Untitled
Untitled, 1969, Craig Kauffman. Acrylic lacquer on plastic. 73 x 50 x 9 in. Courtesy the Estate of Craig Kauffman and the Frank Lloyd Gallery. © The Estate of Craig Kauffman
In the 1960s, artists in Los Angeles began to create works using industrial materials such as Plexiglas acrylic sheeting, fiberglass, and thermoset plastics that set and hardened into shape, as well as the acrylic lacquers favored by the automotive industry. In Craig Kauffman’s Loops series of 1969, each work comprises a sheet of Plexiglas that the artist molded into a looping fold at its top then sprayed with subtle gradations of acrylic paint. Hanging suspended from a chain a few inches from the wall, the objects seem to hover, and the color on their surface appears also in the shadows the work casts on the wall behind. Though Kauffman’s loops represent his continued exploration of color and of industrial materials, the phenomenological nature of their display brings them close to minimalism as it began to be defined in the second half of the 1960s.
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Poster for Craig Kauffman exhibition at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, 1962. © The Estate of Craig Kauffman. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Michael Asher, 2009.M.30.16. Courtesy Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, California
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Installation view of Craig Kauffman's solo exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum, including works from Kauffman's Loops series, 1970. Photo by Frank J. Thomas. Courtesy of the Frank J. Thomas Archives
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Craig Kauffman in Billy Al Bengston's studio in the 1960s. Image courtesy of and © Billy Al Bengston
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Craig Kauffman, ca. 1955. © The Estate of Craig Kauffman. Photo by Ed Moses
