Catalog
A printed catalog of Techspressionism: New Visual Languages will be available from Mémoire de l’Avenir, and will be published online at the time of the exhibition.
FOREWORD
Techspressionism is a portmanteau. Derived from porte-manteau, the French hyphenate for a two-sided suitcase, in English it means a word composed of two blended words—in this case, technology and expressionism. Coined in 2011 by Colin Goldberg, and independently by Oz Van Rosen in 2018, it has since become a universal referent adopted by artists who use electronic media to create work with subjective, emotional content. The current exhibition is itself a metaphorical porte-manteau, carrying Techspressionism from around the world to Paris.
Unlike graphic design, digital reproduction, or decorative computer art, Techspressionist imagery arises from the same impulse as early twentieth-century expressionism, which aimed to expose the interior feelings and energies beneath surface appearances. After World War II, its abstract variant spread worldwide to become, in the words of the Filipino-American artist Alfonso Ossorio, “the first international language of the brush.”
Now the brush has been replaced by the computer, using pixels rather than paint. As a widely varied approach rather than a unified style, Techspressionism embraces many expressive dialects. And, instead of physical displays and print publications, the Internet has enabled its global reach. Celebrating these developments, “Techspressionism: New Visual Languages” at Mémoire de l’Avenir affirms the movement’s creative objectives, which break the confines of nationality, language, and cultural history.
—Helen A. Harrison
ABOUT HELEN A. HARRISON
Helen A. Harrison is an art historian, curator, and author specializing in modern American art. She was the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, from 1990 to 2024. Harrison was an art critic for The New York Times for nearly three decades and is the author of monographs on Jackson Pollock and Larry Rivers. An advisor to Techspressionism since the group’s formation in 2020, she helped define it as an artistic approach rather than a style.