How 'Zombie Formalism' Derailed a Generation of Abstract Painters

In 2014, critic and painter Walter Robinson coined the term 'zombie formalism' in an Artspace essay, stigmatizing a wave of young abstract artists. The label emerged from earlier concepts like Raphael Rubinstein's 'provisional painting' (2009) and Sharon Butler's 'new casualism' (2011), which described anti-heroic, deliberately underachieving abstraction. Artists like Jacob Kassay, Lucien Smith, and David Ostrowski embraced an offhand aesthetic, but collectors flipped their works at auction for huge profits. Robinson, whose own work was appropriative, criticized the market's uncritical absorption of this style. Jerry Saltz amplified the term, and it went viral. The label crushed many emerging painters: while some like Joe Bradley and Josh Smith survived, the secondary market is flooded with unsold works. Critics argue the discourse around experimental abstraction was cut short, pushing young artists toward figurative work. Butler, a painter and publisher of Two Coats of Paint, reflects on how the term became a verdict, not just a critique.