Ted Stamm

About

Ted Stamm left behind a considerable body of work after his early death. We are dealing with an artist who has developed work ideas across all media and has always developed them further. He explored visual problems of representation and perception and approached them conceptually. This has resulted in a minimalist visual language that often appears strictly geometric and simple, but at the same time occupies large spaces of freedom. Of outstanding importance in Stamm’s oeuvre is the ‘Wooster’ series; it was a continuation of earlier experiments with lines and forms. Inspired by the layout of a lot near his studio in SoHo, he developed a simple yet complex form in 1974: a square in conjunction with a triangle. Both basic shapes merge into a single form, the ‘Wooster’ form, which is given a variation, ‘Lo Wooster’, in stretched distortion. The ‘Dodger’ shape, inspired by the shape of a baseball field is relatively complex and allows for a variety of variations: It describes a shallow arc on the upper right side, usually tapering to the right. To the left, irregular polygonal forms are added in each case, with unexpected breaks and voids. Both series of works are preceded by ‘Cancel’ and ‘Chance’ and are accompanied and complemented by series such as ‘Tag’ or ‘Zephyr’. On the occasion of the exhibition, KEWENIG is publishing the most comprehensive, richly illustrated monograph on Ted Stamm to date. It is published by Hatje Cantz and contains contributions by Tiffany Bell, Christine Mehring, Jeffrey Saletnik, and Andrew Wasserman, among others. It provides an informative insight into the life and work of the artist, who became influential for an entire generation of subsequent artists.