Abstraction

Abstract art is any work of art that is nonrepresentational; it makes little or no visual reference to the physical world.

For centuries artists aimed to accurately illustrate and imitate the world around them. In the mid-nineteenth century, as society and lifestyles became modernised, artists began to explore the material properties of painting, drawing and sculpture. Impressionists, postimpressionists and cubists began to break down the illusion of painting by drawing our attention to the two-dimensional nature of paint.

Over the course of the twentieth century, abstract art became more and more radical, reaching a point of pure geometry and expression in the 1940s and 1950s. Artists explored the expressive properties of paint and sculpture, emptying their art of any reference to the real world. Large painted fields of colour, plain geometric forms and even fabricated steel boxes were among some of the more extreme forms of abstract art. Since then, abstraction has become ever-present and is now considered a fundamental approach in contemporary art.

  • What criteria would we use to critique or assess the skills of an abstract artist?
  • Imagine your school principal has asked you to select an abstract work of art to be purchased for the school. Identify a work of art in the Gallery and write a short paragraph explaining why you think it would make a good acquisition.
  • In some abstract paintings, neither brushstrokes nor the hand of the artist is visible. In some cases, abstract art can look machine-made. Design a machine that creates an abstract work of art.
  • Take a nature walk with your class. Look closely at your surroundings and focus on the small details, such as the colour of the plants and trees or the details in the bark or leaves, or the shadows created on the ground. Draw these observations in your sketchbook. Back in the classroom, simplify your drawings into basic shapes and pattern. Using these shapes and patterns, add bright colours to create an abstract painting.
  • Sometimes the shadows cast by a work of art can be as interesting as the work of art itself. Create a sculpture from recycled materials where the shadows become an important part of your work.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Paris was undoubtedly the uncontested centre of the artistic world, with artists flocking from across the globe to study in its ateliers and mix with like-minded individuals. Although the city had witnessed the emergence and evolution of many of the most radical of the new art movements, by the early decades of the twentieth century, Paris’s dominance as the centre of artistic experimentation had begun to wane, with other locations across Europe increasingly rising to prominence. By way of example, Germany gave birth to the Expressionist movement, which looked to non-Western art and folk-art media traditions as a means of exploring intense emotional states, while the Swiss Dada movement, emerging at the height of the First World War, embraced the absurd to mock and deride contemporary society, using collage, assemblage and found objects to actively highlight the absurdity of war.

The influence of Russian abstraction began to be felt across Europe and in the United States following the mass waves of migration preceding the Second World War. This new abstraction was austere, politically engaged and motivated by the desire to reflect the modern industrialised world. German and Dutch avant-garde groups with a strong focus on design – such as Bauhaus and de Stijl – quickly adopted and adapted the Russian aesthetic and when members of these groups emigrated to the United States they cemented the role of abstraction in contemporary teaching practices.

While the émigré artists undoubtedly influenced the speed with which abstraction was adopted across the United States, a new local group was establishing its own path. The American Abstract Artists Cooperative was founded in 1937 and counted Ilya Bolotowsky, Gertrude Glass Greene and Irene Pereira among its earliest members.

Text by Tansy Curtin, Assistant Director, Artistic and Collection Programs, and Maria Zagala, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Catalogue for Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition, 2026

Artist resources

Activity in Focus
React and Respond

Robert Rauschenberg’s practice offers a dynamic entry point for students to explore how artists respond to the visual complexity of contemporary life. Working in the mid‑twentieth century, Rauschenberg developed what he called “combine paintings,” which merged painting with collage and found objects, breaking down traditional boundaries between art and everyday experience.

In works such as Round Sum (1963), he brought together expressive brushwork with silkscreened images sourced from mass media including symbols like the Statue of Liberty, machinery, and scenes of urban life reflecting the rapid flow of information and imagery in the 1960s. His limited palette of printer inks and repeated imagery highlight processes of reproduction and circulation, while also inviting discussion of social and political concerns of the time, such as technology, conflict, and national identity.

Robert Rauschenberg, born Texas, United States of America 1925, died Florida, United States of America 2008, Round Sum, 1964, oil and silkscreen ink on canvas, 175.9 × 124.5 cm; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Gift of the Woodward Foundation, © Estate of Robert Rauschenberg/Copyright Agency, 2025.

Robert Rauschenberg and postmodern dance pioneer Merce Cunningham collaborated, beginning in the 1950s. In some of their collaborations, elements were separated, design, music, dance, didn’t come together until the performance. Cunningham asked Rauschenberg to utilise found objects in his sets and costumes integrating the everyday into his performances, sometimes changing sets and costumes for every performance.

React and respond to the changing environment

Using your body represent an object or shape from your environment:

  • In your classroom
  • In your PE room
  • Outdoors
  • Your room at home
  • Your favourite place

Set a pose to hold.

Pair Up - Negative/Positive spaces play

  1. Get into pairs.
  2. One person makes and holds a still “environment pose.”
  3. The other person moves around them, playing with negative space:
  • Fill the empty spaces they see
  • Use different body parts or your whole body
  • Move around, through, and near the shape
  • Explore high, medium, and low levels
  • Only one person moves at a time
  • After 5 minutes, swap roles. You can repeat this activity over time, using new or different poses, inspired by a different or changing environment.

Roll the Dice

Choreographer Merce Cunningham often worked with chance methods, putting steps into a different order every performance by rolling dice!

In groups of 5:

- Make a list of your 10 favourite ‘environment’ poses (2 each)

- Roll a dice and assign an order for your poses

- Once assigned an order, find ways to connect and transition your poses smoothly into a continuous movement phrase

- Perform to your class

- How many combinations with the dice can you make?

- Change groups and roll again!

Tip: For more information about Merce Cunningham watch this video >>

Activity in Focus
Shapes in Motion

Getting Started in the Classroom

  • Look at the works below and describe what you notice. What colours, shapes and lines do you see?
  • If you were to pair two works together, which works would it be?
  • Select your favourite work. If you were to assign a song or soundscape to this work, what would it be and why?

F-2

  • become aware of their bodies and learn about the body bases, parts and zones used in dance
  • explore space, time, dynamics and relationships as they make and observe dances
  • explore locomotor and non-locomotor movements and use these fundamental movement skills in their own dance
  • experiment with simple technical and expressive skills and begin to learn about choreographic devices through selecting and organising movements in their own dances.

Years 3-4

  • extend their awareness of the body as they incorporate actions using different body parts, body zones and bases
  • explore and experiment with directions, time, dynamics and relationships using groupings, objects and props
  • extend their fundamental movement skills by adding and combining more complex movements
  • use technical skills including accuracy and awareness of body alignment
  • explore meaning and interpretation, elements and forms including shapes and sequences of dances as they make and respond to dance
  • use expressive skills including projection and focus when performing dance for themselves and others.

Year 5 – 6

  • extend their awareness of the body as they combine movements that use body parts and actions with those involving body zones and bases
  • extend their understanding and use of space, time, dynamics and relationships including performing in groups of varying sizes
  • extend their use of various combinations of fundamental movement skills and technical skills, developing competence, body control and accuracy
  • explore meaning and interpretation, forms and elements of dance, including the use of space and energy in dances as they make and respond to dance.

Shapes in Motion, explores the concept of abstraction through the movement style of Hip Hop dance, with a focus on tutting and finger tutting. Students will respond creatively by using their bodies to form lines, angles, and geometric patterns inspired by this expressive dance form.

What is Tutting?

Tutting emphasises the intricate movement of the arms, hands, and fingers, encouraging participants to think about shape, structure, and spatial awareness as they create dynamic sequences of movement.

Watch this introduction to Tutting video >>

Solo Experimentation

  • Using the dance style of Tutting, recreate the shapes and patterns found in your chosen abstract work of art.
    • How can you recreate these lines, angles, shapes and geometric patterns you see within the work of art by using just your arms or hands or fingers?

Improvisation

  • It is time to start exploring these ideas on your own. Find shapes using your arms, then hands then fingers. Explore for 1 minute each.
    • Can these same shapes be found in a different way in a different part of your body?
    • Explore the choreographic device of mirroring. You will use both sides of your body to recreate shapes.

Prompts to guide student exploration in improvisation

Start with your original shape. Try changing it by:

  • Flipping it
  • Inverting it
  • Rotating it
  • Moving it through space
  • Reversing it
  • Flattening it
  • Tilting it
  • Make it bigger or smaller

Now choose your best ideas and create your own movements. Make 1–3 short tutting moves using your arms, hands or fingers. You can focus on one body part or combine them. Practise your moves so you can repeat them the same way each time.

Perform your moves to the class.

An Ensemble Performance

In groups (maximum 5 students) teach each other your moves add them together to make a longer movement sequence. Memorise your sequence.

Tip: Watch thismurmuration tutting video >>

Consider Dance Elements: Relationship and Space

  • Do we all need to be on the same level? All standing, sitting or kneeling?
  • Do we all need to face the same direction? Or can some of us face in or out or at an angle? How does this impact the moves we have created?
  • Can we now have people in the group connected to create a shape together? What is the best choice for your group with the moves you have?

Perform your group sequences to the class.

Discuss what you see. As you observe each performance, why do you think certain decisions were made about use of space and relationship?

Add Choreographic Devices

  • Develop your sequence by adding:
    • Repetition (repeat movements)
    • Cannon (one person after another). Try cannons in different directions (side to side, front to back, levels). Notice how this changes your performance.

Key Term

Cannon: when a movement is passed from one person to another in a sequence.

Whole Class Activity

  • Each student chooses one favourite move.
  • Stand in rows (like a class photo).
  • Teach your move to the class and combine them into one long sequence.
  • Add cannons to develop the performance.
  • Perform as a class.

Dance Film

  • Film your class performance.
  • Think about costumes that highlight movement (e.g. gloves, long sleeves).
  • Choose colours that connect to your original work of art.