Excavation
E232418
Excavation is a landmark 1950 abstract expressionist painting by Willem de Kooning, celebrated for its dynamic brushwork and complex, interlocking forms.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Excavation canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2087063 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Excavation Context triple: [Willem de Kooning, notableWork, Excavation]
-
A.
Dry Diggings
Dry Diggings was the early Gold Rush–era mining camp that later became the city of Placerville, California.
-
B.
Old School Quarry
Old School Quarry is a paleontological and archaeological excavation site within South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind World Heritage area, known for its rich fossil deposits that shed light on early human evolution.
-
C.
Gault site
The Gault site is a major archaeological location in central Texas known for its extensive evidence of early human occupation in North America, including some of the continent’s oldest stone tools.
-
D.
Skull Cave
Skull Cave is a notable paleoanthropological site within South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind, known for its fossil-bearing cave deposits that shed light on early human evolution.
-
E.
Big Dig
The Big Dig was a massive and controversial highway and tunnel megaproject in Boston that rerouted traffic underground to replace the city’s elevated Central Artery.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Excavation Target entity description: Excavation is a landmark 1950 abstract expressionist painting by Willem de Kooning, celebrated for its dynamic brushwork and complex, interlocking forms.
-
A.
Dry Diggings
Dry Diggings was the early Gold Rush–era mining camp that later became the city of Placerville, California.
-
B.
Old School Quarry
Old School Quarry is a paleontological and archaeological excavation site within South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind World Heritage area, known for its rich fossil deposits that shed light on early human evolution.
-
C.
Gault site
The Gault site is a major archaeological location in central Texas known for its extensive evidence of early human occupation in North America, including some of the continent’s oldest stone tools.
-
D.
Skull Cave
Skull Cave is a notable paleoanthropological site within South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind, known for its fossil-bearing cave deposits that shed light on early human evolution.
-
E.
Big Dig
The Big Dig was a massive and controversial highway and tunnel megaproject in Boston that rerouted traffic underground to replace the city’s elevated Central Artery.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
abstract expressionist painting
ⓘ
painting ⓘ |
| artHistoricalSignificance |
key work in de Kooning’s transition to large abstractions
ⓘ
landmark of Abstract Expressionism ⓘ |
| artworkSurface | canvas ⓘ |
| cataloguedAs | major work in de Kooning catalogues raisonnés ⓘ |
| collection | Art Institute of Chicago ⓘ |
| colorCharacteristic |
earth tones
ⓘ
muted palette ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| creator | Willem de Kooning ⓘ |
| creatorBirthName | Willem de Kooning ⓘ |
| creatorNationality | Dutch-American ⓘ |
| depictsForm |
ambiguous shapes
ⓘ
fragmented figures ⓘ |
| describedBySource | art historians ⓘ |
| exhibitionHistory |
exhibited in Chicago
ⓘ
exhibited in New York ⓘ |
| genre |
Abstract expressionism
ⓘ
surface form:
Abstract Expressionism
|
| hasQuality |
complex interlocking forms
ⓘ
dynamic brushwork ⓘ large scale ⓘ |
| hasReception |
considered a masterpiece of mid‑century American art
ⓘ
widely acclaimed by critics ⓘ |
| inception | 1950 ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Cubism
ⓘ
Modernism ⓘ
surface form:
European modernism
Surrealism ⓘ |
| languageOfTitle | English ⓘ |
| location | Art Institute of Chicago ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
abstraction
ⓘ
interlocking forms ⓘ |
| materialUsed | oil paint ⓘ |
| movement |
Abstract expressionism
ⓘ
surface form:
Abstract Expressionism
|
| movementAssociatedWithCreator |
Abstract expressionism
ⓘ
surface form:
Abstract Expressionism
|
| notableWorkOf | Willem de Kooning ⓘ |
| partOf |
Erased de Kooning Drawing
ⓘ
surface form:
Willem de Kooning’s early 1950s oeuvre
|
| placeOfCreation | New York City ⓘ |
| significantEvent |
displayed at the Venice Biennale
ⓘ
exhibited in major de Kooning retrospectives ⓘ |
| styleCharacteristic |
dense composition
ⓘ
gestural brushwork ⓘ overlapping forms ⓘ |
| support | canvas ⓘ |
| title | Excavation ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Excavation Description of subject: Excavation is a landmark 1950 abstract expressionist painting by Willem de Kooning, celebrated for its dynamic brushwork and complex, interlocking forms.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.