Award-winning blogazine, primarily about painting
Thursday, June 1, 2023
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Zombie Formalism–innocuous abstraction employing a pastiche of art-historical references and made to fulfill undiscriminating art market demand–has given abstract painting a bad name. Alex Baker offers a vibrant remedy. At Fleischer/Ollman in Philadelphia, where he is gallery director, Baker has curated “New Geometries,” a fine […]
The Standard Motors Building in Long Island City is home to a spacious lobby gallery, organized and maintained by Deborah Freedman and Marjorie VanDyke. Freedman and VanDyke, printmakers who operate VanDeb Editions in the same building as the gallery, invited Joe Haske to curate a show, and he assembled �A […]
Contributed by Franklin Einspruch / Among several of my quixotic projects is to farm a heretofore neglected front yard for vegetables. It is, as they say, a work in progress. I am in charge of this project, and yet I am not. Much depends on my scant knowledge, my incomplete […]
This edition includes links to upcoming Open Studio dates, Clyfford Still’s pastels, the Miami art fair participant lists, Thornton Willis upstate, the gold toilet at the Guggenheim, the resurrection of Ginzel’s much-loved List, a review of Molly Crabapple’s show at Postmasters, George Bush’s new painting project, and more.
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Evident in the transfixing Bruce Conner retrospective �Bruce Conner: It�s All True� at MoMA is a probing eye that seeks out departure of one kind or another. Eclectic and countercultural, his rather Rauschenbergian arc reflects the artist�s energetic and sometimes unsubtle insistence on embracing the […]
Contributed by Stephen Westfall / American abstraction was born in the landscape. Arthur Dove and Georgia O�Keeffe seem to have got there before anyone else, trailing plowed fields, banks of clouds, and zigzag lightning bolts into visual rhythms that verge onto geometric patterning without losing touch with a dream-like memory […]
Contributed by Casimir Nozkowski / I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a building that was once a synagogue, a whiskey still, a raincoat factory and when I was born there, a studio for my artist parents [Thomas Nozkowski and Joyce Robins]. They moved in after […]
Contributed by Jeff Bergman / This conversation with Andrew Witkin took place via email after his 2016 exhibition at�Theodore Art in Bushwick. �It has been edited into seven sections, at times to make it a better interview, at times to develop themes that came up in the original emails, and […]
YES: Galleries are presenting a slew of good painting exhibitions this season. The most obvious trend seems to be the continued move away from abstraction toward representational approaches–with still life and figurative work dominating. Here’s a list of the shows I’m looking forward to seeing, with links in case readers […]
Our first preview of the fall season features primarily Brooklyn galleries–Bushwick, DUMBO, Gowanus, and Downtown. Look for me IRL on Friday, September 9, at Theodore:Art in Bushwick, and on Saturday, September 10, at 72 Front Street in DUMBO, where I’ve got paintings in two terrific group shows. Stay tuned for […]
Latest post, link in profile / Donna Dennis’ extraordinary invitation / Contributed by Iris Cushing / Donna Dennis is an artist of transition and transformation. Her architectural installations – which she pioneered in the 1960s and has continued to develop – often take the shape of transitory sites: subway stations, hotels, tourist cabins, and, in the case of her show “Ship/Dock/Three Houses and a Night Sky” at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, a loading dock. Like much of Dennis’ work, this installation draws on her experience and observation of vernacular spaces. Link in profile
@donnadennisstudio @Irismarble @privatepublicgalleryhudson #vernacularspaces #hudsongallery
Joshua Nierodzinski / HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT’S GOING / On view at @contextspacebk through June 11 / Artist talk and brunch on Sat, June 3, 11am -1 pm
"Context is pleased to announce the opening of HOW IT STARTED, HOW IT’S GOING, the first solo exhibition in New York City by artist Joshua Nierodzinski. Curated as a retrospective, the presentation spans a decade exploring the forensic imagination through drawings on microscopic slides, videos, and multi-layered photosensitive painting. It is accompanied by a publication with essays by the artist and Sam O’Hana, a performance and research-led practitioner in critical and lyrical writing."
Joshua Nierodzinski (b.1982) is an artist who merges painting and forensic photography to address personal and national histories. He is a co-founder of HEKLER, a transnational artist-run platform that fosters the critical and experimental examination of hospitality and conflict. Selected awards include the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, an artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, and the Wassaic Artist Residency. Joshua is a recent AIM Bronx Museum Fellow and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Context Art Space
948 Third Ave., 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY
Wednesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
@jnierodzinski @contextspacebk #samohana #wassaicproject #samandadelegoldenfoundation #contemporarypainting #bronxmuseumaimfellowship #josefanniealbers #twocoatssponsor
I saw Alicia Feng’s haunting and beautiful graphite drawings at Sunnyside Arts the other day when I popped in to buy a tube of paint. Director Ed Kim tells me that she pens well known graphic novels under a different name.
@sunnysideartsnyc #artsupplies #artstore #drawings #graphite
Latest post, link in profile / Chakaia Booker’s lyrical muscle / Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Making deeper sense of some abstract art past its initial visual impact can require extended consideration. Not so much Chakaia Booker’s sculpture, now on view in her solo show “Public Opinion” at David Nolan Gallery. Composed predominantly of exactingly configured pieces of black rubber tires along with wood and metal, the work immediately grips you like a confident advocate, calm and insistent. Link in profile
@chakaiabooker @davidnolangallery #jonathanstevenson #twocoatsofpaint
Jim Condron has put together a lovable show of crazy sculptures he made using things sourced from other artists and writers. One piece includes a pair of pink crocs — Grace Hartigan’s last painting shoes — and I was reminded of a Rachel Harrison piece I saw this winter @glenstonemuseum . Kind of heartbreaking that Hartigan’s shoes don’t have more paint on them. Swipe for images
Jim Condron: Collected Things
Sculptures from the Collected Items of Artists, Writers and Thinkers
On view through June 17 @artcake_nyc (but closed for Memorial Day Weekend)
Image info:
Grace Hartigan’s Things, 2023
Crocs shoes, paint stick, pillow, steel
antique chair, steel
35 x 45 x35 inches
In the Glenstone collection:
Rachel Harrison, Sculpture with Boots, 2017
wood, polystyrene, chicken wire, cardboard, burlap, cement, acrylic, steel, and pigmented inkjet print
93 x 60 x 46 inches (236 x 152 x 116 cm)
© Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison, Sculpture with Boots (detail)
@jimcondron #gracehartigan #leekrasner @pollockkrasnerfoundation #rachelharrison #paintersshoes
(I gave Jim a few coffee pots from my favorite hometown thrift shop —the only store I’ve ever loved. Go see what he did with them ☕️)
On the UES yesterday I stopped in to see Andrea Marie Breiling’s solo
“Swallowtail” at @alminerech. In the press release the artist says that the paintings are like the swallowtail butterflies in that the closer you get to the work, the more the surface begins to reveal its details, but honestly the details don’t really seem important, overwhelmed as they are by the brash color, the mesmerizing circular action of the mark making, and the mural-sized scale. Natural wonder doesn’t stand a chance next to Breiling’s industrial strength vision, but maybe that’s the point. Love the illusion of depth and the sense of light. On view through June 10.
@alminerech @andrea_marie_breiling #futurism #contemporarypainting #LAPainting #LAArtist
Latest post, link in profile / Ethel Schwabacher: Canon-adjacent? / Contributed by David Carrier / Revisionist arguments about who should be counted among the artistic elite, whether they be old masters or modernists, provide essential stimulus in the art world. They proceed in an established manner. Some reasonably influential figure contends that a significant artist has been unjustly excluded from a particular art canon. Commentaries are published and shows organized making the case for supplementing it. The recent amendments to the predominantly white male Abstract Expressionist elite have proven especially tricky, as issues of gender and race enter the picture. Does Alma Thomas belong? Norman Lewis? What about Ethel Schwabacher? With “Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s)”, Berry and Campbell argue energetically, though not entirely convincingly, that she deserves a place. Link in profile
#davidcarrier #ethelschwabacher @berrycampbell #womenpainters #1950spainting #abstractexpressionism @carrier3909 #twocoatsofpaint
Spread across two floors at Magenta Plains, Jennifer Bolande’s solo, “Persistence of Vision” is as compelling as it is enigmatic. Downstairs, Bolande captures images of fragmented scenes and objects (perhaps from dusty road trips in an old muscle car?), a series of moments that manifest deeper meaning. The work upstairs focuses on the handmade. Rachel Kushner, are you out there? Through June 17.
@magentaplains #jenniferbolande #rachelkushner #lesgalleries #magentaplains #persistenceofvision #contemporaryphotography #plastersculpture
This afternoon I spent some time @platformprojectspace talking with artist (and curator for this show) @franklinevansart and gallery director @elizabethhazan during the last day for “Philosophicalinvestigations” a lovable group show that included faded images of exhibitions past and work by artists who are showing for the first time in the space. It has been a glorious celebration of Platform’s first five years 🎉😀🏆 Congratulations Elizabeth and Franklin. Great show.
#philosophicalinvestigations #franklinevans #elizabethhazan #platformprojectspace
