Contributed by Jason Stopa / An international survey at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University explores how contemporary artists use abstraction to encode otherwise invisible realities: climate change, political strife, and inequalities of all stripes. Some are household names, others still emerging. Titled “So it appears,” the show is anything but timid. It boasts some 19 artists occupying three floors, each one grappling with the limits of abstraction and its history and pressing beyond the frame of the canvas. Western abstraction has tackled social and political issues before – there was deconstruction in the 1960s, Neo-Geo in the eighties, and most recently the palpable Trump-era uptick. “So it appears” looks to the Global South for perspective.
Tag: Jason Stopa
“Eraser” in Birmingham
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In 2012, artist, writer, and curator Brian Edmonds founded Curating Contemporary, an online exhibition space that, since its inception, has hosted over fifty exhibitions. Then, in 2019, Edmonds took his project to print, and began publishing Eraser, a biannual book featuring the work of contemporary artists and writers. This year he has organized an exhibition called “Eraser” at Ground Floor Contemporary, in Birmingham, Alabama, that brings together some of the artists who have been featured in his publications. I’m pleased to be included in the fourth Eraser book and also to have two paintings in the show, alongside work by a great group of artists: Matt Kleberg, Jered Sprecher, Jason Stopa, Sean Sullivan, Vadis Turner, Cecilia Vissers, Don Voisine, and Thornton Willis.
Panel discussion: Painting in 2020
On January 16, 2020, artist and curator Jason Stopa invited Katherine Bradford, Sharon Butler, Craig Stockwell and Thomas Micchelli for a panel discussion about the issues abstract painters are addressing today. The conversation took place at Monica King Contemporary, a new gallery in Tribeca where Stopa organized “New Skin,” an […]
Catalogue essay: Elisabeth Condon’s flowers and the visionary impulse
Contributed by Jason Stopa / Some painting of the last decade presents itself as politically neutral, simply about aesthetic taste, and lacks any stakes. Others still are incredibly didactic, demanding the viewer agree with their sentiment as much as their surfaces. Somewhere in the nexus of this is a painting […]
Jason Stopa: Inside and out
Contributed by Riad Miah / In “The Gate,” Jason Stopa’s fourth New York solo and his first one-person show at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, the artist has painted a lattice-like pattern on a bright yellow wall and hung his canvases to look as if they are hanging on a […]
New subjectivity: Figurative painting at Pratt Manhattan Gallery
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In a lively group show of large canvases at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, curator Jason Stopa makes a strong case that contemporary painters, particularly those working figuratively, are cultivating a new form of Expressionism. He cites popular culture (cartoons, fashion photography, YouTube videos), personal narrative, […]