Jesse Reichek: Concerning the Mystical in Art,” curated by Sara Otto-Diniz. University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerue, NM. Through Dec. 21.
Eva Dameron reports in the University of New Mexico’s Daily Lobo that “in 1971, painter Jesse Reichek withdrew from the New York art world. He felt the commercial aspect of creating art would taint his artistic integrity. ‘He was one of the fortunate ones who could make a living working as a teacher of design at Berkeley, so he did have a job and could just keep painting and painting and not show it to anyone,’ curator Otto-Diniz said. In the exhibition, which features three different series of paintings, his work clearly shows a change after his withdrawal. It’s less minimal, featuring paintings he did for each of the 117 verses of the book The Song of Songs. ‘This was his discovery of what it was to be human,’ Otto-Diniz said. ‘The Song of Songs, in the Old Testament, is one of the most beautiful love poems in the history of literature.’ Reichek died in 2005 at 89. He left behind more than 3,000 paintings.” Check out images of Reichek’s paintings on the web site for his 2005 posthumous retrospective.
