Two Coats of Paint

Don't kill Bill: Powhida at Charlie James in LA

2013-05-21T07:37:00.002-04:00

The crudely amped-up art market built by the likes of Gagosian, Zwirner, and the auction houses has overwhelmed critical dialogue. But are they the only culprits? In "Bill by Bill" a solo exhibition at Charlie James Gallery, William Powhida blames artists themselves--Hirst, Richter, Koons, Guyton, and uber-artist wannabes--for their self-defeating complicity in a woefully corrupt system that has made a handful of participants fabulously wealthy while leaving everyone else barely able to pay the rent.

"Bill By Bill," installation view at Charlie James

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A Day in New York: Jenny Zoe Casey

2013-05-20T09:37:00.003-04:00

Running into local friends at openings isn't that unusual, but every now and then I see Jenny Zoe Casey, the artist who organized and invited me to speak at TEDxOrlando a few years ago, visiting New York all the way from Florida. She was in town for the day (!) and so I invited her to write a post about her hardcore hit-and-run visit. Here's her report.

I live in a stand of moss-laden hickories soaring high into a clear blue, crazy humid sky that more often than not is swarming with biting insects. And even though I live in rural Central Florida, every now and then I like to take a day trip to NYC to see as many shows as I can. On a recent Saturday, I visited the Met, a few Upper East Side galleries, Chelsea, and the Lower East Side, but the exhibitions at Winkleman, Thorp and Pocket Utopia were the highlights.

Leslie Thornton, Luna, 2012, three–channel HD video (exhibited on three large vertically mounted

monitors), 60 minutes. Courtesy the artist and Winkleman Gallery.

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EMAIL: Rebecca Morris on that pink painting at Frieze

2013-05-17T09:43:00.000-04:00

Curious about her odd, uncharacteristic pink painting (image above) on display at Frieze last week, I wrote LA artist Rebecca Morris and asked her about it. Here's what she told me:

"Thanks for asking about that painting! It was nice for me to have it up at the fair. It is a little bit older-- from 2007 if that helps to explain it a bit. And this was the first time it has been shown.

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CURATE: The tired and poor at Frieze

2013-05-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

If I were going to curate a show of painting-objects, without a doubt the exhibition would include a section on rumpled, badly stretched, and lumpy canvas. In the following pieces, all on display at Frieze last week, wrinkled, sagging materials function as object, image and metaphor.

Once dubbed "Neo Brut," Rosy Keyser's work combines cast off materials with painterly gesture. The big lumpy piece shown above is unusual for Keyser because the color is much bolder than her generally earthy, industrial palette. Last month Keyser had a solo at Peter Blum and her work was also included in "Painter Painter," the recent show of painting-objects at the Walker.

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Andrew Ginzel's list of selected NYC shows and events

2013-05-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

May 13, 2013: SOME but not all NYC SELECTED SHOWS TO SEE / Listed south to north. Compiled by artist Andrew Ginzel for his students at the School of Visual Arts. [Note: Images selected by Two Coats of Paint.]

Judith Simonian @ Edward Thorp

LOWER EAST SIDE

Constance DeJong / Bureau / 127 Henry / thru 5/25 (contact gallery for performance info)
The Reinhart Project curated by Richard Tuttle / Pocket Utopia / 191 Henry / thru 6/9
Massimo Minini’s postcards / 3A / 179 Canal #3A / thru 5/24

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Frieze: Unprimed immediacy

2013-05-13T12:58:00.001-04:00

Since the early days of Color Field painting, working on unprimed canvas or linen has given the impression of a certain unfinished immediacy--more like the page of a sketchbook than a finished painting. At Frieze this weekend, unprimed materials (or the look of unprimed materials) were well represented, suggesting that painters are still interested in a new realism that subtly fuses the sculptor's attention to objecthood and materiality with two-dimensional shape and image.

Danish artist Sergej Jensen presented a large-scale patchwork-like piece (detail above) composed of raw linen rectangles. The stitching makes the patches look repurposed, as if the patches had a previous, more meaningful, utilitarian life.

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Surprise appearance at Frieze: Bernard Piffaretti

2013-05-12T09:53:00.004-04:00

At Frieze New York yesterday, in the densely hung Galerie Frank Elbaz booth, I stumbled upon two fantastic paintings by Bernard Piffaretti, a French abstract painter who wasn't included in Frieze's list of participating artists.

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SNAPS: Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Open Studios

2013-05-11T09:27:00.004-04:00

Originally in Tribeca and now located in DUMBO, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program has been granting free studio space to visual artists since 1991. Phong Bui, Rochelle Feinstein, Chris Martin, Harriet Shorr and Don Voisine selected the sixteen 2013 residents from more than 1000 applicants. Last week I stopped by their spring Open Studios, where the residents presented new work in spacious lofts overlooking the East River and the Manhattan Bridge. What a view. Here are some snaps of paintings on view.

Didier William

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SNAPS: Open Studios at ISCP

2013-05-08T08:42:00.001-04:00

Founded in 1994, the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in East Williamsburg is a residency-based contemporary art institution for emerging to mid-career artists and curators. Although many of the artists' practices comprise performative, installation, photography, bookmaking, and video projects, a few of the current residents are painters. Here are some snaps I took at the open studios a few weeks ago.

Johannes Rochhausen (born 1981, Leipzig) focuses on his studio and the industrial environment surrounding the ISCP building in East Williamsburg. Beautifully painted with toned down palette, Rochhausen's paintings offer a bleak take on the joyless, helpless satisfaction of a hermetic life spent in the studio.

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Careful observation: Scars, skin and larger body parts

2013-05-06T08:03:00.002-04:00

Edie Nadelhaft

Garis & Hahn, a self-styled Kunsthalle that opened earlier this year near the New Museum on the Bowery, recently presented breathtakingly well-observed work by Gwen Hardie, Cynthia Lin and Diana Schmertz in an exhibition called "Borderline: Depictions of Skin." Here are a few images from the show.

Diana Schmertz paints detached hands and body parts. The paintings are particularly haunting after the Boston Marathon bombing.

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EMAIL: Tony Fitzpatrick "really, no shit"

2013-05-06T07:45:00.002-04:00

Known for his retro drawing-collages and inspired storytelling, Tony Fitzpatrick has two shows up through May 26, "The Other Kind" at Pierogi and " The Mysteries of Ohio" at Adam Baumgold.

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Monumental kitsch?

2013-05-05T19:29:00.001-04:00

I was taken aback by Nabil Nahas's recent show of large, crusty abstract paintings at Sperone Westwater last week, particularly the pink one (above) that had starfish forms encrusted in the surface (detail below). According to the press release,

Over the last two decades, Nahas has continuously expanded his methods and materials. In these new paintings, Nahas creates gestural motifs of vivid colors and geometric shapes that cover the three-dimensional surface. The highly textured lines and curves seem to extend beyond the edges of the canvas – suggestive of an expansion of space, of a cosmic universe or macrocosm as well as a microcosm of organic forms."

The paintings reminded me of Etsy craft projects or those vividly colored Wyland posters of dolphins and whales. For a gallery like Sperone Westwater, they seemed so ingratiatingly lighthearted, I wondered if perhaps Nahas intended irony.

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Quick Study: Pocket Utopia's first anniversary, the new neighbor

2013-05-02T08:08:00.003-04:00

This Friday, 6-8pm, our favorite gallery, Pocket Utopia, will be celebrating its one-year anniversary on the Lower East Side with "Club Pocket Utopia," a big party and pop-up group show. Look for work by Liz Atzberger, Hovey Brock, Sharon Butler, Paul D'Agostino, Kris Graves, Ellen Letcher, Amy Lincoln, Matthew Miller, David Storey (pictured above), Kay Thomas, Anton Würth, and Brenda Zlamany.

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Invitation: Tamara Gonzales and Sharon Butler, An Artist Dialogue

2013-05-02T06:15:00.000-04:00

On Saturday at 2:30, please join me at the Mid-Manhattan Library for a lively conversation with painter Tamara Gonzales about blogging, zines, artists books, and Gonzales's fantastic (as in fairies and unicorms!) PINKPURPLE Tumblr site. Organized by Arezoo Moseni, the event is being held in conjunction with a site-specific installation (picture above) Gonzales recently created for the library's "Art in the Windows" series. Titled "Play Button," the exhibition also features a collection of artists' books and zines by Brian Belott, Pam Butler, Maggie Lee, Craig Olson, and Elisa Soliven.

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What MFA means in Detroit

2013-04-29T07:09:00.001-04:00

Over the past two years that I've been working toward my MFA at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, my standard (hackneyed?) retort to artists, critics, friends, janitors, anyone who wants to talk-about-art-in-Detroit, is that artists are going to have a hard time being self-sustaining here, and for reasons we're all aware of. Some have countered this, or have said, you know, that attitude isn't what this city needs right now. And I balk at that, because–and this is another story–the last thing the city needs is a bunch of people who care more about the art scene than the very real social and economic problems the city is facing.

From Cranbrook: Lauren Satlowski, Anxiety, 2011, oil on canvas, 22 x 28 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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Alice Neel's granddaughter Elizabeth Neel talks about painting

2013-04-27T14:03:00.000-04:00

Masking tape and spray paint figure prominently in Elizabeth Neel's new abstract paintings, on view at Sikkema Jenkins through May 22. Formerly represented by Deitch where she had a solo in 2008, Neel discusses abstraction, subject matter, and learning to paint with her grandmother in a recent conversation with filmmaker and family friend Michael Auder at Interview.

MICHEL AUDER: You’ve been painting since ’95 or something like that, right?

NEEL: Well, I started fooling around with it when I was little, with Alice. That was the beginning, when she gave me that Winsor & Newton paint box. That was the “big, fancy gift.” Then I stopped for all of high school and college.
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Inspired by Guernica: Judy Glantzman

2013-04-27T08:25:00.001-04:00

I love it when established artists start something new. After seeing Pablo Picasso's Guernica for the first time three years ago, Judy Glantzman began moving away from the introspective self-portraits she had been making for many years toward a less self-engaged exploration of the devastation caused by war. Determined that she was done with psychological self examination, Glantzman set out to develop a new, more outward-looking visual language. Here are images of a sprawling, roughly hung exhibition at Betty Cuningham in which Glantzman presents powerful work from her ongoing series.

Judy Glantzman, Hero II, 2013, mixed media, 37 1/2 x 33 3/4 inches

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Figure painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a finalist for the Turner Prize

2013-04-25T06:13:00.004-04:00

The recently announced shortlist for Tate Britain's 2013 Turner Prize includes painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (London, b. 1977), who readers may recall was the only painter included in the New Museum's 2012 Triennial "The Ungovernables." Turner Prize jurors select specific exhibitions, and Yiadom-Boakye was singled out for "Extracts and Verses," a 2012 exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery. "Yiadom-Boakye’s intriguing paintings appear traditional but are in fact much more innovative," according to the Tate's press release."Her portraits of imaginary people use invented pre-histories and raise pertinent questions about how we read pictures in general, particularly with regard to black subjects. " In NYC she is represented by Jack Shainman, where she had a solo in 2012.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Milk For A Maestro, 2012. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery. Photo: Marcus Leith.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, The Generosity, 2010. Photo: Marcus Leith

In the following conversation, exhibition organizer Jamie Stevens and Yiadom-Boakye discuss the fictitious characters and enigmatic narratives in the exhibition at Chisenhale.

Jamie Stevens: You have titled the exhibition "Extracts and Verses," what is the function of the titling with regards to both the exhibition and the individual works?

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: I wanted to keep the title as open as possible and to explain a little bit how I think about the show and the relations from words to paintings. I want to think about the exhibition in a similar way to how we might think of stories, or if not stories, then explanations.

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Retro: Let's make ZINES

2013-04-22T09:08:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I saw lots of good stuff at the 2013 Brooklyn Zine Fest, held in a dark Williamsburg bar.

Here is a short video I found on the Brooklyn College Zine Collection blog about how to make a simple zine, which shows that all you really need is the desire to tell a story or share some ideas.

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Opportunities galore

2013-04-20T11:12:00.000-04:00

I just received an email from e-artnow that included all these job listings and other opportunities. Have at it.

Geneva University of Art and Design is looking for a Department Head (listing below).

JOBS (ACADEMICS, ARTISTS, CURATORS):

Various job opportunities at the Guggenheim Museum: NYC, USA.Deadline: asap.
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/about/jobs/full-time

Current available positions at The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA NYC: NYC, USA.Deadline: asap.
http://www.moma.org/about/jobs
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"A short line drawn between sex appeal and a retinal overload gross out"

2013-04-17T08:03:00.000-04:00

Clicking through my inbox this morning, deluged with paintings slathered in bright, saturated color, I was reminded of an artists book produced in an MFA seminar I taught last semester at the University of Connecticut.

Russell Shoemaker, Lover's Lane, 2013, acrylic on canvas, large scale.

In Formula, painter Russell Shoemaker writes passionately about color, dividing it into several categories, one of which is synthetic.

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IMAGES: Matt Phillips

2013-04-17T05:13:00.001-04:00

A founding member of TSA, a new artist-run space in Bushwick, Matt Phillips cites Alfred Jensen, Marimekko patterns and Gee’s Bend quilts as touchstones for his accident-prone abstractions that combine wobbly geometric shape with distinctive color relationships and casually agitated brushwork."I’m interested in working with these things that are dumb fundamental components of visual language – the square, the triangle, the octagon, the stuff that is in everyone’s kitchen sink, the stuff that everyone knows," Phillips told Jennifer Samet in a 2012 conversation on her Beer with a Painter blog. "If you work with simple components, and they all work together to transcend their parts— that’s the magic of painting."

Matt Phillips, Canadian Sunrise, 2013, pigment and silica binder on canvas, 66 x 54 inches,

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9 painters receive 2013 Guggenheim Fellowships

2013-04-15T10:52:00.000-04:00

Considered mid-career awards, Guggenheim Fellowships recognize "demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Between 3,500 and 4,000 applications are submitted each year, and approximately 200 Fellowships, which include a substantial amount of cash depending on the scope of the project and the Fellows' other resources, are awarded. Here are the painters included on the 2013 list, and, unless otherwise noted, the text is lifted (and edited) from the Guggenheim Foundation website. One more painter was selected this year than last, all but one of them are women, and five out of the nine are engaged with representational imagery.

Cora Cohen in her Long Island City studio in 2013. Image by Two Coats of Paint.

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Paris: A multiplicity of simple interactions

2013-04-14T08:27:00.001-04:00

Today is the last day for Drawing Now in Paris, but "Emergence," an elegant group exhibition of reductive abstract painting will be on view at Hôtel de Sauroy through April 27. Curators Katrin Bremermann, Erin Lawlor and Yifat Gat have assembled a handsome show featuring work by an international cohort of painters who invest fairly simple geometric markmaking with substantial complexity.

Amy Feldman and Katrin Bremermann

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Quick study: Waltemath, Gatson, Kennedy, a few opportunities, and lots of links

2013-04-12T21:38:00.002-04:00

If you're in the northwest, check out "Latencies," an exhibition of Joan Waltemath's sublime abstract paintings at Elizabeth Leach in Portland, OR, through April 27, 2013. Using interference pigments and graphite, Waltemath creates seductive surfaces on body-sized panels that both reflect and absorb, changing as you move around the space.

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