Expanded Horizons: 'A revolution in American art at Galerie Ropac' A review by Matthieu Jacquet

In Pantin, the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery presents the exhibition Expanded Horizons: American Art in the 70s. Impressive dimensions, poor materials, engaged discourse... works by Robert Rauschenberg, Rosemarie Castoro and Judy Chicago bear witness to the mutations of art at a time of major turning points in the United States.

Galerie Ropac exhibits monumental works of art

In 1979, Robert Rauschenberg produced one of the greatest works of his career. Measuring 3.3 m high by 9 m wide, Bank Job is a patchwork of fabric, newspaper prints, shirts and coloured mirrors spread over fifteen panels. Taken from her series of Spreads, large composite formats begun in 1975, she seizes on familiar elements to form an aggregate that is relevant to her time.

Until 25 January 2025, this masterpiece is being shown for the first time in Europe in the exhibition ‘Expanded Horizons: American Art in the 70s’ at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Pantin, where it will be shown alongside works by twenty other equally renowned artists.

The 70s: a formal turning point for American art

As we all know, the 1960s were a defining period in the history of American art. From Pop Art to Minimal Art, they saw some of the most important movements of the 20th century flourish, sometimes to the point of overshadowing the following decade, which was nonetheless marked by a number of turning points that are reflected in this exhibition. Many major artists - such as James Rosenquist and Donald Judd - left New York, the beating heart of the art world, to take possession of much larger studios and outdoor spaces in Florida or Texas, which had a major impact on their work.

While Rosemarie Castoro came out of the canvas with her Brushstrokes, large-scale wall sculptures in gesso and plaster, the painter Alex Katz began working on his monumental landscapes, whose immense formats encouraged total immersion on the part of the viewer.

From Rauschenberg to Chamberlain, the renewal of materials

In addition to the changes in proportions, Galerie Ropac is showcasing the unprecedented use by Americans of materials considered ‘poor’ because they are cheap and fragile. From John Chamberlain's car fragments to Robert Morris’s felt-tip pens, the artists challenged the material conventions of contemporary movements such as Minimal Art, while sometimes appropriating their aesthetic principles, as demonstrated by several of the works on show.

Feminism and civil rights: artists make a commitment

The title ‘Expanded Horizons’ should be read literally and figuratively: while artists are ‘broadening their horizons’ by investing in new techniques and formats, this formal ‘revolution’ in American art is taking place at a time of great social advances, from sexual liberation to the struggle for civil rights.

This political dimension is reflected in Pantin with videos of the famous performances by feminist artist Judy Chicago, in which naked women draw ephemeral sculptures in nature using smoke bombs, and Senga Nengudi ‘s compositions based on pockets of coloured water, abstract translations of her vision of the black female body. Radical approaches that have helped to re-qualify the work of art, by further expanding its boundaries.

'Expanded Horizons: American Art in the 70s', until 1 February 2025 at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin.