John McLaughlin Paintings: Total Abstraction

(Los Angeles, CA—September 8, 2016) The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents John McLaughlin Paintings: Total Abstraction, the artist’s first solo retrospective in 20 years. One of the most important Southern California artists of the postwar period, John McLaughlin (1898–1976) created a focused body of geometric paintings that are entirely devoid of any connection to everyday experience and inspired by the Japanese notion of ma (the void). Using a technique of layering rectangular bars on adjacent planes of muted color, McLaughlin created works that provoke introspection by making the viewer, not the artist, their subject. The exhibition is organized chronologically and consists of 52 paintings and a selection of collages and drawings that establish McLaughlin as one of the foremost innovators of total abstraction.

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