-painted paper; an installation and performance conceived by artist Saburo Murakami. This performance was first done at MOCA's seminal exhibition Out of Actions in 1998. Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949–1962 focuses on one of the most significant consequences of the rise of abstraction in 20th-century painting: artists' literal assault on the picture plane. Responding to the social and political climate of the postwar period—especially the crisis of humanity resulting from the atomic bomb—artists in the United States and abroad ripped, cut, burned, or affixed objects to the traditionally two-dimensional canvas. Painting the Void marks the first time that these strategies have been considered together as a coherent mode of artistic production. Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949–1962 is on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from October 6, 2012–January 13, 2013.
