Drawing on the Utopic: A Solo Exhibition of Drawings and Text Pieces by Austin Thomas. Storefront, Brooklyn, NY. September 17 – October 17, 2010. After organizing countless exhibitions for other artists over the past few years, Thomas is having a long-overdue exhibition of her own work. “Austin Thomas’s collages, deceptively delicate studies, caught sometimes in the act of unfolding against or through the gridded skin of a graph paper background, explore enduring thoughts about the speciation of drawing and sculpture.”
Related posts:
Two Coats Studio Visit with Austin Thomas
Expanding Utopia in Bushwick
Tracks: Expanding Utopia @ The Brooklyn Rail
Eva Hesse Spectres 1960, organized by E. Luanne McKinnon, Director of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, The Hammer Museum, September 25 – January 2, 2011. “An exhibition of seminal and rarely seen paintings by legendary artist Eva Hesse (1936-1970). Created when Hesse was just 24, this group of nineteen semi-representational oil paintings stands in contrast to her later minimalist structures and sculptural assemblages, yet constitutes a vital link in the progression of her work. The exhibition focuses on what McKinnon terms Hesse�s ‘spectre’ paintings for their haunted interiority and attempt to embody emotional states in abstract form. There are two distinct groups within this spectre painting series. In the first, the figures in these intimately scaled (approx. 9 x 12 in.) paintings are gaunt, loosely rendered, standing or dancing in groups of two or three yet disconnected from one another. The second group of works presents both odd, alien-like creatures and depictions that resemble the artist herself, in traditional easel-size scale (approximately 32 x 42 inches).”
UPDATE (Sept. 3): Two Coats has learned that the exhibition will be on view at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, and will conclude at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum. A full-color publication, Eva Hesse Spectres 1960
Abstract Expressionist New York, Organized by Ann Temkin. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. October 3, 2010�April 25, 2011. “Drawn entirely from the Museum�s holdings, ‘Abstract Expressionist New York’ underscores the achievements of a generation that catapulted New York City to the center of the international art world during the 1950s, and left as its legacy some of the twentieth century�s greatest masterpieces.” And they’re even including some work by women in the show.
The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya, Organized by Jonathan Brown, Lisa A. Banner and Susan Grace Galassi. The Frick, New York, NY. October 5- January 9, 2011. “The greatest Spanish draftsmen from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century � Ribera, Murillo, and Goya, among them � created works of dazzling idiosyncrasy. More than fifty of the finest Spanish drawings from public and private collections in the Northeast will be on display.
Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958�1968, organized by the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery of the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. The Brooklyn Museum presentation is organized by Catherine Morris. The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY. October 15, 2010�January 9, 2011. This exhibition has traveled around the country, but this fall it takes up residence in Brooklyn, where readers can also see a Fred Tomaselli mid-career survey. “This large-scale exhibition examines the impact of women artists on the traditionally male-dominated field of Pop art. It reconsiders the narrow definition of the Pop art movement and reevaluates its critical reception. In recovering important female artists, the show expands the canon to reflect more accurately the women working internationally during this period. The exhibition features more than fifty artworks by Chryssa, Niki de Saint Phalle, Rosalyn Drexler, Marisol, Yayoi Kusama, Jann Haworth, Vija Celmins, Lee Lozano, Marjorie Strider, Idelle Weber, and Joyce Wieland, among others.”
Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective, co-organized by Elisabeth Sussman and Lynn Zelevansky.Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. October 21, 2010�January 9, 2011. “A sculptor, painter, and one of the first artists to create environments or installations, Thek came to recognition showing his sculpture in New York galleries in the 1960s. The first works exhibited, which he began making in 1964 and called ‘meat pieces’ as they were meant to resemble flesh, were encased in Plexiglas boxes that recall Minimal sculptures. At the end of the sixties, Thek left for Europe, where he created extraordinary environments, incorporating elements from art, literature, theater, and religion, often employing fragile and ephemeral substances, including wax and latex. After a decade, at the end of the seventies, Thek changed direction, moved back to New York, and turned to the making of small, sketch-like paintings on canvas, although he continued to create environments in key international exhibitions. With his frequent use of highly perishable materials, Thek accepted the ephemeral nature of his art works�and was aware, as writer Gary Indiana has noted, of ‘a sense of our own transience and that of everything around us.’
