Bernard Frize. David Rhodes. Contemporary Painters Series

This is the first full, length monograph on the paintings of Bernard Frize, an artist whose work straddles movements and styles from Color Field to Minimalism, Fluxus, and Conceptual Art. Frize's works utilise a carefully constructed range of tools, processes, choreography and collaboration to catalogue, in complex and unexpected abstract form and colour, the possibilities of his chosen materials. Emerging from the post-war School of Paris and Supports/Surfaces groups, from the politicised 1970s onwards, Frize swam against the tide of opinion regarding painting's apparent obsolescence to develop a painting practice that could express political commitment and social concerns, while avoiding both overt statement and pure decoration. David Rhodes' text provides a detailed consideration of all stages of Frize's development, from the earliest works to the present, covering technical changes in picture-making, Frize's changing position in relation to painting, as well as the wider conversation about painting itself and the evolution of the international art market. David Rhodes is a painter, writer and critic based in New York. He writes regularly for Art Critical, Art Forum and The Brooklyn Rail.