Two Coats of Paint

In LA: Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia's woven paper grids

2012-02-10T12:08:00.006-05:00

CB1 presents intriguing new pieces by Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia this month. His work references diverse sources ranging from personal anecdotes to art-historical and ethnographic motifs, and takes structural and organizational cues from Scottish Tartan, basket weaving, and abstract painting. Segovia paints the paper, then weaves the painted strips into large, oddly shaped pieces that can be viewed from all sides. In the LA Times David Pagel writes that Segovia’s penchant for "hinting at things proves to be more potent than laying them bare." Too bad the show comes down before I head out to Los Angeles for the CAA conference at the end of the month.

Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, installation view of "Papel Tejido" at CB1 Gallery.

Great image on the exhibition announcement.

"Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia: Papel tejido," CB 1 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Through February 19, 2012

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Quick Study: Residency Opportunities

2012-02-10T10:26:00.019-05:00

I just received an email with a long listing of artist opportunities, so I thought I'd share a few. When I see residencies like this posted, I think of the thousands of artists who aren't selected each year. Keep in mind that artists can expand opportunities by creating their own small residencies and inviting friends. Remember Camp Pocket U? Many organizations (such as Smack Mellon) started as small, half-assed, artist-run programs that have grown into formidable grant-funded non-profits.

NARS International Artist Residency Program provides national and international artists with the opportunity to produce new work while engaging with the vibrant arts community in New York City. Artists-in-residence have access to an individual studio space and various professional development programs. Residents have an opportunity to share and present their work through artist talks, workshops, and lectures and receive studio visits by prominent New York City curators, critics and gallerists. The NARS Foundation seeks applications on two levels. The first level includes emerging and mid-career artists, for whom appointments as residents may make a significant impact on their careers. The second level consists of artists with established national and/or international reputations for whom a change of environment may offer refreshment and inspiration. Deadline April 6, 2012 Application fee: $35

Exhibition at the NARS Foundation gallery.

The Keyholder Residency Program - Lower East Side Printshop, NYC / Now accepting submissions Deadline: March 1, 2012 Application fee: None / The Keyholder Residency Program offers emerging artists free 24-hour access to printmaking facilities to develop new work and foster their artistic careers. Residencies are one year long, starting on April 1, 2012, and take place in the Printshop’s shared Artists’ Studio. Facilities are available for intaglio, relief, monoprint, waterbased silkscreen, digital processes, and other techniques. Artists currently without a studio space are encouraged to apply. $1000 stipend. For a list of current artists in residence click here.

Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge, UK) invited Berlin based artists Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser to create an ‘amphitheatre’ on Wysing’s rural site, working with a team of volunteers and using only discarded, found and recycled materials. WAC is accepting applications for six-week residencies through February 17.

Teaching Opportunity:

Bergen National Academy of the Arts is one of two national institutions vested with a special responsibility for higher education in the field of Art and Design in Norway. KHiB has a vacancy for a professor in painting for a fixed term of six years. "We are searching for a Professor with extensive experience in the field of painting with ambitions to expand and test the limits of what artistic practice can be, with an interest in, and a critically inquisitive mind towards, other forms of artistic expression and possible linkages between them. Applicants should have extensive practical experience, a strongly contextualised practice and a theoretical understanding of the artistic field including its historical, esthetic, social and political development and context...." Read more.

Look for more artist opportunities at Re-Title.

Related posts:
Studio update: Habitat For Artists
Studio update: January Residency at Pocket Utopia

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John Yau: Observation and abstraction

2012-02-08T11:10:00.013-05:00

A while back I mentioned that John Yau, poet, former arts editor at The Brooklyn Rail, and one of the masterminds of Hyperallergic Weekend, was in the process of curating a painting show, and I just received the press release. The inspired final roster for "Broken/Window/Plane" includes Andrea Belag, Paul DeMuro, Lois Dodd, Joanne Greenbaum, Marc Handelman, Merlin James, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Nicholas Krushenick, Judy Ledgerwood, Sangram Majumdar, Catherine Murphy, amd Gary Stephan.

As usual, Yau writes eloquently about painting in the curator's statement:

The idea for this exhibition came from a conversation that I had with Gary Stephan while we were looking at the newest paintings in his studio. He began talking about "pressure being applied to the picture plane," but didn't specify whether this force came from the artist, history, or nature. And, to compound matters, I also realized that there is the pressure on the artist as well, from authorities and institutions, not to mention gravity.

Judy Ledgerwood painting from Chromatic Patterns for Chicago & Blob Paintings at Rhona Hoffman in Chicago, 2011. (Not in show)

In order to clear a space for yourself, you have to ask a basic question but defer the solution: couldn't the picture plane be both solid and transparent, layered and punctuated, there and not there, something we see even when it is invisible? Why would you want to confine painting's identity to a narrow set of conventions? Why not try and find fresh ways to distinguish it? Stephan's observations confirmed a long-held suspicion. Painters - the best ones, anyway - have long found ways to supersede the received wisdom regarding painting's identity.

Catherine Murphy’s Comforter, 2007. (Not in show)

The reasons are obvious - why would you want to spend your days thinking of a painting solely as a two-dimensional surface upon which to apply paint? Might not a more challenging goal be to bring everything back into play - from discredited illusionism and the figure/ground problem to allusiveness and association - without being nostalgic, sentimental, ironic, or coy? I was reminded of conversations that I had had with Lois Dodd, Sangram Majumdar, Catherine Murphy and others. A space for reflection had opened up, and I thought it was worth exploring.

Paul DeMuro, 2011. (Not in show).

The sole motivation for my selections was the work itself - the paintings are in dialogue with others in the show. They speak across generations. They don't recognize the borders separating abstraction from observation. They are free spirits. Speculation and play have replaced claims to being factual. Or, to put it another way, the artists in this exhibition recognize that what you need - if you wish to pull a rabbit out of a hat - is a rabbit and a hat.

After visiting Lois Dodd's show and writing about it for the Rail, I've been thinking about the the role observation plays in abstraction. The impossibility of looking carefully enough (at the world around us, at photographic images, and at our own work) to fully apprehend the visual is something I've been thinking about in my new work, so I'm looking forward to seeing the individual pieces that Yau has selected for the show.

"Broken/Window/Plane," organized by John Yau, Tracy Williams, Ltd, New York, NY. February 16 through March 17, 2012.

Related posts:
Sunday Matinee: Gary Stephan

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Lovably prolific: Chris Martin (again)

2012-02-07T12:01:00.007-05:00

Chris Martin is like a god to young abstract painters, so when the lovably prolific maestro presents new work, celebration ensues. The raucous paintings in his current show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash don't disappoint--they feature much of his familiar imagery and go-to materials like glitter, newspaper collage, and sewn-together tarps. Many of the ginormous paintings sport cutouts, one of which has become a resting place for a little gnome figurine. Here are a few detail shots I took when I stopped by the gallery, as well as the James Kalm Report of the opening reception.

Nap nook.

He paints the background of the hole to match the surface of the painting.

Records collaged onto a rug.

A small newsclipping is the focal point of this big aluminum foil piece.

Mushroom made from aluminum foil.

Stretcher behind the hole is painted to match the color on the surface.

Collaged images, one handdrawn, one from a children's book.

The James Kalm Report:

"Chris Martin," Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY. Through March 3, 2012.

Related posts:
Chris Martin's bigness

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Allison Miller's eccentricity

2012-02-07T10:15:00.009-05:00

Allison Miller's first major NYC show is a knockout. Citing inspiration from disparate sources such as Vuillard, Fontana, and Magritte, Miller's edgy, mid-size paintings manage to render the uncanny and the absurd in abstract form. Her process is "a journey without predetermined destination, a map of its progression contained within each piece." Since she received her MFA from UCLA in 2001, Miller has been meandering down an interesting, eccentric path . She has shown extensively out west, including exhibitions at ACME, Los Angeles, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Calgary, Canada, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, and the Las Vegas Museum of Art, but this is her first major solo show in New York.

"Allison Miller," Susan Inglett, New York, NY. Through March 3, 2012.

Related posts:
LATimes reviews: Miller, Pittman, MacConnel, Masullo (2007)

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Drink, Draw, Discuss in DC

2012-02-06T11:37:00.007-05:00

This Friday, February 10th, at 5 pm, Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, Austin Thomas and I will talk about making art, blogging, and how the two activities intersect. If you are in the DC area, or feel like taking a field trip, please join us. The discussion is part of a series of salon-style events that Austin has organized in conjunction with her exhibition at Heiner Contemporary in Washington, DC.

I'll discuss the relationship between this blog, my art practice, and the coincident occurrences, connecting principles, parallelism, and loveitivity that occur between Austin Thomas's work and my own. Karina is planning to introduce her project, "La Ruta Del Sol," in which she uses vacation blogs to explore online representations of "exotic" landscapes, specifically vacation blogs written about Ecuador's La Ruta del Sol. Her project includes a series of cyanotypes and performative videos.

The view from Austin Thomas's desk installation at Heiner Contemporary. The framed photo is a rendering of "Plaza Perch," the public art project she's working on for the Moore Street Market in Bushwick. That's Austin in the background,

On Saturday, Heiner is also hosting "Drink and Draw with Julie Torres," an afternoon of collaborative drawing with the well known Brooklyn-based performance painter.

“Austin Thomas: Studies,” Heiner Contemporary, 1675 Wisconsin Avenue, NW. Through March 3, 2012.

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Related posts:
A Makeshift Studio in Georgetown
Social practice: Austin Thomas and Julie Torres
Artists who curate: "Creating opportunities for felicitous constellations"

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Lois Dodd and....On Kawara?

2012-02-05T20:28:00.006-05:00

The February art section in The Brooklyn Rail is dedicated exclusively to painting. "Because we believe it is necessary periodically to take the pulse of painting, we propose in this issue to use diverse forms of criticism to examine what one can see this month in New York City," guest art editor Vincent Katz writes in his introduction, "We are using painting here not exclusively but rather inclusively, as symbolic of the creative act."

Katz asked for 200-300 word posts about painting exhibitions, and so I contributed this short blurb that compares Lois Dodd's observational paintings to On Kawara's date project at Zwirner.

Lois Dodd’s great gift as a painter is her ability to pose complex questions without seeming to try. In this exhibition of small oil on board works, she paints the familiar surroundings of her home in Maine, depicting ordinary things like snow on a windowpane, laundry on the clothesline, or a puff of Queen Anne’s lace. She focuses intently on the visual, simplifying form, interpreting color, and organizing space. Dodd is an unselfconscious version of On Kawara, the artist who has famously been painting dates for over 40 years...

Read More at The Brooklyn Rail

On Kawara, installation view at David Zwirner

Lois Dodd, Echinacea, 2011, oil on masonite, 18 1/8 x 15 3/4 inches

I haven't finished reading the whole issue, but here are links to the other articles. And, good news: Robert Storr has agreed to serve as guest editor for the next issue.

DAVID DRISKELL Creative Spirit: Five Decades by Bridget Goodbody
DAINA HIGGINS New Paintings by Charles Schultz
LOIS DODD New Panel Paintings by Sharon Butler
Unlikely Friends: JAMES BROOKS & DAN FLAVIN by Greg Lindquist
DAMIEN HIRST The Complete Spot Paintings 1986 – 2011 by Corina Larkin
LORI ELLISON by Corina Larkin
GEORGES HUGNET The Love Life of the Spumifers by Valery Oisteanu
Dark Christmas by Bradley Rubenstein
ELLSWORTH KELLY Schwarz & Weiss by David Rhodes
MALCOLM MORLEY Another Way to Make an Image, Monotypes by Robert Storr
Five Works from the Collection of Albert Murray: ROMARE BEARDEN and NORMAN LEWIS by Charles Schultz
THE RONALD S. LAUDER COLLECTION: Selections from the 3rd Century BC to the 20th Century / Germany, Austria, and France by Charles Schultz
Anonymous Tantra Paintings by Noah Dillon
SANGRAM MAJUMDAR
New Work by Kara L. Rooney
GUDMUNDUR THORODDSEN Father’s Father by Paolo Javier
SOTO Paris and Beyond,
1950 – 1970 by Cora Fisher
JESS Paintings by Phong Bui
GEORGE MCNEIL by Robert Berlind
VICTOR MATTHEWS by Vincent Katz
LOLA MONTES SCHNABEL Love Before Intimacy by David Markus
THOMAS WOODRUFF The Four Temperament Variations by Kara L. Rooney
MARTHA CLIPPINGER Hopscotch by Robert Berlind
PETER GALLO by Jonathan Goodman
Connected by Noah Dillon
KANDINSKY's “Painting with White Border” by Susan Bee
BARBARA SANDLER Straight On Till Morning by Robert Berlind
December (Organized by Howie Chen) by Nathan Kernan
EDWIN DICKINSON In Retrospect by Robert Berlind
JOSÉ RIVERA by Nathan Kernan
REMBRANDT’S WORLD: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection by Sara Christoph
JOSEPH MONTGOMERY Velveteen by Linnea Kniaz
The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini by Mira Schor
BOSCO SODI Ubi Sunt by Jonathan Goodman
DOUG WADA Americana by Lilly Wei
Mind the Gap by Anne Sherwood Pundyk
BILL JENSEN by Ben La Rocco
WITHIN/WITHOUT: A Studio Visit With SHOSHANA DENTZ by Zachary Wollard
SUSANNA HELLER’s Studio by Robert Berlind
STUDIO VISIT: JOYCE PENSATO by William Corwin
Making American Taste: Narrative Art for a New Democracy by Shane McAdams
Letter from BERLIN by David Rhodes
JOSEPH MARIONI Eye to Eye by Robert C. Morgan
GORDON MOORE by Joan Waltemath
Master Bill at MoMA by Irving Sandler

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"Lois Dodd: New Panel Paintings," Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY. Through February 18, 2012.

"On Kawara Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities," Zwirner, New York, NY. Through February 11, 2012.

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Related posts:
Stopping time: On Kawara and Danica Phelps (January 19, 2012)
UES gallery crawl: Hirst, Wall, Bontecou, Picabia, Dodd (January 9, 2012)

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Part 2: Joshua Abelow's painting process

2012-02-04T16:16:00.010-05:00

In December I posted Part 1: Where is Joshua Abelow, and readers may recall that Abelow, painter and editor of ART BLOG ART BLOG, currently has an exhibition at Dan Devening Projects & Editions in Chicago. Here is Part 2 of our conversation, which includes edited excerpts from a rambling discussion we had about painting and process.

Joshua Abelow, Self-portrait, 2011, oil on linen, 20 x 16 inches.

Butler: Your work is often about the art world. When you opened ART BLOG ART BLOG ( the gallery), did looking at the art world from a different perspective generate new material? Your earlier work seemed to be about “The Powerless Artist,” but you’re not really a powerless artist anymore...
Abelow: I guess a lot of my work, the crux of it, came out of frustration, not necessarily with the art world, but with my own work. I used make hundreds of paintings and destroy them all because I disliked them so much. I don’t know what my work is about now. I don’t think of myself as a powerless artist but there are still levels of frustration about success. I never thought of my work as being about powerlessness, but more about frustration.

The themes in my work haven’t changed dramatically. They will evolve and morph and twist, if anything I’ll poke fun at myself for having any level of success. For me it’s about the routine of art making. The daily practice of being an artist—whether in the studio, going to other artists’ studios, going to shows—I’m interested in how it all connects. Doing the blog is interesting because I get to steal other people’s images and combine them any way I want.

Joshua Abelow, Self-portrait, 2011, oil on linen, 20 x 16 inches.

Butler: Talk a little bit about your process.
Abelow: I make paintings and drawings, and the relationship is important—they fight with each other. My work has always had elements of text, the figure, and geometric abstraction in varying degrees. I have some paintings that are purely geometric, some are just text-based, some are just figurative, and some incorporate all three. Most of what I do comes out of a systematic investigation of color. I write notes and then I follow the instructions. (See Part 1 for images of Abelow's instructions in his sketchbooks.) I’ll work on twenty, thirty, or forty paintings all at once. Sometimes I follow the instructions, and sometimes I veer in a different direction that leads to sets of rules for new paintings. The rules have to do with how I mix and apply color. If an image appears, it is a response to the color in the moment--but sometimes the idea for an image is preplanned. Certain types of paintings, like the cell phone paintings, are determined in advance.

Joshua Abelow, Call Me Abstract (2011), oil on burlap on canvas, 16 × 12 inches.

It’s an endless game. It could start with something like cadmium yellow medium, mixed with iridescent white, mixed with silver, and I'll write notes about how the paint should be applied and layered. When I first started painting this way, it was all trial and error. I would do the steps spontaneously, and record the results after the fact. Now it’s evolved into a process to develop color alphabets. It’s like creating a language. I’ve created sets of alphabets and now I’m creating words and sentences using the alphabets.

Joshua Abelow, Self-portrait, 2010, oil on linen, 24 x 18 inches.

Butler: But your work seems so spontaneous.
Abelow: It’s deceptive. It’s like cataloging a spontaneous process. The paintings are planned, but the drawings are spontaneous and come out of self-portraiture, a critique of the heroic male artist character. I take imagery and ideas from other artists and insert myself in situations with them. I’m drawn to nostalgic and glamor imagery from the 1950s. I’ll juxtapose a crude, ill-behaved character with one who’s more glamorous and civilized. In the same way, using the rules sets up a tension between something that is planned and something that is out of my control. I set up rules and expectations and then undermine them. Kick out the legs.

Butler: Let’s talk about scale. You work fairly small. Why?
Abelow: I used to work larger but I got sick of it. I ran out of space. But also the nature of my work shifted. Everything became more specific, the needs of the paintings shifted. My work is more about production. My studio is like a one-man factory of activity--instead of making one large painting I try to set up visual rhythms by arranging small work on the wall. I also like that small paintings are more intimate, like buying a book or a record. I have very little stuff—I don’t like accumulating things. In general I feel like I see ego, not thoughtfulness, when I look at large paintings. I’d rather look at something thoughtful than something large and flashy. Nowadays there are so many prominent painters who work at small scale, like say, Tomma Abts, that critics aren’t as dismissive.

Butler: Do you see your paintings as humorous?
Abelow: I try to get at dark themes in a humorous way. Again, it’s about having multiple levels of entry. If someone laughs, that’s fantastic because that’s a response. Humor is one way to get at something, even if it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. Yes, I see my work as funny and I’m absolutely amusing myself as I make it. The text usually comes out of real life experiences I’ve had.

Butler: Are you more drawn to painters who are interested in process than painters who have a more conceptual approach?
Abelow: I’m most interested in artwork that blurs all the boundaries, that takes a while to get a handle on. You think you know what’s happening, but you’re never quite sure, and you’re always seeing new meaning. I like B. Wurtz. I like work that’s economical and unpretentious. Someone like Martin Creed is fantastic. The way he approaches his practice is really interesting because anything can be art. If it looks like art it’s probably not art.

Butler: Do you have any advice for young artists?
Abelow: Don’t underestimate the power of the Internet!

Joshua Abelow, installation view at Dan Devening Projects & Editions.

"Joshua Abelow: Songs from a Room," Dan Devening Projects & Editions, Chicago, IL. Through March 3, 2012.

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Raphael Rubinstein revisits Provisional Painting

2012-02-04T11:47:00.004-05:00

Thank you, Art in America, for posting "Provisional Painting Part 2: To Rest Lightly on the Earth," Raphael Rubinstein's eagerly anticipated update to "Provisional Painting," online this month. Rubinstein takes a more experimental, philosophical approach, attempting to explain the why of provisional painting in nine numbered paragraphs and four interludes.

David Hammons, 2011 installation at L&M Arts, New York, NY.

Citing roots in Giacometti's post-war portraits, an interview with Philip Guston, Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Tang dynasty historian Chang Yen-Yuan's praise of the incomplete, and of course, the writings of Samuel Beckett, Rubinstein concludes that it's the apparent nonchalance of abstract painting and the lack of pretense or fussiness that mark paintings as NOW. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from his thoughtful article.

What are the consequences if a work of art is produced under the sign of abandonment, negation, impossibility? Until very recently, these questions sounded very old-fashioned. The existential selfquestioning, the doubt, the anguish, all those hallmarks of mid-20th-century art, have been long put aside, superseded, forgotten, laughed out of the room. With the eclipse of Abstract Expressionism circa 1960, new modes of artmaking were discovered in which the kinds of doubts that troubled artists from Cézanne to Giacometti became largely irrelevant. They were replaced by a solid work ethic, by an emphasis on production, by attention to surfaces (in both a material and a psychological sense), by coolness, by social rather than individual identity; in short, Giacometti's gloomy, doubt-filled studio was replaced by Warhol's Factory.

.....

Visiting the Brooklyn studio of one of the artists I wrote about in "Provisional Painting," I get into a discussion about "impossibility." The artist thinks I've misunderstood something fundamental about his work. For him, painting is never impossible—just the opposite. I realize that I have committed one of the worst, if most common, critical (and curatorial) sins: recruiting an artist into a compelling critical narrative while missing something fundamental about his or her work.

.....

And what if provisional painting is an implicit critique of human ambition, a kind of vanitas?

And what if provisional painting is a response to the renewed dematerialization of art that has accompanied the rise of digital mobility, a way for painting to say "I, too, am just a momentary image on a screen?"

But what if provisionality is nothing more than a stylistic trope, rather than a matter of profound artistic conviction and philosophical reflection? I keep rereading a sentence I came across in one of Frank O'Hara's art reviews: "It is simply a property of Bonnard's mature work, and one of its most fragile charms, to look slightly washed-out, to look what every sophisticated person let alone artist wants to look: a little ‘down,' a little effortless and helpless." Could provisional painting, or at least some of it, be merely the medium on a casual Friday?

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Gordon Moore's illusive reality

2012-02-03T12:36:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was in Chelsea where I saw Gordon Moore's sublime large-scale paintings and photo emulsion drawings at Betty Cuningham. Juxtaposing dimensional space with drawn and painted shapes, Moore's reductive paintings reflect his interest in the illusions perpetrated by photography and linear perspective. Within a single canvas he combines three or more distinct types of space, using flat shapes of color and drawn lines, some of which are deliberately masked out, others are more randomly intuitive. For Moore, who describes himself as an empiricist, the paintings reveal an abstract but very tangible world. In the current issue of The Brooklyn Rail, Joan Waltemath writes that Moore's paintings feel "in tune with the present moment where uncertainty and restraint fill the lives of most Americans," and she's right. I loved this show.

Gordon Moore, Hood, 2011, oil, pumice, latex on canvas, 82 x 56 inches.

Gordon Moore, Untitled (Crank) 2011, oil, pumice and latex on canvas, 81 x 56 inches.

Gordon Moore, Hemlock, 2011, oil, pumice, latex on canvas, 81 x 56 inches.

Gordon Moore, Untitled, 2008, ink, gouache, collage on photo emulsion paper, 20 x 16 inches.

"Gordon Moore: Paintings and Photo Emulsion Drawings," Betty Cuningham, New York, NY. Through February 11, 2012.

Related post:
Exchanging studio visits with Joan Waltemath

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The furry monster and the naked girl

2012-02-02T10:02:00.002-05:00

Here's a 2002 Chester Higgins, Jr., image of Dorothea Tanning in her New York home that ran with Grace Glueck's NY Times obituary. I love the painting in the background. Can anyone identify it?

What idiot painted over Mona Lisa?

2012-02-02T09:40:00.005-05:00

According to The Art Newspaper, a copy of the Mona Lisa has been uncovered at the Prado in Madrid. The Prado curators had always assumed their Mona Lisa was made after Leonardo’s death, but now it appears as though was actually painted by one of his assistants at the same time as the original. Later, inexplicably, probably in the mid-18th century, the landscape in the background was covered with a deep coat of black paint. When conservators began removing the paint, they realized how similar the image was to the Louvre's Mona Lisa, and infrared reflectography images revealed similar underdrawings.

Since the background landscape remained in good condition and Leonardo’s original painting was already well regarded, no one knows why the painting was altered, but they suspect the owner (or perhaps an aggressive interior designer?) wanted to integrate the copy into an interior with other portraits set against dark backgrounds.

Let's hope this discovery is a lesson to everyone that paintings should never be altered to suit the décor.

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Mike Kelley's paintings

2012-02-02T00:38:00.009-05:00

Sad news. Brilliant and influential LA artist Mike Kelley (b. 1956 in Detroit), best known for grunge installations, performances, and pioneering exploration of what Jerry Saltz dubbed the "clusterfuck aesthetic," died this week of an apparent suicide.

In 2009 Kelley turned away from installation and created a rare series of paintings called "Horizontal Tracking Shots," for an exhibition at Gagosian. The large, multi-part polychrome panels and smaller framed canvases drew from a wide range of sources including elementary school textbook illustration, domestic décor, Modernist abstraction, stage set design, New Age painting, comic strips, and science-fiction. At the time, critics were cynical (and unimpressed) by Kelley's dalliance with painting, and few wrote about the show. In later exhibitions he returned to producing the spectacular, jaw-dropping installations that had been so successful.

Acccording to news reports, Kelley had been preparing work for an upcoming show at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. "He had a deep discomfort in seeing what the art world is now," curator and ex-partner Emi Fontana told Jori Finkel in the LA Times. "He didn't like the fact that everything has become so corporate. He said to me: 'If I were to start now, I would never become a visual artist.'...He really wanted to be an important artist, and he worked all of his life for that. He found himself at the top of his game and then found that the world he was at the top of was a world that he didn't like. That's intense existentially."

Mike Kelley, Horizontal Tracking Shot of a Cross Section of Trauma Rooms, 2009, acrylic on wood panels, steel video monitors (on back), DVD players (on back), 96 x 192 x 1 3/4 inches

Mike Kelley, Untitled, 2008-2008, acrylic on wood panels, 100 x 184 1/4 inches

Mike Kelley, Untitled, 2008-2009, acrylic on wood panels, 99 x 179 1/4 inches

Mike Kelley, 'Horizontal Tracking Shots," installation view at Gagosian.

Mike Kelley, Naked Majas (Bettelheims' Genital), 2008-2009, acrylic on canvas, wood, enamel
70 1/2 x 192 x 4 1/2 inches

Mike Kelley's website.

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Sly and witty: Female Surrealists in Los Angeles

2012-02-01T07:37:00.002-05:00

Past surveys of Surrealism have either largely excluded female artists or minimized their contributions, so the exhibition of lady Surrealists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that runs through May 6, 2012, is a big deal. The show includes works dating from 1931 to 1968, and some of the later pieces demonstrate Surrealism's influence on the feminist movement. Early female Surrealists explored identity through portraits, double portraits, self-referential images, and masquerades.

"I don't think Surrealism has a sense of humor," curator Ilene Susan Fort told Wall Street Journal reporter Alexandra Cheney. But, she added, sometimes the movement's women painters were very witty.

Work by iconic figures such as Louise Bourgeois, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Kay Sage, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo is included, along with less well known artists. In the LA Times, critic Christopher Knight writes that the show provides a welcome artistic context for Frida Kahlo, who, "accompanied by so many Surrealist women, can be appreciated for her work, rather than for her singular biography."

I'm looking forward to seeing the show when I'm in LA this month for the College Art Association Annual Conference, but for readers who can't get there, the accompanying book, edited by co-curators Ilene Susan Fort and Tere Arcq, with Terri Geis, includes more than 250 color images, along with essays by Dawn Ades, Maria Buszek, Whitney Chadwick, Rita Eder, Salomon Grimberg, and Gloria Orenstein. Looks good.

Muriel Streeter, The Chess Queens, 1944, oil on canvas, 13.5 x 17.75 inches.

Bridget Tichenor, Autorretrato (Self-portrait) undated, oil on canvas, about 19 x 19 inches.

Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibrí (Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird), 1940, © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo courtesy Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Rosa Rolanda, Autorretrato (Self-portrait), c. 1945, gouache on paper, 15.75 x 13 inches. @Estate of Rosa Rolanda Covarrubias, photo courtesy of Andrés Blaisten, by Francisco Kochen.

Kaye Sage, Danger, Construction Ahead, 1940, © Estate of Kay Sage Tanguy, photo © Yale University Art Gallery

Gertrude Abercrombie, Self-portrait of My Sister, 1941, oil on canvas, 26.5 x 21.75 inches.

Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1942, oil on canvas, 40.25 x 20.25 inches.

"In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States," organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico. Co-curated by Ilene Susan Fort and Tere Arcq. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA. Through May 6, 2012.

Related posts:
Book of the Day: Coming to That by Dorothea Tanning
Who is Kay Sage?

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Ralph Fasanella: Defending the 99%

2012-01-30T11:15:00.002-05:00

In his review of “Jubilation/Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined,” the new exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum, Ken Johnson neglected to mention that there are two paintings by Ralph Fasanella (American, 1914-1997), a self-taught artist whose large, detailed depictions of the urban working class critiqued post-World-War II America. An Italian immigrant who grew up in Little Italy, Fasanella was a zealous labor activist who worked tirelessly to make a better life for working men and women.

Ralph Fasanella, New York City 1950–1970, oil on canvas, 59 x 96 x 1 1/2 inches. American Folk Art Museum, gift of Maurice and Margo Cohen, Birmingham, Michigan. Fasanella's other large painting in the show depicts the plight of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

In this video, produced by the Machinists' News Network, Fasanella's daughter tells how he would come home from the factory, head down to the basement, and, fueled by way too much coffee, paint all night.

In the 1997 NY Times obituary of Fasanella, Robert Smith reported that

from 1940 to 1945, Mr. Fasanella worked as a union organizer for the United Electrical Workers of the C.I.O., organizing the Western Electric plant in Manhattan. In 1944, a friend suggested that he take up drawing to relieve the arthritis in his hands. It worked, and he was hooked. He learned to paint after persuading the union to organize painting classes for its members and signing up. His first solo show was at the ACA Galleries on East 57th Street in 1948. One of his first sales was to the choreographer Jerome Robbins. During the McCarthy years, Mr. Fasanella was blacklisted and found it virtually impossible to find work. His wife, Eva Lazorek, whom he married in 1950, was able to support him by teaching school....

“Jubilation/Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined,” organized by Stacy C. Hollander. american Folk Art Museum, New York, NY. Through September 2, 2012.
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Obamas check out 30 Americans

2012-01-30T09:32:00.014-05:00

It was widely reported in the media that the Obamas went to the Corcoran Museum yesterday afternoon to see 30 Americans before it closes on February 12th. A three-decade survey selected from the Rubell Family Collection, the exhibition includes challenging work by prominent African American artists. The Rubells decided to call it “30 Americans.” rather than “African-Americans” or “Black Americans” because they felt nationality is a statement of fact, while racial identity is a question each artist answers in his or her own way, or not at all.

Whether wealthy collectors should be curating vanity exhibitions from their private collections for publicly funded museums (thereby increasing the value of the work) is a controversial question, but there's plenty of good work on view--Leonardo Drew’s cotton and wax sculpture Untitled #25, several of Nick Cave’s Soundsuits, and a large-scale Kara Walker silhouette are all included. Despite the ethical issues, I wonder what the First Family thought of the show...?

Obama's walking to the museum. (Image via Getty)

Links to the work:

"30 Americans," curated by the Rubell Family Collection. The Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, DC. Through February 12, 2012.The show will travel to the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, March 16th, through July 15th, 2012.

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Flower Power? Jim Isermann at Mary Boone

2012-01-29T10:08:00.008-05:00

Through next week, Mary Boone is presenting more than a dozen of Jim Isermann's pieces from the mid to late 1980s and one work from 1993. Isermann belongs to that influential second generation of LA artists who graduated from CalArts in the late 1970s, but, unlike his contemporaries who were absorbed with postmodernist strategy, Isermann was obsessed with super graphics from the 1960s and 70s. The centerpiece of the show (although strangely installed in a cramped side room) is the 1985 Flower Seating Group, a construction of five painted, plywood-framed, lawn-chair-webbed supports, facing out toward the gallery, surrounding five petal shaped tables. A Flower Ceiling Pendant Light and a Flower Painting, both adjunct components of the original 1986 installation, are also included. (NOTE: Don't sit in the chairs. Although Isermann originally designed them as furniture for a gallery, now the chairs are to be apprehended as an art object. Do not touch!) The Shag Paintings pair latch hook Orlon acrylic yarn panels with hard edge geometric enamel panels, linking his work to the debates about craft that were generated by the feminist contingent.

The press materials assert that "while these works resonate with the best populist examples of Super Graphics, they never settle for being retrograde. The works take as their starting point the most elementary of geometric and coloristic units: they are as aesthetically persuasive as the best manifestations of geometric art of the last century."

Are they? I'm not so sure. Isermann didn't take the work far enough--for me they read as nostalgic totems from my childhood home, and they probably did back in the day, too. Where are the paper dresses?

"Jim Isermann: Reunion," Mary Boone, New York, NY Through February 4, 2012.

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Adolph Gottlieb lamented the end of the underground --in 1966

2012-01-25T14:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I went to The Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle where Joseph Marioni is having an elegant solo show of monochromatic paintings through the end of the weekend. The Phillips, which opened in 1921, was founded by Duncan Phillips, a champion of Modern art and, particularly, American artists, many of whom he knew personally. Adoph Gottlieb must have been one of his friends because this unusual Gottlieb entered the Phillips collection in 1963--the year it was made. I looked up Gottleib, who with his wife Esther Gottlieb founded the Gottlieb Foundation to support struggling artists, and found this interview with Andrew Hudson for a 1966 Washington Post article called “Gottlieb finds Today’s Shock-Proof Audience Dangerous."

Gottlieb: I think the situation today is similar to the period when Surrealism became important in France and Europe and the only painters who were able to continue working in the tradition of Cubism were those who were the originators and initiators of the movement. It wasn’t possible to have a really significant second generation of Cubist painters. What happened was that the younger painters who were able to contribute something went into another direction, which happened to be Surrealism. And I think a similar thing has happened today: That the so-called New York School, or Abstract-Expressionists, consisted of a group of painters who were about my generation and they are the legitimate practitioners of their concepts. But when so many young painters became involved in trying to carry out some of the ideas of Abstract Expressionism, it became rather academic.

Hudson: A sort of manner…?
Gottlieb: Yes. It was like Andre Lhote doing Cubist paintings of football games, and it became second-rate, and it was necessary for painters to develop other ideas. Now, I think the point is that Surrealism also had certain popular elements that could appeal to a large public like the postcard color, the use of realistic, naturalistic techniques, as in Dali- so that this was a kind of dilution of the values that had existed; there was a lowering of the standard that Cubism had. It just so happened that it wasn’t possible to do anything, to use Cubism as a springboard, let us say. I don’t think any movement ever is a springboard for another movement.

Hudson: It has to start again.
Gottlieb: Yes. The tradition of modern art is a tradition of revolution: there’s one revolution after another – for better or for worse. And I think that’s what we have today: there’s been a revolution, the older Abstract Expressionists can legitimately continue working in their way, but young people have to find some other way.

Hudson: Do you think sometime or other there’ll be another revolution somewhere.
Gottlieb: There is one now and there will be others. I think that one of the problems is that today what we are witnessing is the development of art in a democracy, and this never existed before. The idea of a democratic art which can reach many people ultimately must be a notion of some kind of mass culture. And this is the dismal aspect.

I don’t know if it’s possible for artists to feel that they can even go underground any more. We felt that we were living in an underground; we felt that we were a bit outside of society and, in a sense, outcasts. If such a mood could develop among artists, this would be a good sign – but I haven’t seen any signs of it. They all want success more than achievement.

I think one of the sorriest examples is that of two young artists – who I guess are taken rather seriously – recently collaborated on a scheme to use a computer go find out what people really liked best. The computer told them, for example, what color combinations people liked best, what shapes they liked best – and on the basis of this information they jointly made an object. I think the idea was to make it so that it could be duplicated. Obviously this is a different spirit than what has happened in the past with artists who are serious an independent.

What’s unfortunate is that nobody seems to be in a position to make a criticism of what’s going on, about standards being lowered, and having false ideals…We have a lot of young critics, and the young critics feel that the way to succeed in their own area is to espouse and support whatever it is that’s catching on, and if they can be the first ones to proclaim it, they can then become another Clement Greenberg, perhaps. They try to ride on the tail of whatever seems to them to be the art which is viable at the moment.

You have a situation in the art world that’s become like show business; and, after all, if you’re in the museum field, or if you’re an art writer, there has to be a great deal of grist for your mill. You’ve got to be putting on shows all the time, which will draw the public in; and you also have to have new material to write about. Suppose that you were convinced that in the last 30 years or so there were only a handful of artists who were making an important contribution, and these were the ones who were worth discussing. You wouldn’t have much to write about, let us say, if you were writing for a magazine.

I think that at least two thirds of the vast new art public that we have today has never made a serious attempt to study art; they only know about art because they’ve started going to some exhibitions in the last three years, and they’ve read some reviews in newspapers or art magazines. And that’s their total knowledge…

But, of course, I don’t have a really objective view of what the art situation is. I think that some of the dealers might be in a better position to evaluate; they see the artists coming in with work all the time.
The other thing is that I don’t really care too much, because there isn’t anything that at my stage of the game I can do about it – I have to concentrate on continuing to work out my own problems. In other words, my path has been determined over the years: I believe the only thing I have to do is stay with my own direction.

Related Two Coats post:
Abstract Expressionism at MoMA
"Artists less celebrated, whose work used to seem flatfooted and obvious to me, now scan as forward-thinking. What I once considered lesser paintings because of the color, composition, brushwork, or surface quality have come to look fresh and challenging in their visual awkwardness. Adolph Gottleib’s symbolic contrivances, William Baziotes’s acidic color, Hans Hoffman’s clunky palette knifery, and Clyfford Still’s jagged edges are more in tune with the uncomfortable aesthetic decisions painters are making today...."

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A makeshift studio in Georgetown

2012-01-25T13:07:00.010-05:00

Since I'll be spending more time in DC, and I have to paint for two upcoming shows, I turned the apartment into a makeshift studio.

The natural light, ceiling height and wall space in the apartment are excellent, although I can't work on too many things at once unless I spread out into the rest of the place--which is often the case. In my new work, I"m thinking about the monumental sculpture I saw recently at the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden.

I just started three 60 x 72 inch unstretched canvases. Working with acrylic pigments and binders, I can work on small sections of the paintings on the tabletop. I'm alsoworking on a stack of canvasboard studies (at right) and small drawings (on floor).

Jason Andrew and DC artist Maggie Michael stopped by after Austin's opening at Heiner.

Here are Maggie, Austin Thomas and Brooklyn artist Adam Simon. Don't forget to check out Ad's show at Valentine this month.

DC artist Dan Steinhilber looks on as I shamelessly treat one of my dogs like a toy. Photo by Jason Andrew (I promised to give him credit!)

Austin is saying something brilliant. That's Elissa Levy's hair in the upper right corner!

Part Shih-Tzu, part Maltese. So handsome and earnest. Another excellent Jason Andrew photo.

The next day it snowed! Here's a picture of the lovely courtyard outside my windows. The landlady says the building used to be a brothel back in the day. So much history (and scandal) in DC...

Studio Visit with Joan Waltemath

Images of 2011 work in the old studio

2011 Interview at Studio Critical

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Barry Reigate's political geometry

2012-01-24T08:13:00.006-05:00

While doing some research the other day, I ran across work by British artist Barry Reigate (b. 1971). In London Reigate is primarily known for his lecherous cartoon imagery of disembodied breasts and Disney characters, but geometric forms like cubes, spheres and pinwheels are also embedded in his large-scale paintings. In his October 2011 exhibition at Paradise Row, Reigate included geometric sculptures and earnest gouaches of geometric volumes, and I wondered if he was in transition, perhaps moving away from the pop culture references. According to Reigate, the gouaches, which have underlying political content, are not just studies for the larger paintings, but are works in themselves.

Taken from children's statewide math tests that are used to measure children's progress and thus the effectiveness of the schools, the geometric forms are part of a language system that Reigate believes bends truth through the use of statistics. Reigate took the test images and drew them on graph paper, removing them from their original statistical language and bringing them into the realm of modernist abstraction. In the sculptures, Reigate pushes the shapes from the original equations into freestanding, structural objects.

"When I was making these pieces, there were ‘riots’ going on outside and kids were burning down buildings on their school holidays," Reigate said. "All our government kept going on about was healthy social structures while the physical ones were being burnt down. So there is this whole social-political thing going on in regards to education and the social (the government kept talking about the ‘underclass,' families on welfare, no one working and poor education). There is political content within the work but only layered aesthetically, ornamentally, within the structural content amongst so many other things."

Reigate is in the process of opening an experimental space called City of London Art with his friend Alastair Mackinven. The gallery won't represent artists, but will focus on the critical, thought-provoking work that commercial galleries aren't showing.

Barry Reigate, studio snapshot, 2011

Barry Reigate, Untitled (Equations), 2011, mixed media on linen, 400 x 230 cm.

Installation with paintings, sculptures and gouache geometry studies on paper, 2011.

Barry Reigate, Gouache and pencil on graph paper, 2011.

Barry Reigate, Untitled painting, (Equation 4), 2011, mixed media on linen, 210 x 156 cm.

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From the Gardner's collection: Anders Zorn

2012-01-22T17:10:00.010-05:00

Last week the long-anticipated Renzo Piano wing opened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. For the first time in its history, the Gardner will have space for both temporary shows organized from the collection and exhibitions of contemporary art. Curator Oliver Tostmann, who I ran into at a gallery reception in DC this week, told me that he plans to focus on singular masterpieces from the collection, borrowing work from other museums to put the objects in context. His first exhibition centers on a work by Anders Zorn (February 18, 1860 – August 22, 1920), the artist who painted the full length portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner that hangs prominently in the original section of the museum.

Zorn, whose brushwork and subject matter recall those of John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925), studied at Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, Sweden from 1875-1880. Famous during his lifetime for portraits, nudes and depictions of water, Zorn's paintings are included in collections at the Nationalmuseum (National Museum of Fine Arts) in Stockholm, Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Zorn Collections in Mora (Dalarna County, Sweden), a hometown museum dedicated to Zorn, was opened in 1939.

Anders Zorn, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice, 1894, oil on canvas, 91 x 66 cm.

The backstory: While visiting the Gardners in Boston in February 1894, Anders Zorn made an etching of Mrs. Gardner, which neither of them considered to be a complete success. Later that year Zorn and his wife visited the Gardners in Venice, staying for several weeks as their guests in the Palazzo Barbaro. He attempted again to make a portrait of Mrs. Gardner, but continued to struggle with the task. One evening, Mrs. Gardner stepped out into the balcony to see what was happening outside, and as she came back into the drawing-room, pushing the French windows open, Zorn exclaimed (according to Morris Carter): “Stay just as you are! That is the way I want to paint you.” He went instantly for his materials, and then and there the portrait was begun. (Source: Richard Lingner, "Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 215.)

New gallery space at the Gardner. I think that's the original building outside the window. "Yes, it’s designed to have the visitor step in and actually experience the gardens while they’re inside. You can see through the glass out to the gardens, and of course you can see the palace itself. But if you step in a little further and you look left, you can see the working greenhouses. Piano has said that the building is about light and sound, and you can certainly feel that." --Director Anne Hawley on WBUR

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Here are images of three other Zorn's in the collection at the Gardner Museum.

Anders Zorn, The Morning Toilet, about 1888

Anders Zorn, Omnibus, 1892

Anders Zorn, Portrait of Mrs. Grover Cleveland, 1899.

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BONUS VIDEO: Shot in Zorn's charming country house in Sweden (now a museum), the video includes images of his collections and his log cabin studio.

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Quick study: Batman, love advice, internships, and the new videographer in town

2012-01-22T15:40:00.026-05:00

"Batman Returns," Joyce Pensato's show at Friedrich Petzel, was in Time Out New York's Top Five and listed as ArtCat's Top Pick this week. Incorporating color in her new paintings, Pensato presents crazed images of Batman, assemblages of toys, ephemera, stuffed animals, and photographs. Looks good.

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The January issue of Art in America just arrived here -- better late than never. Faye Hirsch writes about Arlene Shechet's clay sculpture. "With an awkwardness so skilled it becomes elegant, Shechet demonstrates a mastery over everything that can go wrong in ceramics, harnessing wrongness to endless expressive possibility." Thanks, AiA, for putting it online.

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M/E/A/N/I/N/G, A Journal of Contemporary Art Issues, 25th Anniversary Edition, edited by Susan Bee and Mira Schor (and featuring one of my essays) is now available for Kindle.

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Don't miss art critic Ben Davis's "The Art Lover," a hilarious column at ArtInfo concerning love and/or art. Last week gallerist Allegra LaViola asked for dating advice. Ben says don't be shy--if you have a question about love and/or art just ask him.

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College Art Association is looking for an editorial intern. "Intern assists with administrative and editorial tasks in the publications department of the leading professional organization for artists and art historians." Fifteen hours a week for either stipend or credit.

Art Fag City is looking for interns. "Ideal candidates have a strong interest in visual art and digital media, are proficient in MS Office, Quickbooks, and Excel, and possess excellent writing skills." I imagine a sense of humor might help, too.

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Joanne Mattera posted her essay for Textility, an exhibition she co-curated with Mary Birmingham at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. "Textility was conceived in Miami last December. That’s where Mary Birmingham and I, standing by chance in front of an Arlene Shechet clay sculpture with a surface that can only be described as velvet, noted the significant number of textile-esque works we had been seeing in booths and hotel rooms throughout the fairs: knitted paintings, painted quilts, metal tapestries and more...."

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Hyperallergic reports that Joann Kim Núñez of art blog Updownacross is partnering with Skillshare, the online marketplace for offline classes, to build a Creative Arts program.

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The next generation: Check out a video report of Austin Thomas's opening at Heiner Contemporary in DC made by seven-year-old Grant (a la The James Kalm Report). Go Grant!

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Horrifying photo of the day

2012-01-20T14:52:00.004-05:00

Child exploring a Richard Serra at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Green light: Peter Halley in Portland

2012-01-20T08:13:00.004-05:00

On Sunday, "Prison," Peter Halley's first exhibition in the Northwest, opens at Disjecta, a non-profit space in Portland. The site-specific installation is a digitally generated mural of repeated prison icons, covering three walls of Disjecta’s 3000 square foot gallery. As in previous work, the project unites Halley's interest in visual and architectural systems, but the new work attempts to create an immersive experience that weds the "geometry of the social with the mall-level spectacle of saturated fluorescent color."

"Prison" is essentially a collage of simple studies for Halley's prison paintings, lit with green colored theater lights. The background is printed in an olive green and the line work is dark magenta. Halley says he wanted to create “a gloomy, Samuel Beckett interior of endless prisons.”

For previous site-specific installations, Halley has delivered mural-sized variations of his vibrantly-colored geometric conduit imagery, which he links to the deconstructionism of Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault and the social experience of space in our society. The "Prison" installation marks Halley's first attempt to incorporate theater lighting into the mix, which seems to add a compelling emotional component to his hard-edged, resolutely cheerful abstraction.

Peter Halley, installation view of "Prison." When viewers stand in the middle, I hope they can hear the lights hum.

Peter Halley's wallpaper for "Prison."

Peter Halley installation, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2007

Peter Halley installation at Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow, 2006.

"Peter Halley: Prison," curated by Jenene Nagy. Disjecta, Portland, OR. January 22-February 25, 2012.
On Friday, January 20, 7 pm, Halley will give a lecture about his work at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Related posts:
Peter Halley's grim vision
James Kalm Report in Peter Halley's studio in 2011

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Bill Jensen lightens up

2012-01-19T14:26:00.006-05:00

In his new work, Bill Jensen gets reductive, working in a large-scale triptych format with a limited palette. Here's the James Kalm Report coverage of Jensen's exhibition at Cheim & Read, where, understandably, Jensen doesn't want to talk about the paintings on camera. The paintings look sublime.

Bill Jensen, installation view.

"Bill Jensen," Cheim & Read, New York, NY. Through February 18, 2012.

Related post: Bill Jensen's long and winding nature trail
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