Two Coats of Paint

EMAIL: A note from Matthew Fisher

2012-05-27T10:20:00.001-04:00

Hello Sharon,

Hope your trip out to Seattle went safely and the show looked great.

Matthew Fisher here, from Unfunny Show and French soldiers. I wanted to let you know that my work has made a major shift: away from the figure, props, historical, and pretty much everything else that defined my "earlier" works. I have kept the bewilderment of the nature's awesomeness, and strayed into a more stylized/abstract depiction of the ocean and sun. After my last show of stacked still life objects, I really wanted to get lost again in painting and seriously set out to discover something new to paint. It wasn't until I sat down, and told myself to draw "nothing" that I stumbled upon the motif of the beach grass and setting sun.

If you find yourself in New York, please stop by MULHERIN + POLLARD Projects, 187 Chrystie Street, for my solo show Asea, Aloof.

Thank you for all your painting love,

M a t t-------

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Hey Matthew--new work looks intriguing--a big departure. I'll try to stop by and see the show. Congratulations!
Sharon

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Thanks Sharon!

I think these are the paintings I have always wanted to make but didn't know how.
Funny how sometimes you have to say everything so next time you can say nothing?

I thought about calling the show The Fiction of Nothing. Maybe that's the subtitle....

Still got two paintings to finish,
have a great weekend,
M a t t

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Hi Matt,

May I run some of your images with your note? I love what you said about the paintings. It will be an "email feature," something I started recently to publish letters I've written and received.

Let me know what you think. I know the show is only up through this weekend, but I wanted to post something about it.

All best,
Sharon

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Good morning Sharon, happy and safe holiday. Sounds good! Thanks for nice words on the new work. The show was a success, feels good to have a new body of work out there (my first shift since I started the soldiers 9 years ago) and have already picked up in the studio where the show left off...
M a t t

Matthew Fisher, The Flatlands, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 24 inches

Matthew Fisher, .....So, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 14 x 9 inches

Matthew Fisher, Hero's Exit, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 19 x 15 inches

Matthew Fisher, Little Mother, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 13 x 16 inches

"Matthew Fisher: Asea Aloof," Mulherin + Pollard, Lower East Side, New York, NY. Through May 27, 2012. Note:The gallery website says the show is up through May 27--but I'm not sure if they are open on Memorial Day weekend.

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Leslie Bostrom: Stop and look (dammit)

2012-05-25T23:52:00.000-04:00

In her first solo NYC show since 2006, Brown University art professor Leslie Bostrom presents "Monster Flowers," a new series of large-scale paintings that feature vivid roadside scenes of flowering invasives, wayward perenials, animals, debris, and, in one painting, mysterious soldiers engaged in battle (discarded action figures? Not sure). Using a low point of view, nature-loving Bostrom, an avid birder for the past twenty years, lets the flowers loom large, drawing our attention to the loveliest and undoubtedly the most easily overlooked detail of our man-made industrial-transportation complex. Agitated and urgent, Bostrom's inventive paint handling implores us to look more closely both at the paintings and the natural world around us.

Note: The gallery is only big enough to accommodate four paintings from the series, but more can be found on Bostrom's website.

Leslie Bostrom, Red Flowers, 2011, oil on canvas, 72 x 84 inches

Leslie Bostrom, Roadside Thistle, 2012, oil on canvas, 72 x 84inches

Leslie Bostrom, Jackrabbit, 2011, oil on canvas, 72 x 84 inches.

Leslie Bostrom, Untitled (Joy), oil on canvas, 72 x 84 inches.

"Leslie Bostrom: Monster Flowers," Brenda Taylor Gallery, Chelsea, New York, NY. Through June 2, 2012.

Related:
AS220 taped a studio visit video with Bostrom in 2010.

(And congratulations to all the Brown University art majors, especially my talented niece Jess, who are graduating today)

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Ariel Dill: The roots (and limbs) of abstraction

2012-05-25T10:04:00.002-04:00

In Williamsburg yesterday, I stopped by Southfirst to see Ariel Dill's exhibition "Oscillations," a thought-provoking show of eight small paintings that take early 20th-century experimental abstraction as their point of departure. Southfirst co-founder and director Maika Pollack is the NY Observer's museum critic, on the Bard faculty, and an expert on painting in fin-de-siècle France, so naturally her statement for the show is terrific.

"Oscillations" can be taken to refer to either the striated facture and vibratory color combinations present in each of the eight paintings in the show, or the eclectic style in which the works are painted. From the black curved lines and flat, subtle brushwork of Traipsed, which evokes the early abstractions of Mondrian, to the radiant, Kupka-like facture of Astrology, the works take as their starting point diverse early-twentieth century experiments in abstraction. Dill’s heterogenous “Oscillations” can be taken as a reaction to the commodified “signature style” often associated with painting, and as a feminist critique of the masculine trope of the unique and expressive, involuntary gesture. Yet the work exceeds this reading to yield pleasure in its wide-ranging references to the past and in its vibrant, nearly textile materiality...

Rather than hanging the paintings in a traditional white cube, Dill has painted the bottom half of the wall grey, referencing images of Gertrude Stein's salon and signalling a more intimate, less didactic approach. Rejecting manifestos, Dill proposes that painting can still generate complex and meaningful conversation. Yes, I agree.

Ariel Dill

Image of Gertrude Stein's salon at 27 Rue du Fleurus from the Met Museum's exhibition"The Steins Collect."

"Ariel Dill: Oscillations," Southfirst, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. Through May 27, 2010.

Related posts:
Painting for umpteen years: Lutes and Dill in LA
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Frieze highlights: Fredrik Vaerslev's all-over paintings

2012-05-23T10:22:00.000-04:00

Fredrik Vaerslev uses carefully applied industrial spray paint and solvents on raw linen to recreate the look of used drop cloths. Born in Norway in 1979, Vaerslev, who graduated last year with an MFA from The Art Academy in Malmö, Sweden, is interested in the relationship between abstraction, representation, and ornamentation defined by Clement Greenberg. "Everything that usually serves representation and illusion is left to serve nothing but itself, that is abstraction; while everything that usually serves the abstract or decorative – flatness, bare outlines, all-over or symmetrical design – is put to the service of representation," Greenberg wrote in the 1962 essay quoted on Vaerslev's web page. "And the more explicit this contradiction is made, the more effective in every sense the picture tends to be."

Fredrik Vaerslev, Untitled, 2012. the image above is a detail from this painting.

Fredrik Vaerslev, Untitled, 2012.

And here's one of his earlier piece from the Standard (Oslo) website.

A vigorous but playful empiricist, Vaerslev explores the limits of non-hierarchical information, the monotony of the monochrome, the roles chance, deviation and ornament play in adding visual interest to what are essentially all-over compositions, or what he thinks of as "white noise." After applying paint and solvents, he leaves the pieces outside where the weather ages them prematurely, giving them a pseudo history that evokes the poignant narratives of the authentic drop cloths that inspired them.

Fredrik Vaerslev at Standard (Oslo), Frieze New York, 2012.

Related posts:
Worst of Frieze: Anselm Reyle @ CFA Berlin
Regaining relevance: Writing critically about art fair art

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Sunday stroll in Bushwick

2012-05-21T08:16:00.000-04:00

Weekend update: J came up from DC yesterday, so I took him out to see the new Two Coats HQ in Bushwick, then we stopped by a few neighborhood galleries.

At STOREFRONT Bushwick we caught the last day of Carol Salmanson's show and saw Stephen Truax's abstract paintings in the back room. Trained as a painter, Salmanson began incorporating light into her work eight years ago. Abstract, gestural, and small-scale, the pieces on display at Storefront are a departure from the immersive installations Salmanson has done in the past, suggesting a new, more intimate direction involving quirky combinations of old LED lights. I look forward to seeing where she takes it.

Carol Salmanson

In the back room, Stephen Truax presents delicately colored abstract paintings whose geometric patterns are drawn from ancient Roman mosaics, decorative wall painting, quilt patterns, and textile design. Although the paintings look pretty, in a dense statement Truax suggests that the paintings explore whether "painting can be unselfconsciously meaningful in a contemporary context." I'm not sure what he's driving at here, but visually the work doesn't seem convincing in terms of his intent--unless of course, the idea is to be self-conscious, and then I guess the work succeeds. I know Truax likes a good argument, so I look forward to the heated discussion this post will undoubtedly generate.

Stephen Truax. The looser painting on the right seems to be headed in the most interesting, less self-conscious direction.

English Kills
In a beautifully installed show (also the last day), Andrew Hurst presents a series of mysterious constructions and collages made of found objects and ephemeral materials. (Did Hurst, who, when he has his eyeliner on, looks sort of like a young Keith Richards, really model for a fashion magazine?)

Andrew Hurst

Norte Maar
Kristen Jensen "it’s no one’s fault" and two paintings by Katie Kehoe. Jensen arranges enigmatic objects fashioned from hand-mixed porcelain and sublime glazes on a low black pedestal that nearly fills the room. The lovingly-made objects look like specimens in a natural history museum, hinting at previous lives and past uses. In the side room, Kehoe presents monochromatic textural paintings, wrestling joint compound into compelling arrangements that recall barnacles and fragments of woven cloth. Go see this show: highly recommended.

Kristin Jensen, blushingrock, 2012

Katie Kehoe

Brooklyn Natural Foods
Stop by the local grocery store and pick up some Kabaya Saku Saku Panda. World's best "biscuit snacks" are located on the island near the cash register.

And had I not blathered on about my own work at the very beginning of our outing, we would have had time to check out "Sculpture Garden," curated by Lesley Heller and Deborah Brown at Onderdonk House, Charles Yuen's new paintings at Valentine (last day), and "Four Paintings" at Regina Rex, but J had to head back to DC. Oh well. There's always next week.

Installation view Regina Rex. Eric Sall and Britta Deardorff

Charles Yuen, Planet Eclipse, 9 x 12 inches; oil on wood panel; 2011

View Sunday stroll: Bushwick and Ridgewood in a larger map

Weekend Film Pick: "Elena," a brooding Russian film at the Film Forum that fuses Dostoevsky's chilling despair with Hitchcock's noir in post-soviet Moscow. The film is visually stunning, and Philip Glass wrote the soundtrack.

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An invitation: Two Coats of Paint's fifth anniversary party @ Bushwick Open Studios

2012-05-19T09:17:00.000-04:00

Bushwick Open Studios, considered the best open studio event in New York, is just around the corner. This year, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Two Coats of Paint, I invited Austin Thomas of Pocket Utopia, one of the first artist-run spaces in Bushwick (recently reopened on Henry Street in the Lower East Side), to curate a painting exhibition at Two Coats's new Bushwick HQ.

Please stop by on Saturday, June 2, 4 pm, for an artists' reception and conversation about painting (and some cake!)

"INQUIRY, curated by Austin Thomas," artists include Margaret Atkinson, Guy C. Corriero, Lawrence Greenberg, Edie Nadelhaft. Two Coats of Paint HQ, 117 Grattan Street, #419, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY.

Open during Bushwick Open Studios: June 1, 6-8pm, June 2-3, 12-7pm. Artists' Reception on Saturday, June 2, 4pm. Want to let us know you're coming? RSVP on the INQUIRY Facebook Event page.

Lawrence Greenberg

Margaret Atkinson

Guy C. Corriero

Edie Nadelhaft

What people said about past Bushwick Open Studios:

NAMED BEST OPEN STUDIO BY THE L MAGAZINE: “Other studio-dense districts like Long Island City, Gowanus, Red Hook and Sunset Park can’t compete with the spectacular quantity and quality of the art being produced in converted warehouses beyond East Williamsburg. Nor does any other neighborhood have a group quite like Arts in Bushwick to get everyone coordinated for a massive one-weekend art party.” – The L Magazine – full story

“For people whose art forays rarely extend beyond Chelsea’s Thursday-night gallery openings, the festival in Bushwick, Brooklyn, held mostly in alternative spaces, offers entrée into a more underground scene.” – Melena Ryzik, The New York Times – full story

“New York art critic Jerry Saltz recently described the thriving scene in Bushwick as the “closest thing to the ’80s East Village.” And Bushwick’s culture producers do tend to run their DIY galleries out of living rooms, storefronts and forsaken industrial spaces. But behind the neighborhood’s creative mayhem, there’s a distinctly organized, promotion-savvy streak.” – Anne Wehr, WNYC – full story

Related posts:
Pocket Utopia announces inaugural exhibition and preliminary artist roster

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Quick Study: Geometry, gesture, and get outta town

2012-05-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

Five paintings from Joanne Mattera's beautiful "Diamond Life" series are on view in "Lush Geometry," a handsome group show at DM Contemporary in New York through June 1, 2012. Other artists include Steven Baris, Richard Bottwin, Carole Freysz Gutierrez, and Louise Sloane. Mattera, who I suspect is frantically preparing for her International Encaustic Conference (June 1-3 in Provincetown, MA), recently posted an excellent tour of Kevin Finklea's show at Fred Giampietro's New Haven gallery.

Joanne Mattera

Steven Baris

Giampietro, whom I ran into last night at Michael Berryhill's opening, leans toward painterly abstraction, very similar to John Davis's aesthetic. In addition to Finklea, Enrico Riley's looser, more gestural abstractions are also on view at Giampietro through May 25.

Enrico Riley

Last night at Kansas I also ran into casualist painter Ariel Dill. Dill, who has a completely unique sense of color, has a show up at Southfirst in Williamsburg through May 27.

Ariel Dill

And, speaking of John Davis, check out images of Ben La Rocco's new paintings, which are up through May 20. The range of exploration in La Rocco's new work is remarkable. I'm looking forward to May 26 when Martin Bromirski, Rosanna Bruno, Heidi Pollard and, my pal from Nashville, Mary Addison Hackett all have shows opening at Davis's lovely Hudson outpost.

Ben La Rocco at John Davis

Mary Addison Hackett

SAVE THE DATE: Stay tuned for info about the first exhibition at Two Coats of Paint's new Bushwick space. I've invited Austin Thomas of Pocket Utopia to curate a painting exhibition during Bushwick Open Studios (June 1-3). On Saturday, June 2, at 4pm, we'll have an opening reception for the artists and conversation about painting. Please join us--it's a celebration of Two Coat's fifth anniversary!

The big-sky view from Two Coats of Paint's new Bushwick HQ.

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Merch from the Barnes Foundation Gift Shop

2012-05-17T07:04:00.002-04:00

On May 19, the Barnes Foundation opens the controversial new building to the public, but wouldn't a trip to the gift shop be equally disturbing for old man Barnes, who included a stipulation in his will that prohibited reproducing the paintings in color? Pictured below is some of the merch currently available at the Barnes Foundation's online gift shop. Perhaps the paintings depicted on the clothing and umbrellas aren't from the Barnes Collection, but, either way, I can't imagine Barnes would approve this type of merchandise.

Degas Dance Umbrella: Push button to open and close. 100% Polyester. 12 in. tall when closed.

Monet Waterlilies Hoodie: Hand-silkscreened on poly-cotton. Hand wash. Sizes S(4-6), M(8-10), L(10-12), XL(12-14).

Cézanne Brushstroke Scarf: This pure silk scarf captures the beautiful blue brushstrokes from Cézanne's rendering of the sky in one of his many landscape paintings. Dry clean only.

The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks, with texts by Judith F. Dolkart and Martha Lucy.
"Featuring over 150 beautifully reproduced images of some the most beloved works in the collection, including several rarely-published Picassos and Matisses, alongside full-page spreads of 21 of the Foundation's distinctive wall ensembles..."

Masterworks is the type of publication Barnes probably had in mind when he barred reproductions, but I don't remember reading about any legal challenges that overturned his original orders. How could Barnes have ever imagined that one day museums might put an image of a painting on, say, an umbrella? However, according to information on the Barnes Foundation website, images in the collection may now, in fact, be licensed for use on merchandise. "The integrity of objects from the collection must be preserved in all reproductions, therefore all licensed product designs are subject to the Foundation’s approval prior to their publication and marketing."

Lest readers think Im anti-art-merch, I grew up making jigsaw puzzles that depicted Impressionist paintings and playing Masterpiece, a board game in which players compete for artwork at auctions, so I understand the value of exposing kids to images of art around the house. But if Barnes specified in his will that he didn't want these particular paintings reproduced, isn't this new licensing policy, which seems to go miles beyond simple color reproductions, completely insupportable?

Related:

Rent-a-Barnes: Disregarding the Founder’s No-Parties Intent (CultureGrrl, 2012)

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Worst of Frieze: Anselm Reyle @ CFA Berlin

2012-05-16T21:53:00.002-04:00

Berlin-based artist Anselm Reyle explained in a 2008 Art Review interview that he's interested in "riding the border of tastelessness." Unfortunately, embracing kitsch and bad taste can't inoculate his work against being bad. When I entered his installation at Frieze last week, the fabricated wall pieces were, hands down, the worst at the fair. The glitzy, large-scale "paintings" depicted cute animals and expressionist drips and spatters using a tired paint-by-numbers strategy. Outsourcing production, Reyle, who also shows at Gagosian, fashions himself a conceptual artist concerned with notions about abstraction and consumer culture. At Frieze, however, these shallow, overproduced pieces looked like trophies for uninformed collectors who fancy themselves in on the joke. I wonder what kind of work Reyle would make if he didn't have any financial backing.

Images: Anselm Reyle installation, Contemporary Fine Arts (Berlin), Frieze Fair, New York, 2012. The pictures were collage constructions comprising flat paint, foil, colored mirror, and plexiglass shapes. For a 2011 solo show, Reyle also designed Jetson-style couch sculptures.

Reyle presented abstract paint-by-numbers, too. My feet are reflected in the mirror.

Later in the week look for the Best of Frieze.

Related posts:
Regaining relevance: Writing critically about art fair art
Paint by Numbers Goes Highbrow at Chelsea Gallery

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Julian Schnabel's new paintings in Berlin

2012-05-15T08:34:00.001-04:00

I love Julian Schnabel's tenacious exploration of painting's parameters, but I've always wrestled with his grandiose sentimentality and unselfconsciously earnest approach that recalls the old-fashioned bravado of earlier generations, particularly the Abstract Expressionists and German postwar painters. In his new paintings, on display at Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin through July 28, Schnabel uses digitally printed photographs on polyester as a starting point, then overpaints with resin, oil, gesso and ink. For Schnabel, the images--enlarged snapshots of what look like history paintings, portraits, Indian deities, and more--bring a sense of time, place and narrative to his meandering, abstract materiality. Since he made "Basquiat" in 1996, his films (I'm a big fan) have overshadowed the paintings, but these jpegs of his new work look intriguing, as if he's having some fun.

Julian Schnabel, Ohne Titel/ untitled (BEZ), 2012, oil, gesso on polyester,131.89 x 91.73 inches.

Julian Schnabel, Fountain of Youth, 2012, oil on polyester, 105.91 x 257.87 inches.

Julian Schnabel, Good Friday, 2012, oil on polyester, 129.92 x 142.13 inches.

Julian Schnabel, Crazy Town, 2012, oil, resin on polyester, 131.89 x 91.73 inches.

Julian Schnabel,Ohne Titel / untitled (Capri Painting), 2011, oil, ink on polyester, 109.84 x 165.75 inches.

Julian Schabel, Ohne Titel/ untitled (BEZ), 2011, oil on polyester, 31.89 x 91.73inches.

Julian Schnabel, The Unknown Painter and The Muse He Will Never Meet, 2011, oil on polyester,

114.17 x 135.83 inches.

Julian Schnabel, Ohne Titel/ untitled, 2011, oil on polyester, 104.72 x 185.83 inches.

"Julian Schnabel: Deus Ex Machina," Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany. Through July 28, 2012. The exhibition is accompanied by a 55-page color catalogue with an introduction by Robert Fleck.

Related posts:
Julian Schnabel nominated for Gucci filmmaking award
Fathoming the depths of Schnabelia
Yau on Schnabel: Pedestrian at best
Rave reviews for Schnabel's new film in which a paralysed man dictates a memoir with his eyebal

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MsBehavior in Chelsea

2012-05-14T12:49:00.002-04:00

In Chelsea checking out the West Chelsea Open Studios on Saturday, I stopped at ArtBridge Drawing Room to see "MsBehavior," an exhibition featuring work by Brooklyn-based artists Amy Feldman, Polly Shindler, and Amanda Valdez. All exponents of a casualist aesthetic, the three women rock insouciant shapes using monochromatic color, humble materials, and simple drawing techniques. The gallery is like a little closet, which seems to suit the intimate work on view. "These women stop short of stifling their pieces with finality," curator Jordana Zeldin explains. "Their decision to walk away is a liberating one..."

Amanda Valdez, The Cousin, 2009

Amy Feldman, Filtered Devotion, 2009.

Polly Shindler, Pivot, 2011.

Installation view of "MsBehavior" at ArtBridge.

"MsBehavior, featuring the work of: AMY FELDMAN POLLY SHINDLER AMANDA VALDEZ," curated by Jordana Zeldin. ArtBridge Drawing Room, Chelsea, New York, NY. Through June 28, 2012.

Related posts:
The New Casualists

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Installation views: Man and beast in Bushwick

2012-05-11T09:55:00.001-04:00

Wrapping up a week of links to contemporary figure painting shows in NYC, I'm posting images of work currently on view at Centotto and Studio 10, two artist-run spaces in Bushwick.

Fred Valentine's bear. Or is it a man in a bear suit? (Centotto)

Thomas Micchelli's men meet beasts. (Centotto)

Joel Dugan's Hive-Minded, 54"x54", oil on canvas. (Centotto)

Adam Simon's solo show at Studio 10.

"Adam Simon’s conceptual paintings depict silhouetted subjects appropriated from low and high culture. He culls most of these archetypes of common experience from stock photography intended for advertising and magazine production. The subjects are removed from their context to become templates ripe for associations. This exhibition includes one large painting that directly references art history and others where the silhouette serves as container for painterly extravagance. The silhouette becomes a location where painting occurs." (via Studio 10)

I heard Thomas Micchelli wrote an excellent essay for the catalogue. Can't wait to read it.

Adam Simon

"Adam Simon: Pictures and Gestures," Studio 10, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY.Through May 27, 2010.

"Theriomorphous Entourage," featuring works by Joel Dugan, Andrew Smenos, Jason Andrew, Zane Wilson, Fred Valentine, Mike Ballou, Eric Trosko, Rick Briggs, Paul Gagner, Don Pablo Pedro, Tom Micchelli and Tim Kent. Centotto, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY. Through this weekend. Closing party tonight, 7pm to whenever.

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BONUS IMAGE: Crazy stick figures!

Joshua Abelow's installation at James Fuentes, Frieze. Click to enlarge.(via Art Blog Art Blog)

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Quote of the day: Rebecca Morgan

2012-05-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

“When I'm in the country, I feel as if I'm missing out. When I'm in the city, all I want is to escape."
--Rebecca Morgan (via NYARTS)

Summer is almost here. Check out "Cabin Fever," Rebecca Morgan's hilarious take on country life at Asya Geisberg, through May 26, 2012. A native of rural Appalachia who studied at Pratt, Morgan's hyper-realist style fuses Dutch portrait painting of masters like Roger van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck, with the titillating caricatures of R. Crumb.

Rebecca Morgan, I Love New York, 2011, graphite and oil on panel, 30 x 24 inches.

Rebecca Morgan, Blue Ribbon Bumpkin, 2011, graphite and oil on panel, 24 x 18 inches

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Regaining relevance: Writing critically about art fair art

2012-05-08T08:17:00.001-04:00

The most radical thing about Frieze was not that it was curated, nor that it was on Randall's Island, but that it stayed open on Monday, allowing one extra day to see what was on view. For years fairs have taken place over a long weekend, leaving little time for anyone to really digest or consider what is on view. Art journalists and critics, pressed for time, generally cover the fairs as commercial spectacles rather than thoughtful exhibitions, while grudgingly acknowledging the important role they have come to play in artists' careers and galleries' reputations. In effect, by not focusing on the quality of art at the fairs, mega-events that have come to define the contemporary art world, writers have handed the critical role over to collectors. Sales alone, which happen at breakneck speed during the fairs, now determine success. After the tents are packed up, the art goes into private collections with price alone determining the value.

Here are excerpts from recent coverage of the Frieze Fair, which focused not on the art but on all the other aspects of the fair.

At Art Forum Linda Yablonsky focused on paparazzi pictures of art celebrities and sales gossip. "“I sold that piece to New York, that one to an English collector, that to Brazil, and another to Australia,' said a perspiring Alex Logsdail, indicating the cadmium yellow Anish Kapoor, a Ryan Gander, and two sound-and-light works by Haroon Mirza on the Lisson Gallery stand. Likewise, Sadie Coles couldn’t seem to write up sales fast enough. Gisela Capitain had no trouble unloading a Kippenberger painting. Many other works were small to medium-sized, with a concentration of cash-and-carry painting and sculpture and several examples of the sort of showmanship that is endemic to fairs."

In the Wall Street Journal Katherine Clarke suggests Frieze will take over the fair world: "Despite Frieze's slightly out-of-the-way location on Randall's Island, off the east side of Manhattan, many dealers speculate that it is poised to become the preeminent event—not just in New York City, where the calendar has become littered with art fairs—but for the entire contemporary art market in America."

At Art Info, Shane Ferro and Julia Halperin zone in on sales: "With Armory Show director Noah Horowitz and Armory Show co-founder Paul Morris spotted trolling the halls, there was much chatter about what this event might mean for the New York fair landscape. 'It’s a much better range of galleries, and lots of them didn’t come to the Armory this year,' said dealer Sean Kelly. 'But we did seven-figure sales at the Armory and we’re doing well here. So far, there is room for both fairs.'"

At Art Fag City, Paddy Johnson covered the political angle. "Frieze talks aren’t free—they come at a 40 dollar ticket price—and on Thursday police shut down the Occupy protests over Frieze’s labor decisions. Tomorrow there will be a talk about Occupy at Frieze without a single Occupy representative. It seems Frieze won’t be welcoming much discussion after all."

All images: Ryan McLaughlin, Treif Collage, 2012, painting. On view at the Lüttgenmeijer, Berlin, booth, Frieze New York.

By displaying the work of hundreds of artists (thousands if you consider that numerous art fairs run concurrently) for such a short period of time, galleries guarantee a kind of Teflon coating for the pieces they present. None will get serious consideration unless it is so large and remarkable (or tasteless) that everyone comments on it (i.e., the nutcracker, the sausages). Responding to Holland Cotter's review, one of the few articles that discussed individual pieces of art, journalist-blogger Tyler Green was dismissive, suggesting that reviewing an art fair is like reviewing Barnes & Noble. However demanding, due critical consideration for individual artists and projects presented are exactly what we need.

In a recent New Yorker piece, Peter Schjeldahl concluded that the fairs have opened a "spiritual gulf between those who buy art and those who only love it." Summing up the history of art fairs, the earliest of which took place in Cologne in the 1960s, Schjeldahl suggests that fairs have changed not only how art is bought (really, really fast), but how art is made. He's right.

It seems to me that galleries participating in four or five fairs each year, plus gallery exhibitions, put an inordinate burden on artists to produce enough work to keep up. Has the ability to produce a large quantity of work become more important than the quality of the work itself? Perhaps taking art fair art more seriously, logistically difficult though it would be, might be one way critics could play a significant role in the process. After all, it looks as though the fairs, which have expanded the collector base by making art collecting fun, are here to stay.

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The figure: Christopher Moss, Scooter LaForge, Dana Schutz

2012-05-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

Fantastic, irreverent figurative paintings are on view both in Chelsea and in Bushwick this month. At Theodore:Art, Christopher Moss turns the head into a blocky minimalist landscape/architectural element, and Scooter LaForge creates odd, inventive narratives. In her first show at Friedrich Petzel, Dana Schutz continues her exploration of the awkward dysfunction that accompanies human interaction. For something more exquisite, go see the engraved portraits from the 1600s on display at Pocket Utopia (where I was the guest gallerist this past weekend) through May 25. Tom Micchelli wrote a terrific review of the show in Hyperallergic Weekend on Sunday.

Christopher Moss

Seventy 12 x 12 inch paintings by Christopher Moss, installation at Theodore: Art

Christopher Moss

Scooter LaForge, Escape from Witch Mountain, 2012, oil on canvas, 44 X 44 inches

Scooter LaForge, Rock Concert, 2011, oil on canvas, 40 X 50 inches

Scooter LaForge, installation view.

Dana Schutz, Ear on Fire, 2012, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches

Dana Schutz, Small Apartment, 2012, oil on canvas, 57 x 83 inches

Dana Schutz, Hop, 2012, oil on canvas, 96 x 90 inches

Dana Schutz, installation view.

"Dana Schutz: Piano in the Rain," Friedrich Petzel, New York, NY. Through June 16, 2012.

"Scooter LaForge/Chris Moss," Theodore:Art, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York. Through June3, 2012.
"Artists and Other Frenchmen," Pocket Utopia, LES, New York, NY. Through May 25, 2012.

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Today: Walking tour / LES

2012-05-05T10:45:00.001-04:00

In case readers want to see some art but can't bear the idea of going to the fairs (NADA, Frieze, Pulse are all in town this weekend), I put together a Google map of some shows on the Lower East Side. Plenty of other exhibitions are on the route, but here are a few suggestions if you'd like to take a leisurely stroll through a lovely neighborhood. Start with Eva Lake's show at Frosch & Portmann and walk south. I'll be guest gallerist at Pocket Utopia (191 Henry Street, LES) from 3-6 pm, so please stop in and say hello.

Eva Lake, Judd Montage No. 4, 2007, Collage, 8.25 x 10.05 inches

Eva Lake At Frosch & Portmann
"Towards a Warmth Math" at On Stellar Rays
Noam Rappaport at James Fuentes
Julia Rommel at Bureau
Jeremy Willis, Stephanie Dodes & Marshall Korshak at Allegra LaViola
"Artists and Other Frenchmen" at Pocket Utopia
Lunch at Cafe Petisco
Drinks at Bar 169

Then if you haven't seen enough, hop on the F train and head to DUMBO and check out Gilbert Hsiao at Minus Space.

View Walking tour LES / May 5, 2012 in a larger map

The front window at Pocket Utopia. Photo by Austin Thomas.

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Scream paintings

2012-05-03T17:15:00.001-04:00

Yesterday one of four versions of The Scream sold for a record $119,922,500 at Sotheby's. The previous auction record is held by Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, which sold for $106.5 million in 2010. In this version of The Scream, Munch's handpainted frame includes poems that describe him "shivering with anxiety" and feeling "the great scream in nature."

If any reader would like to create a version of The Scream in response to the auction (or anything else--like, for instance, the way Sotheby's has locked out the art handlers), please send a jpeg by June 1, 2012, and I'll post an exhibition.

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1895, pastel on board.

Jerry Saltz's response. "We will likely never see this work of art again in our lifetimes. The Scream is a part of art history and should hang in a public collection, probably in Norway, and not just decorate a California den or a dacha in the Ukraine, waiting to be fodder for the next auction. (Needless to say, no museum was in a position to spend that kind of money.)"

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Seattle studio visits: Arnold, Molenkamp, Offenbacher

2012-05-02T09:36:00.001-04:00

I'm wrapping up my Seattle posts today with work by Sharon Arnold, Ryan Molenkamp, Matthew Offenbacher, and a couple gallery visits.

Referencing "women's work," which is traditionally undervalued and often ignored, Sharon Arnold's projects involve hours of tedious, repetitive labor such as cutting small shapes from hundreds of sheets of paper, or hand stitching yarn on rolls of cash register tape. An artist, curator, and writer, Arnold focused on sculpture, semiotics, and art history at Pratt, then moved back to the Northwest where she got her degree in 2006 from Cornish College of the Arts. We had a great conversation about how our art practices are a necessity, but also a burden. Despite the lack of compensation, adequate resources, and exhibition opportunities that many artists face, we are compelled to do it nonetheless. When Arnold displays her large-scale projects, which take months to complete, she wants viewers to acknowledge what a huge amount of time and effort she has invested.

Believing that art should be local, sustainable and accessible, Arnold founded LxWxH, a project designed to introduce new collectors to Seattle artists and art writers. Each LxWxH edition costs a mere 130 bucks and includes original work by two Seattle artists with a short essay by a local writer. The project's primary goal is to create a bridge between artists, writers, and the general public. The May edition features the beautiful watercolors I saw in Ryan Molenkamp's studio,

At top: Sharon Arnold shows me a project that involved covering hundreds of pieces of paper with stitched string. Above: Hundreds of sheets of paper meticulously cut with thin, bar-like shapes.

Note: Arnold just curated TEXT EDITOR, an exhibition that investigates how artists interpret nonsensical language or text through their use of printmaking/letterpress, photography, drawing, video, or sound. At SOIL through June 2, 2012.

On the way to Ryan Molenkamp's studio, we drove by Western Bridge, the exhibition space maintained by mega-collectors Bill and Ruth True whose collection includes video, photography, and other media by an impressive roster of international art stars. Perhaps they should fund one of Arnold's projects--it wouldn't cost very much.

Ryan Molenkamp's studio is full of new work. Best known for his paintings based on old photographs that depict the early Seattle landscape, Molenkamp has recently taken a more decisive turn toward abstraction.

I stopped by Space where Cornish undergrad JD Banke had an exhibition of charming paintings and silkscreen prints on wood panels.

More of Banke's work.

We walked over to Greg Kucera and saw a terrific Brion Nuda Rosch show, on display through May 12.

After the panel discussion on arts writing at Cornish, I went to Matthew Offenbacher's studio, where he showed me paintings made on cheap white fabric that resists the paint. We looked at a painting of horses and talked about making art that's more accessible to the general public as a conceptual stance.

With Gretchen Bennett and Wynne Greenwood, Offenbacher produces Seattle Catalog, a crossover venture that is both an art project and a for-profit company. A tri-yearly sales catalog, Sea-Cat features a curated selection of work by Seattle artists. Although they haven't had much success selling the art, as an art project, Sea-Cat has been doing really well. Offenbacher also publishes and edits La Especial Norte, a small newsletter, sort of a zine, written by Seattle artists.

Offenbacher's latest paintings are still lifes on linen.

And finally, Offenbacher took me next door to Gretchen Bennett's studio where we talked about the TV series "The Killing," set in Seattle (and unlike "Portlandia,") filmed mostly on dark, rainy days. Best known for her Kurt Cobain portraits, Bennett is fascinated to see how her town is depicted in the sullen crime drama. (Sorry, readers, I didn't take any pictures of Bennett's recent work.)

Well, that's it. I had a wonderful time visiting Seattle. Big thanks to all the artists and writers who took the time to show me around, show me their work, and share their community. And special thanks to Robert Yoder, who included my work in "SQUEEZE HARD (Hold That Thought)," a two-person exhibition at SEASON, on display through June 30, 2012. Without the show, it wouldn't have occurred to me to strike out for the Northwest.

NOTE: Yoder's solo show "DILF!" opens tomorrow at Platform in Seattle, and if you're in Basel, look for his installation at Frosch & Portmann in VOLTA8.

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Turner Prize shortlist: Video, photography, perfomance, and a guy who draws imaginary worlds

2012-05-01T07:46:00.003-04:00

Performance artist Spartacus Chetwynd, photographer and filmmaker Luke Fowler, video artist Elizabeth Price, and drawer Paul Noble are the nominees for the 2012 Turner Prize. In The Guardian, Anita Singh reports that the jury noted "a common sense of humanity and lack of arrogance” and an interest in the 1960s and 1970s among the artists selected this year. The jury included Andrew Hunt of the Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea, Heike Munder from the Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, Michael Stanley of Modern Art Oxford, Mark Salden from Denmark's Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota and Tate Britain's Penelope Curtis. An exhibition of the finalists' work will open at Tate Britain on October 2, stirring much debate and controversy among the general public as to who is, in fact, the best artist, once again making me jealous that we don't have a similarly popular art competition in the US.

But more about Paul Noble. Noble, who was nominated for "Welcome to Nobson," his 2011 solo exhibition at Gagosian in London, is known for monumental, highly-detailed series of graphite drawings that depict Nobson Newtown, an imaginary world composed of odd structures, monuments, and deserted gardens. Born in 1963 in Northumberland, Noble studied at Sunderland Polytechnic and Humberside College of Higher Education. Along with Matt Hale, John Burgess, Keith Coventry and Peter Owen, he opened City Racing, an influential artist-run space in London that operated from 1988-98.

Paul Noble, installation view, Gagosian in London, 2011. Two marble sculptures, Couple (2011) and Three (2011), referencing shit and other "base biometric forms," are described as three-dimensional counterparts to the characters and monuments depicted in Noble's smaller drawings. Photos by Prudence Cuming.

Paul Noble, Welcome to Nobson, 2008–10, pencil on paper, 20 panels: 178 x 281 1/2 inches overall. Noble's opening quote on the press release reminds me of Gulliver's Travels. "It was therefore decided to erect a civic monument on the roundabout at the outskirts of town. The monument is a large, vertical structure that spells out the friendly message 'Welcome to Nobson.'"

Paul Noble, Heaven, 2009, graphite on paper, 48 x 119 inches

Paul Noble, Family is Infinity (or, Hard Labour), 2009–10, pencil on paper, 3 panels: 54 5/16 x 65 inches overall.

The 2012 Turner Prize winner will be announced on December 3.

Turner Prize finalist George Shaw (2011

Suicide, homicide, frenetic violence: 2010 Turner Prize finalists

OMG: A painter wins the Turner Prize (2009)

2008 Turner Prize shortlist: No painters this year

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Thank you to this month's sponsors

2012-04-30T19:55:00.003-04:00

I'd like to take a minute to thank Two Coats of Paint's April sponsors. These organizations, individuals, and companies are committed to supporting online arts writing, so be sure to show them some love. (Image above: Two Coats of Paint's new Seattle artist pals Sharon Arnold and Ryan Molenkamp, who took me to Smarty Pants to sample some local micro brews. Many thanks to them, too. But more about Sharon and Ryan tomorrow.)

ArtPrize – Part art competition, part social experiment that awards $560,000 total in prizes; registration through May 24.
Pulse Art Fair – Pulse New York runs May 3–6, 2012, at The Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, New York.
BAMart Silent Auction – Auction featuring over 100 artworks, with proceeds to benefit the Brooklyn Academy of Music and its programs
Saatchi Online – Online gallery that connects artists and art lovers directly: discover art, get discovered.
Dumbo Arts Festival - Brooklyn’s biggest arts event takes over Brooklyn’s waterfront with visual arts, music, and literature on 9/28-30.
Norte Maar – Community-building nonprofit organization with an emphasis on collaborative projects
UncommonGoods – Cool and unusual gifts for any occasion.
Adam Lindemann – Follow what the New York Observer columnist is seeing and reading at his site.
Storefront Bushwick – Bushwick gallery currently featuring artists Carol Salmanson and Stephen Traux
Unnamed Broadway Musical: The Musical! – An experimental, legally questionable restaging of an orphan-themed Broadway musical, at EFA Project Space
Pernod Art & Absinthe Guide – A handy mobile app that lists galleries, events and bars serving Pernod in Brooklyn
Artspan – Contemporary art destination and service providing totally customizable artist websites
FIT Art Market MA Program – The group exhibition “No Other Medicine” is now on view at NY Studio Gallery through May 19
“Oh hey. What’s going on?” – a project by artist Jesus Benavente
Art Systems – Professional art gallery, antiques and collections management software
Tyler Summer Painting & Sculpture Intensives – 7-week immersion program for artists interested in developing their work in a challenging and supportive environment
950 Hart Gallery – The Lowbrow Society Smut! Show, a public celebration of private affairs, May 4–5.
Claremont Graduate University MFA – A highly focused graduate-only studio-art program

If your organization is interested in advertising on Two Coats of Paint, please get in touch with Nectar Ads, the Art Ad Network.

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New Bushwick HQ for Two Coats of Paint, Guest Gallerist this Saturday

2012-04-30T16:17:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I'm moving to a new studio in one of Bushwick's older artists' buildings.The space features a beautiful view to the east, convenient location near the L train, two big white walls, a sink, plenty of windows, heat and AC, and a freight elevator steps away. What more could a painter want?

Also, keep in mind that I'll be serving as Guest Gallerist at Pocket Utopia this Saturday from 3-6 pm. "Artists and Other Frenchmen: Portrait prints from Nanteuil to Villon," the inaugural show in the new Henry Street location, features three centuries of French printmaking. Please stop by and say hello--I'll be live blogging and Tweeting throughout the afternoon--and the show, which opened last night, is terrific.

Austin Thomas installing the show at Pocket Utopia last week.

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At the University of Washington: Travis Davis Smith and Andrew Dadson

2012-04-30T10:29:00.000-04:00

The University of Washington runs the biggest art program in Seattle, and when I was out there last week, first-year MFA student Travis Davis Smith picked me up at the airport and took me to the MFA studios, which are housed in an old navy base.

Smith is working on small-scale sculptures created by arranging found materials in precarious situations. He entered the program as a painter, but his work has taken an unexpected turn.

Sometimes, Smith says, he returns to the studio and is pleasantly surprised to find that pieces have fallen apart. He likes the notion that things change.

Attached to a one-story brick building, this rock climbing wall sits next to the old barracks that houses the MFA studios. Imagine how vivid the color of that painted sky looks on Seattle's dark, dreary days.

Here's Smith having a smoke in the parking lot while I gush over the painted rock-climbing wall (pictured above).

The MFA barracks also houses a gallery where they were hanging the BFA show.

At Henry Art Gallery, the University's enormous gallery complex, I saw paintings by Andrew Dadson, winner of the Brink, a biennial award that goes to an emerging artist living Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia. The award-winner receives $12,500, and, in addition, the gallery buys a piece for their permanent collection.

From the press release: "His photographs of lawns painted solid black or white focus on the urban environment as a zone rife with borders; these works suggest voids that have become part of a mysterious, and possibly contentious, narrative. They prefigure his current canvas paintings that transfer the (literally) painted landscape into the realm of abstraction. Dadson utilizes the very materiality of thick layers of paint—applied to multiple canvases standing on the floor and leaning on the wall and each other—to reinforce his allegorical interest in boundaries. Dadson asserts that 'Everything has boundaries; the delimitations between such can be static and opaque or permeable and imagined. In my practice, I search for the spaces and opportunity to then question where such boundaries begin and end.'"

Overall, the exhibition lacked focus. I would have appreciated these thick gooey monochromes even more without the belabored explanation. Photographs of the painted lawns were on display, too, but they should have been in a smaller supporting role rather than enlarged, framed and scattered throughout the exhibition. Or perhaps Dadson could have focused more strongly on the painted landscapes and brought the objects into the gallery rather than presenting photographs that wavered indecisively between documentation and formal art objects. As the work is arranged now, the connection between the paintings and the landscape images strikes me as notional and contrived rather than organic, but the exhibition's shortcomings have to do with the installation (and statement) rather than the work itself.

In The Stranger, check out Jen Graves's article about the 2011 Brink Awards shortlist.

Andrew Dadson, one of several Plank Leaning Paintings, 2010, oil on canvas,

Andrew Dadson, small painting.

Also at the Henry: "Glossodelic attractors," a big Gary Hill rotating video retrospective took up several of the other galleries. Note to the folks at the vertigo-inducing Rem Koolhaas library: The Gary Hill video installation either wasn't turned on properly or wasn't working last week.

Related Posts:
More Studio Visits with Seattle Artists.
At Process Art, Danila Rumold writes about Robert Storr and UW faculty member Denzil Hurley's Francne Seders show, which, unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see while I was in Seattle: Economy of Means: Robert Storr & Denzil Hurley

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A few of Philip Guston's letters to Varujan Boghosian

2012-04-26T17:54:00.001-04:00

I'm interrupting my Seattle coverage to present some images of the excellent letters on display at Lori Bookstein through Saturday. For ten years, Guston and Boghosian exchanged handwritten letters that touched on everything from their financial difficulties, medical updates and family stories to progress reports about their work, anxiety over upcoming exhibitions, elation over good reviews, and hopes for the future. The show, which also includes the playful constructions Boghosian made in response to Guston's letters after he died in 1980, is a must see. Guston is a charmer. And the show might persuade artists to log out of their email accounts and send handcrafted letters instead--which would be good news for the beleaguered US Postal Service as well as future artists and art historians.

Seattle coverage resumes tomorrow.

"Art and Letters: Varujan Boghosian and Philip Guston," Lori Bookstein, New York, NY. Through March 29, 2012 - April 28, 2012

Related posts:
Dear Tamara, and other letters about art
EMAIL: A note to Mira Schor

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Seattle studio visit: Robert Hardgrave and friends

2012-04-25T21:44:00.003-04:00

Working intuitively and responding to the process as it unfolds, Robert Hardgrave tries to stay out of the way and let the paintings make themselves. After a kidney transplant in 2003, his work, which fuses mysticism, Inuit iconography, surrealism, and abstraction, began to reveal insights about life, death, and the richness of everything in between. At his studio in Building C, an old Ballard paint warehouse that houses two floors of artists and a film production company, Hardgrave showed me a slew of work, including some oddly-shaped sewn pieces that were recently on display at EC Gallery, Chicago. He painted on heavy, unstretched burlap fabric, cut it up, and then sewed the scraps back together with with fancy binding stitches crafted from neon thread using an old sewing machine that still sits on his worktable. He's become obsessed with sewing, which, it turns out, was one of his father's preoccupations, too. Fittingly, he called the show in Chicago "The Apple Doesn't Fall Too Far From the Tree."

Hardgrave unpacking the burlap pieces.

Because they're in the Styrofoam crates, the pieces look framed, but actually he installed them on a wall clustered in groups, unframed. Click to see the intricate stitching.

Sometimes Hardgrave covers entire sheets of paper with fancy stitches that look like delicate netting.

Here's a big painting (6 x 7 feet or so) that he's been working on for a while.

Even when he paints, Hardgrave's angled brushstrokes often mimic the look of stitching or woven fabric. Self-taught except for a graphic design degree from a community college, Hardgrave has formidable drawing skills and his work recalls the brio of flamboyant street art, but he himself is a quiet, low-key character. I asked if he ever worked on street projects, but he just chuckled and said he preferred working alone, in the studio.

Hardgrave also took me to see work by some of his studio neighbors even though they weren't around. These vibrating, abstract paintings are by Gillian Theobald, whom I met later at our opening at SEASON.

Sue Danielson's work table.

One of Danielson's small paintings. A stack of big ones leaned against the wall out in the hallway.

This quirky C. L. Utley was out in the hallway, too.

I want Andrée B. Carter's painting chair.

Her paintings, which are heading to Heriard-Cimino in New Orleans, are thickly layered with flaking fabric and paint. The canvas and stretcher on the right aren't part of the piece, but they look good together, right?

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Seattle studio visit: Cable Griffith

2012-04-24T13:43:00.004-04:00

Cable Griffith, the Gallery Director at Cornish College of the Arts, paints peculiar worlds, full of familiar elements such as trees, lakes, hills, and skies stacked in odd, architectural structures that recall Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower of Babel. Rounded Guston-esque forms combined with hard-edge geometry, cryptographic linework, and precise color mixing create images of surreal landscape-like edifices, which, unlike Bruegel's Tower, seem to exude a resolute cheerfulness...and yet, at the same time, reveal a slapstick version of apprehension and dread.

Aeaea, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 36 inches.

Griffith has converted his living room into a studio. Here is his drawing desk and some recent acrylic paintings on canvas. Click to enlarge.

In earlier work, Griffith used the quirky geometric shapes he uses today, but he placed them in a more traditional, less tower-like, landscape space. Much of the canvas on this one is left unpainted.

The forms in his paintings are based on perceptual study of these crudely made foamcore models. Griffith arranges them in groupings, then draws them, studying how the the light falls across the objects to determine shadow strength and placement.

I like the way the color of this underpainting captures the bleakness of Seattle light. This is a straight still life from an arrangement of the foamcore models (pictured above) that includes the desktop space and a view from the window in the background.

Sketch on canvas for a new painting.

Griffith showed me one of the original ink sketches for a waterfall painting he was working on.

The view from his studio features stacked retaining walls that hold lush green plantings on a steep hill. I forgot to ask if he chose the apartment because the view looked like his paintings, or if he started painting the stacked hills after he moved in.

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Beleaguered and dispirited, artists in Seattle, who have seen several gallery closings, diminished art sales, and fewer exhibition opportunities in recent years (on top of all that depressing rain), need some attention. I have more Seattle studio visit posts underway.

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