STEVEN ALEXANDER JOURNAL

Studio Visit with ERIC HOLZMAN

2012-01-06T15:33:00.008-05:00

Eric Holzman, 2012, oil on canvas, about 50 x 36 inches

It was a privilege and a treat to spend some time with Eric Holzman in his Soho studio last week -- looking at a group of new paintings, some works in progress, and some older paintings being reworked. In fact Eric often works for years on a painting, constantly shifting shapes and adjusting color -- leaving it, coming back months later and opening it up again. Recently he has been attempting to shorten that process a bit with a series of paintings that utilize and explore the kind of abbreviation he achieves in his drawings.

Eric Holzman, 2012, work in progress, oil on canvas (above), and a group of small paintings, oil on linen (below)

Eric Holzman, 2012, oil on canvas, about 32 x 36 inches

Eric Holzman, 2012, oil on canvas, about 30 x 40 inches, w/ detail below

Eric Holzman, 2011-2012, drawings, above and below

Eric Holzman, 2012, oil on canvas, about 30 x 40 inches, w/ detail below

Read my post about Eric's exhibition last year at Sideshow HERE.

2012

2011-12-31T09:53:00.004-05:00

Studio, December 2011

To all my friends and colleagues -- wishing you peace, health and happiness in the new year.

2011: 20 Most Memorable

2011-12-21T12:36:00.018-05:00

Here is selection of images from a few of my most memorable encounters in 2011. It is by no means comprehensive, but I hope you enjoy the recap.

Will Barnet at the National Academy

Georges Braque at Aquavella

Mark Dagley at OK Harris with American Abstract Artists

Willem DeKooning at MoMA

Perle Fine at Spanierman Modern

Elizabeth Hazan at Janet Kurnatowski

Mara Held at the Icebox in Philly, with American Abstract Artists

Gonçalo Ivo's new work

George McNeil at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe

Joan Mitchell at Cheim & Read

John Opper at David Findlay Jr

Pat Passlof at Elizabeth Harris

Blinky Palermo at Dia Beacon & Bard College

Rebecca Purdum at Jack Tilton

Milton Resnick at Cheim & Read

Alan Shields at Greenberg Van Doren

Pat Steir at Cheim & Read

Frank Stella at Paul Kasmin

Lynn Woods Turner at Danese

Don Voisine at McKenzie

BARNETT NEWMAN at Craig F. Starr

2011-12-04T17:05:00.008-05:00

Barnett Newman, Untitled 3-1949 and Outcry 1958

One of the most wonderful surprises in a while is a jewel-like exhibition of Barnett Newman paintings at Craig F. Starr Gallery through December 17, 2011. Tucked away in Starr's tiny space on the ground floor of a brownstone on 73rd Street, this show features an exquisite group of small canvases mostly from the '40s and '50s, and a very nice selection of works on paper in the back room. The lighting is so low that it takes half an hour to adjust one's eyes to the darkness -- and even then, it is very hard to see the paintings. Nevertheless, these works are a real treat, and the intimate setting allows close inspection that reveals the raw directness of Newman's process. Each work seems carefully considered and quickly executed, exuding a freshness that is astonishing and a potency that transcends its small scale. One wonders how many of these little things Newman had lying around the studio. For a selection of much higher quality images, visit the gallery website.

Barnett Newman, Treble 1960 and Untitled 1-1950

Barnett Newman, By Twos 1949 and Galaxy 1949

Barnett Newman, Treble, 1960, 20 1/4 x 6 3/4, oil on canvas

Barnett Newman, By Twos, 1949, 66 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Barnett Newman, Untitled 1-1950, 1950, 36 x 6 inches, oil on canvas

JOAN MITCHELL: The Last Paintings at Cheim & Read

2011-11-17T20:19:00.011-05:00

Joan Mitchell, Installation View, 2011

Seeing the exhibition of works from Joan Mitchell's last ten years at Cheim & Read (through January 4, 2012) is a deeply moving experience. Embedded in these paintings is an unmistakable sense of archetypal paradox, of the artist both painfully and expectantly in touch with her mortality -- at once refusing to submit and feeling the exhilarating release of submission. These paintings make abundantly evident that as the artist's body was near the end, her work was in an exalted zone of clarity -- extravagant and stoic, sensuous and blunt, celebratory and defiant. We can only respond by echoing the title of the last painting in the show -- MERCI, Joan, merci.

Joan Mitchell, River, 1989, 110 x 157 inches, oil on canvas, diptych

Joan Mitchell, Yves, 1991, 110 x 78 inches, oil on canvas

Joan Mitchell, Sunflowers, 1990-91, 110 x 157 inches, oil on canvas, diptych

Joan Mitchell, Merci, 1992, 110 x 141 inches, oil on canvas, diptych

Joan Mitchell, Merci (detail)

AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS: ABSTRACTION ∞at the Icebox, Crane Arts Center, Philadelphia

2011-11-13T16:33:00.013-05:00

Katinka Mann, Steven Alexander, Joan Webster Price, Vito Giacalone, Gail Gregg, Stephen Westfall, Don Voisine, Jane Logemann and Thornton Willis

I am thrilled and honored to be participating in this fantastic exhibition at the Icebox, at Crane Arts Center in Philly. Beautifully curated by Janet Kurnatowski, the show features 77 members of the venerable American Abstract Artists, plus four invited guests (of which I am one), and runs through November 27, 2011. It is a rich collection of diverse objects which transforms the huge space into a feast for the eyes. Dedicated to the vitality and perpetuation of the language of abstraction, and organized in groups of works that engage each other in various and delightful conversations, the exhibition features top notch work by many well known artists, and achieves a depth that rewards extended viewing. Here is just a small sample.

Katinka Mann, Steven Alexander, Vito Giacalone

Steven Alexander, Vito Giacalone, Gail Gregg. Stephen Westfall, Don Voisine

Thornton Willis, Matthew Deleget

Stephen Westfall, Don Voisine

Julian Jackson, Stephen Maine

Merrill Wagner, Richard Anuszkiewicz, James Jusszcyk, Mark Williams

Roger Jorgensen, Ken Bushnell, Mark Dagley, Vincent Longo

Will Barnet

Mark Williams

Mara Held

Merrill Wagner

Joan Waltemath

Mark Dagley

Power Boothe

James Little

SCOTT MALBAURN at Kurnatowski

2011-11-02T09:36:00.004-04:00

Scott Malbaurn, Tide, 2011, 72 x 72 inches (2 panels), acrylic on canvas

Scott Malbaurn is showing a group of new paintings at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery through November 13, 2011. Scott's previous work, while always clean, hard-edge and reductive, has often conveyed a certain restlessness in its configuration -- energized gestural lines or complex geometric diagrams. With this group of paintings, he has placed his primary focus on retinal resonances, the complexity and movement being manifested spatially through intense color interactions within a highly simplified iconic structure. Using the chevron as his motif, he has arrived at a configuration that allows him to manipulate the pictorial space through saturation and weight of color, creating undulating meditative rhythms with glowing off-key color transitions. The surfaces of these paintings are absolutely pristine, built of many layers of translucent polymer to form a seamless skin. Each painting embodies a distinct world of teeming plasticity.

Scott Malbaurn, Fenestra, 2011, 24 x 18 inches, acrylic on canvas

Scott Malbaurn, Terminus, 2011, 36 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

Scott Malbaurn, Jive, 2011, 36 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

REBECCA PURDUM at Tilton

2011-10-09T21:06:00.012-04:00

Rebecca Purdum, Installation view, Jack Tilton Gallery, 2011

In her first New York exhibition in about five years, Rebecca Purdum is showing a magnificent group of new paintings at Jack Tilton, through November 5, 2011. The ten paintings in the show are mostly smaller scale works, with only one piece, a large horizontal diptych from 2008, approaching the scale of her best known previous work. The smaller scale, if possibly diminishing the wow factor of the work, does not diminish the concentrated presence of each painting -- the palpable sense of the artist's touch in every inch of the surface -- her total engagement with the most sensuous aspects of her materials. Applying paint with her gloved hands, Purdum slowly builds supple fields of close-valued color to achieve a soft hum that draws one closer. The surfaces are rich accumulations of interactions and encounters over time, with thicker and thinner, oily and matte areas mingling into a dusky soup that is at once ethereal and utterly physical. Her early swirling atmospheres have over the years become more and more still, more and more content to simply be.

Rebecca Purdum, After Colossus, 2010, 40 x 32 inches, oil on panel

Rebecca Purdum, Hourglass (yellow), 2011, 32 x 23 inches, oil on panel

Rebecca Purdum, Ripton 98, 2010, 40 x 32 inches, oil on panel

Rebecca Purdum, Blue Square, 2011, 60 x 60 inches, oil on linen

Rebecca Purdum, Ripton 92, 2009, 14 x 12 inches, oil on canvas on panel

MILTON RESNICK at Cheim & Read

2011-10-02T20:27:00.010-04:00

Milton Resnick, Installation View 2011

The title of the exhibition of Milton Resnick paintings at Cheim & Read (through October 29) is The Elephant in the Room, which resonates in layers with the selection of powerful encrusted paintings from the 1960s to the 1980s. It speaks to Resnick's deep commitment to an existential engagement with his process as an elemental endeavor. It speaks to a sense that Resnick's determination to push his work to the limit of its essence tends to make most other approaches to painting seem like peripheral chatter. These works are monsters of raw will -- the artist giving himself over to his materials, his process, and to the most primal depths of the painting language to create massive presences that are as radical as they are beautiful. They are embodiments of a kind of dogged integrity that is rarely spoken of these days, and even more rarely achieved.

Milton Resnick, Installation View 2011

Milton Resnick, EDNA V, 1973, 83 x 48 inches, oil on canvas

Milton Resnick, STRAWS, 1982, 80 x 60 inches, oil on canvas

Milton Resnick, STRAWS (Detail)

In the Studio

2011-09-23T18:16:00.003-04:00

A selection of works on paper, 2011

More HERE

WILL BARNET at 100: Abstract Painting

2011-08-20T12:13:00.012-04:00

Will Barnet, Enclosed II, 2009-10, 39 x 26 inches, oil on canvas

In the past few years we've seen a blooming of young painters exploring a sort of organic abstraction, particularly in Brooklyn, but really permeating the galleries everywhere. The recent success of Tom Nozkowski might have been one catalyst, opening the doors to his extended family and offspring. At any rate, there is no doubt still plenty of fertile ground to be cultivated creating dynamic arrangements of organic shapes with paint on canvas. The most inspiring example I know is Will Barnet, who turned 100 this year. Probably best known for his elegantly reductive and etherial figure compositions, he studied with Stuart Davis, and has devoted extended periods of his career to making abstract paintings that I think are his greatest contribution. His most recent, many of which were shown at Alexandre Gallery last spring, are his best. They are endlessly inventive works that derive their impetus from nature, and transfigure deep feeling and experience into eloquent form. The surfaces of these paintings are infused with a delicate and direct touch -- short, almost scumbled brush strokes that build the shapes slowly, deliberately, activating the whole surface, leaving bits of raw canvas at the edges of shapes. There is a wonderful tension between the authority and solidity of the compositions, and the delicacy of the color and surfaces. This work is a brilliant testimony to the vitality of an important painter, and to the continuing legacy of abstract painting.

Will Barnet, Inauguration, 2009, 32 x 32 inches, oil on canvas

Will Barnet, Conversations, 2009, 26 x 31 inches, oil on canvas

Will Barnet, Flight, 2009, 24 x 33, oil on canvas

Will Barnet, The Garden, 2009, 35 x 23 inches, oil on canvas

Will Barnet, Strolling, 2008, 30 x 35 inches, oil on canvas

Images from the Alexandre Gallery website.

VERNON FISHER at Talley Dunn in Dallas

2011-08-01T08:54:00.006-04:00

Vernon Fisher, 200 Numbered Rectangles, 1989, 90 x 95 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

On a recent brief trip to Dallas, I had the opportunity to catch an exhibition of paintings by Vernon Fisher at the Talley Dunn Gallery (through August 20, 2011). The six large works in the show are all from the '90s and late '80s, probably chosen to augment his big retrospective that closed last month at the Fort Worth Modern. These relatively direct pieces represent a tiny slice of a sprawling and complex body of work that has spanned 40 years, and continues to press on. Fusing brilliantly conceived narratives and an encyclopedic stash of images with a sensuous painterly touch and formal eloquence, Vernon's work dives into a churning sea of information and sensation, exploring the apparent randomness of human experience and the alchemical nature of art-making. He is one of the most under-appreciated artists out there, consistently creating expansive scenarios that challenge our assumptions about reality, and make us smile at the absurdity of our earnestness.

Vernon Fisher, Fleet, 1998, 84 x 84 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

Vernon Fisher, Swimming Against the Tide for Relaxation, 1994, 72 x 108 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

Vernon Fisher, Bitter Future, 1999, 78 x 72 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

Vernon Fisher, Aardvark Shorter History, 1991, 84 x 96 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

BLINKY PALERMO: Retrospective At Dia Beacon & Bard

2011-07-17T12:14:00.014-04:00

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City (Part XII, Part XI), 1976, acrylic on aluminum

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City (Part XIV, Part XIII, Part XII), 1976, acrylic on aluminum

Finally, the Blinky Palermo Retrospective has arrived in the NY area after making it's way from LA via DC. Here the show is divided between two venues, with the metal paintings from his last few years being shown at Dia: Beacon, and the earlier work almost an hour away at Bard College. This is an unfortunate situation, an arbitrary division in the continuum of his work that frustrates the possibility of back-and-forth comparisons and comprehensive viewing. More on that later. I began at Dia, where the Palermos have been conspicuously missing for the duration of this traveling exhibition, leaving a gaping hole in the gestalt of the Beacon collection. It is great to see them back (although now the magnificent Warhol Shadows series has gone missing). The most exciting thing about their return is that Palermo's quintessential last work, the multi-panel To the People of New York City, has been re-installed in a new and much more successful configuration. Previously it occupied a huge shoebox-shaped rectangular space that seemed to distance the viewer from the work and disconnect the groupings of panels from each other. The new "L" shaped space feels much more intimate and fosters the recognition of the work as one whole piece. Suddenly, I am struck with an eery recollection of the moment I first saw this work at Heiner Friedrich's gallery in 1977, and its deep resonance with that moment in time and with the history of painting. I discussed this piece in a previous post: "...For myself and many other painters of my generation, To the People of New York City was a watershed work that almost magically synthesized the impulses of that moment into a new approach to painting. (...) Palermo's genius was creating a pulsating visual poetry that envelops the viewer in a sensate choreography, that has the open-ended improvisation of jazz and the playful directness of the Ramones -- a space in which the highest aspirations of painting are inseparable from its ancient ritual origins." Accompanying this still-vibrant work, a number of other multiple panel pieces from 1975-6 make a convincing case that Palermo had just begun to hit his stride at his death -- that he had tapped into a new clarity, a personal visual poetry that had profound possibilities.

Blinky Palermo, Coney Island, 1975, overall 27.7 x 147 cm, acrylic on 4 aluminum panels

Blinky Palermo, Times of the Day II, 1975, acrylic on 4 aluminum panels

On to Bard, where we see a collection of pieces from 1964 into the early '70s. There are many key works here -- his early geometric paintings on canvas, many of the 2-part hybrid objects, rather dry documentation of the conceptual projects and installations, and of course the cloth pieces. We witness a (rather brief) 10-year span in which Palermo is wildly prolific and experimental, yet methodical in his search for a visual key to his sense of an ineffable resonance. There is a bit of the facile ambitious student, sponging information and mirroring prevailing attitudes, quickly evolving into a more focused and personal poetic vision. I would love to have seen more of the astoundingly beautiful cloth pieces. The few that are included here look surprisingly crisp -- like they were done yesterday -- and the color and textures convey rich presences. Sadly missing from this collection are the wonderful Tuttle-esque drawings and watercolors through which Palermo consistently developed his painterly sensibility and experimented with eccentric configurations. If indeed the key to a great show is to "leave them wanting more", then this exhibition was a success. Certainly, it is a welcome and much anticipated survey of work which has been seminal for so many painters. The show continues through October 31, 2011.

Blinky Palermo, Untitled, 1964, 95 x 80.5 cm, oil on canvas

Blinky Palermo, 4 Prototypes, 1970, screenprints on paper

LARRY ZOX at Stephen Haller

2011-07-11T09:54:00.006-04:00

Larry Zox, Banner, 1962, 72 x 72 inches, oil, paper, staples on wood panel

In the small back room at Stephen Haller through August 5, is a rare treat -- a group of powerful collages from the 1960s by Larry Zox. Ranging in size from very large to very small, these works are revelations -- glimpses into the history and sensibility of a painter known for clean and elegant geometric abstractions. The most exciting thing about these collages is the fierce physicality with which they were executed. Heavy paper is painted, torn and stapled to wood supports, creating bold muscular objects, with every aspect of the process exposed. Each work consists of only a few colors set in dynamic relations of contrast and spatial equilibrium with a wonderful variety of hard, torn and scumbled edges. Here we witness Zox working his way out of NY School painterly conventions, and discovering ways to simplify his space and structures. He will of course ultimately arrive at a cool refinement of color and geometry to which these important early works now stand in singular contrast.

Larry Zox

In the Studio

2011-06-18T14:13:00.002-04:00

Steven Alexander, Shift #6, 2011, 10 x 50 inches, acrylic on linen

Steven Alexander, Is & Was #7, 2011, 72 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas

More images HERE.

AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS At OK Harris

2011-06-09T10:44:00.014-04:00

Don Voisine, Debutante Twist, 2009, 72 x 18 inches, oil on wood

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, American Abstract Artists, the venerable artists' organization, is presenting a marvelous exhibition at OK Harris through July 15, 2011. This sprawling but beautifully coherent show features the work of 77 member artists, spanning several generations and comprising a broad range of approaches to abstraction. The roster includes a long list of well known painters including Dorothea Rockburne, Thornton Willis, Merrill Wagner, Will Barnet, and many more -- all showing significant works. There is also a nice group of excellent work by lesser known artists. One thing that distinguishes this exhibition from some previous AAA shows is the scale of the work, made possible by the size of the rambling galleries of OK Harris. Rather than diminutive samples shown salon style, we are treated to full scale paintings, shown with enough space around them to set off each piece individually. It is a museum worthy presentation that this work truly deserves. Moving around the galleries, spending time with each work, one is inevitably taken by the variety and depth of the ongoing investigations. One can sense the 75 year tradition, a seasoning and a blooming -- a way of seeing, thinking, living that in many ways is no less radical now than in 1936.

left: Susan Bonfils, Color Planes 1-A, 2010, 23 x 18.75 x 10 inches, aluminum & acrylic

right: Mark Dagley, Core Belief, 2008, 76 x 72 inches, acrylic on unprimed canvas

Joan Waltemath, Owen (East 1 1,2,3,5,8...), 2008-10, 39.25 x 16.25 inches, oil, zinc, graphite, pewter & florescent pigment on honeycomb aluminum panel

Richard Timperio, Peach Foam-Red Mark, 1995, 68 x 56 inches, acrylic & mixed media on canvas

left: David Row, String Theory, 2008, 50 x 66 inches, oil on canvas

center: Mara Held, Ostinato, 2007, 32 x 48 inches, egg tempera on linen/board

right: Judith Murray, Transport, 2008-9, 50 x 54 inches, oil on linen

Will Barnet, GO-GO II, 2003, 31 3/8 x 19 1/2 inches, oil on canvas

MICHAEL VOSS Paintings/Interview

2011-06-03T15:03:00.008-04:00

Michael Voss, Fenelus, 2010, oil on linen

There is an excellent interview with Brooklyn painter Michael Voss featured on the BRIC Contemporary Art website, in which Voss talks about making his deceptively simple small-scale abstract paintings. On the subject of simplicity, he says:

"It’s not something you solve once and then you have it. Simplicity is something that you approach, that’s fleeting, that moves. I’m very drawn to the moment when actually something simple starts to become complicated."

Indeed Voss is making paintings that are driven by an intuitive sense of that most delicate balance, a search for that point in the process where what was nothing suddenly, magically, takes on some essential resonance. His ability to stop at that moment is one of the most striking characteristics of his work. I have not been familiar with Voss' work until now, and look forward to seeing more.

Michael Voss, 2009, 16 x 14 inches, oil on linen

Michael Voss, Fuentes, 2009, oil on canvas

Michael Voss, Kleber Salas, 2009, oil on linen

Michael Voss, studio view, Brooklyn

Images from the internet

ALAN SHIELDS at Greenberg Van Doren

2011-05-16T13:26:00.005-04:00

Alan Shields, installation view, 2011

left: Pheebe's Natural Swimming Action, 1980-81, 114 1/2 x 147 inches, acrylic & thread on canvas

right: Diet Limca, 1980-81, 77 1/2 x 77 1/2 inches, acrylic & thread on cotton belting w/ aluminum

It has been a very long time since we've seen a group of work by Alan Shields, who died in 2006 at 61. In the '70s, he was a singular artist, who epitomized the "post-minimal" sensibility, making vibrant paintings that were sculptural objects, constructed of scraps of painted canvas sewn together, often embedded with beads and other colorful objects. The work had a tie-dyed hippie look to it that was alive and playful, but also deeply rooted in a ritualization of the painting process and an assertion of art-making as an ancient practice. Shields was originally represented by Paula Cooper, and was one of the heavy hitters in her stable until sometime in the early '80s when he just sort of disappeared -- retreating to his place on Shelter Island to tend his garden and operate the local ferry.

The Shields estate is now represented by Greenberg Van Doren in midtown, where a new exhibition of his work titled Something Going On & On is being presented through June 24th. Included in the show are about half a dozen large paintings, several 3-D pieces that hang from the ceiling, and a group of small works constructed out of handmade paper. I will say right off that it is great to see Shields' work in person again. Particularly the large paintings possess a rich merger of painterly field and constructed objecthood -- at once offhanded and painstakingly built. The stained surfaces create layered, non-hierarchical spaces where colors, shifting planes and chunks of paint float like fleeting thoughts. What I must say was a bit disconcerting about this show, however, was the stark change of context that has occurred -- the difference between a coherent and exuberantly experimental Alan Shields installation in a funky downtown space, and a sterile collection of individual works hung like artifacts in retrospective reverence. Nevertheless, it is important that this work is again a visible presence, and that Alan Shields has not been forgotten.

Alan Shields, Single Swing Encounter, 1980-81, 109 x 115 inches, acrylic & thread on canvas

Alan Shields, Jack in the Lima Patch, 1983, 20 1/4 x 20 1/2 inches, acrylic & thread on canvas

GONÇALO IVO: New Work

2011-05-11T07:57:00.007-04:00

Gonçalo Ivo, 2011, 200 x 200 cm, oil on linen

Gonçalo Ivo, 2011, 200 x 150 cm, oil on linen

Gonçalo Ivo, 2011, 200 x 200 cm, oil on linen

Gonçalo Ivo, 2011, 200 x 200 cm, oil & mixed media on canvas

Gonçalo Ivo, 2011, 240 x 120 cm, oil on linen

Read more about Gonçalo Ivo's work HERE -- and visit the artist's website HERE.

DE KOONING at Pace

2011-05-04T14:47:00.007-04:00

Willem de Kooning, Montauk III, 1969, 72 1/2 x 70 1/2 inches, oil on paper laid on canvas

Having somehow snatched the de Kooning estate away from Gagosian, the Pace Gallery (midtown branch) is presenting a remarkable selection of rarely seen paintings and drawings, plus a few sculptures, in anticipation of the big MoMA retrospective which opens in September. Titled The Figure: Movement and Gesture, this group features some amazing works from the time de Kooning first arrived in his new studio in Springs, and began adjusting and responding to the new light and terrain. What we see here is work from a very short period in which the artist embarks on a transition from the figure paintings of the '50s and '60s to the monumental landscapes of the '70s. The figure or figures are still present, but except for isolated elements like hands and feet, they are completely integrated into the kind of loose organic shapemaking that comes to full fruition in the late '70s. Up close, these things look as fresh as the day they were made -- thick juicy surfaces, blotted, scraped, oozy and delicious -- and the color is particularly crisp. It can sometimes take a moment to move beyond our saturated recognition of the de Kooning archetype, to actually see the nuances and wholeness of each individual painting. But as we begin to apprehend these works with fresh eyes, the magnitude of his achievement is once again, and still overwhelming. The exhibition continues through July 29, 2011.

Willem de Kooning, Untitled, 1970, 71 x 36 3/4 inches, oil on paper laid on canvas

LYNN WOODS TURNER at Danese

2011-04-14T12:23:00.006-04:00

Lynn Woods Turner, Untitled (9026), 2008, 16 x 16 inches, oil on linen over board

This post is coming a bit late, as there are only two days left to see paintings and drawings by Lynn Woods Turner at Danese (through April 16). This is a surprising show of insistently quiet small objects -- exquisitely simple and sensuous paintings on linen that explore elemental geometric configurations and odd pastel color, and tiny diagrammatic pencil drawings on aged paper. The iconic images and supple surfaces evoke a reverence for natural forms, and their simplicity suggests a rigorous and deeply felt distillation of experience. In the light-filled gallery, these works have a floating etherial presence, creating a silent, intimate, contemplative space.

Lynn Woods Turner, Untitled (9072, 2010, 10 x 8 inches, oil on linen over board

Lynn Woods Turner, Untitled (9051), 2009, 10 x 8 inches, oil on linen over board

Lynn Woods Turner, Untitled (852), 2009, 3 x 3 inches, pencil & colored pencil on paper

Lynn Woods Turner, Untitled (954), 2011, 2 5/8 x 2 5/8 inches, pencil & colored pencil on paper

Thornton Willis at Elizabeth Harris

2011-03-31T09:41:00.007-04:00

Thornton Willis, Freedom Rings, 2009, 97 x 70 inches, oil on canvas

Painters in New York always look forward to seeing new Thornton Willis paintings, and his new show at Elizabeth Harris (through April 23) offers proof that Thornton is as prolific as ever. These are fresh energetic paintings that present playful improvisations on the grid, using vaguely architectural forms in a constantly shifting conversation with the rectangle. Limiting his devices to horizontal and vertical lines, and his color to primaries and secondaries, the emphasis is on a kind of stream of consciousness shapemaking, building complex compositions of planes in spatial flux. Much more flexible and open than the "Lattice" series from his last exhibition, these new configurations have a contingent or unresolved quality that brings them to life, like perpetual works in progress.

Thornton Willis, Billboard, 2011, 79 x 61 inches, oil on canvas

Thornton Willis, Installation View

Images from the gallery website.

In the Studio

2011-03-22T10:51:00.005-04:00

Steven Alexander, Is & Was #2, 2011, 24 x 20 inches, acrylic on linen

More images HERE

In the Studio

2011-03-04T12:23:00.004-05:00

Steven Alexander, Cloud Nine, 2011, 32 x 24 inches, acrylic on linen

More images HERE.

PAT STEIR at Cheim & Read

2011-02-20T11:04:00.010-05:00

Pat Steir, Winter Group 4: Green, Red, Gold & Blue, 2009-2011, 131 3/4 x 132 inches, oil on canvas

Just opened at Cheim & Read (through March 26) is Pat Steir's first show of new work since 2007. It is a magnificent exhibition of huge paintings that synthesize and consolidate the artist's history and process to a crystalline clarity, a personal triumph and a powerful affirmation of the potency of abstract painting.

Pat Steir, Winter Group 4: Green, Red, Gold & Blue, detail

One's initial reaction to these works is inevitably a sense of awe -- at the sheer beauty and sensuality of the images, at the massive scale and the technical impossibility of Steir's control over her process. At roughly ten feet square, each painting presents a vast arena in which the fluidity of the medium and the force of gravity collaborate with the artist's deft manipulations and brilliant color sense to create new natural phenomena -- chunks of heightened reality. Each canvas is divided in half, consisting of two contrasting colors -- with each color arrived at through numerous translucent layers. The paint is poured from the top of the plane, meandering downward in nuanced scrims of luminous color. We've seen this process in Steir's work since the "Waterfall" paintings of the 80s and 90s, but the new incarnation does not rely on descriptive gesture at all, instead it "simply" sets the process in motion and patiently follows it through -- accepting each occurrence and building upon it. The level of focus is that of a deeply seasoned sage who calmly and confidently goes about her work -- creating miraculous objects.

Pat Steir, Winter Group 6: Light Green, Paynes Grey & Red, 2009-2011, 131 7/8 x 132 inches, oil on canvas

Pat Steir, Winter Group 3: Red, Green, Blue & Gold, 2009-2011, 131 5/8 x 132 3/8 inches, oil on canvas

Pat Steir, Winter Group 5: Dark Green, Red & Silver, 2009-2011, 131 5/8 x 132 inches, oil on canvas

Pat Steir, Winter Group 2: Yellow Gold & Red Gold, 2009-2011, 132 x 132 inches, oil on canvas

Pat Steir, Winter Paintings, installation view

LUCIANO FIGUEIREDO at Galerie des Docks, Nice

2011-02-16T15:58:00.004-05:00

Congratulations Luciano!
Best wishes.

Through February 5 STEVEN ALEXANDER & TARO SUZUKI: Paintings at Heidi Cho

2011-02-02T14:37:00.008-05:00

Steven Alexander, Antilles VI, 2010, 58 x 126 inches, acrylic on linen, 8 canvases 20 x 18 in each

Steven Alexander, Installation view, L to R: Volta, Mezzanine, Mythic Fool

Steven Alexander, Installation view, L to R: Volta, Mezzanine, Mythic Fool, Body Double

L: Steven Alexander, Body Double, 2010, 72 x 54 inches, acrylic on canvas

R: Taro Suzuki, Memo to Turner, 2010, 34 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

Taro Suzuki, Installation view, 34 x 24 inches each, acrylic on canvas

Heidi Cho Gallery

522 W. 23 St.

New York City

More installation images HERE

DENNIS OPPENHEIM In Memorium

2011-01-23T19:57:00.012-05:00

Dennis Oppenheim, Polarities, 1972

The first drawing of Dennis' young daughter Chandra plotted out with flares in the landscape

Dennis Oppenheim, the great pioneer of conceptual art, body art, earth art, installation, kinetic sculpture and public art has died at 73. His work was always fearless, eccentric, theatrical, funny and haunting. He was an immensely warm and generous person and artist, a sort of sage who was a floating presence to the multitude of mostly younger artists who hung with him. Typically, any conversation would proceed into an exhilarating world of deeply considered ideas laced with adventurous speculation, where Dennis lived. He was dedicated to an investigation of the human condition, of the nature of art, and of the complex relation between the artist and the world -- and he explored that terrain with a body of work that recognized no stylistic bounds.

Dennis Oppenheim, Attempt to Raise Hell, 1974

The figure, a self portrait, bangs his brass head against the bell in rhythmic repetition

Here is a passage by Jack Burnham about an Oppenheim performance piece:

In April of 1972 Oppenheim made 2000' Shadow Projection/Carbon Arc Search Light/Trumpet at Batavia, New York in memory of his father. In a sense that is difficult to define, this remains one of the most powerful and mystical works produced by the artist. Standing directly in the center of a beam of brilliant light, Oppenheim's body splits the beam in two. He blows single, sustained notes on a trumpet for the duration of a breath. These occur at intervals of about 20 to 25 seconds each. In a metaphorical sense these trumpet sounds resemble the ritual bringing forth of the pneuma, the spirit or "breath of life". The sound of the trumpet fills the space created by the darkening shadow of Oppenheim's body: "As I blow into the horn away from the light, the sensation of being in two places at once begins to take hold." As a result, the two "images" that Oppenheim has created are both negative; one cannot be seen and must be repeated, and the other remains the absence of light. From Jack Burham, Great Western Salt Works, 1974

Dennis Oppenheim, Device for Rooting Out Evil, 1997

One of many highly controversial public pieces

Dennis Oppenheim, Complex for Grazing, 2006

In rural China

Thank you Dennis -- it was an honor -- you will be deeply missed.

PAPER 2011 at Janet Kurnatowski

2011-01-22T11:11:00.005-05:00

Kazimira Rachfal, mu #3, 2011, 6 5/16 x 4 3/16 inches, paper on paper

For the second year, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery in Brooklyn is presenting a wonderful sprawling exhibition of very small works on paper by 92 artists, including Margrit Lewczuk, Ron Gorchov, Chris Martin, Thornton Willis, and on and on. Installed salon style and very informally with most of the works simply tacked to the wall, this show offers one rich and intimate experience after another, as the viewer meanders from piece to piece around the space. Repeated viewing is rewarded as one keeps spotting little jewels that were missed the first time. The variety and quality of the work is astonishing, and reveals the ongoing vitality of contemporary abstract painting. This exhibition continues through February 13.

Installation view, clockwise from bottom left: Steven Alexander, Untitled P-13-10, 2010, 11 1/2 x 9 inches, acrylic on paper mounted on panel; Tim Casey, JV, 2010, 6 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches, watercolor on paper; Kim Uchiyama, Untitled, 2007, 14 x 10 1/4 inches, watercolor on paper; Carrie Beckmann, Come On In, 2010, 9 x 11 inches, acrylic on paper

Joanne Freeman, Otranto, 2010, 9 x 12 inches, gouache, collage on paper

James Clark, Stink, 2011, 12 1/4 x 9 inches, phosphorescence, scrylic & sodium tetraborate on paper

William Holton, Untitled, 2010, 7 x 7 inches, oil on paper

Tim Casey, Lolita, 2010, 6 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches, watercolor on paper

New Paintings at Heidi Cho

2011-01-08T21:58:00.006-05:00

Steven Alexander, installation views, January 2011 (Steven Alexander & Taro Suzuki: Paintings at Heidi Cho Gallery, NYC)

Thank you to all who came to our opening at Heidi Cho on Thursday. If you could not make it, I hope you will drop by to see the work while it's up -- through February 5.

More installation photos HERE.

Heidi Cho & McKenzie - Jan 6

2010-12-28T08:14:00.007-05:00

Please join Taro Suzuki & me in Chelsea on Thursday, January 6, at 6 to 8 pm, for the opening of our 2-Person Exhibition at Heidi Cho Gallery.

Steven Alexander, Mythic Fool, 2010, 60 x 42 inches, acrylic & gold leaf on linen

Also, I am very pleased to be participating in a fantastic group exhibition, Plane Speaking at McKenzie Fine Art, opening concurrently on Jan 6.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-23T17:59:00.005-05:00

Steven Alexander, Slam, 2010, 14 x 10 inches, acrylic on linen

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season -- and a peaceful and prosperous 2011!

In the Studio

2010-11-30T07:22:00.003-05:00

Steven Alexander, Drifter, 2010, 18 x 14 inches, acrylic on linen

More paintings HERE.

BRONZINO at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

2010-11-27T07:29:00.008-05:00

Bronzino, Bia - Daughter of Cosimo de Medici, 1542, oil on panel

I've just returned from a brief trip to Italy, and was fortunate to catch a magnificent exhibition of Bronzino at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. It's an extensive survey of the artist's life with works borrowed from all over the world. For me, Bronzino's complex mannerist compositions are not so interesting, and never really transcend their inheritance from Michelangelo or the work of his teacher Pontormo. It is his portraits that place Bronzino in a class of his own -- not just for their crystalline precision and their stately presence, but more important, for their exquisite color. Each painting is built from a distinct color idea, and embodies its own unique color world. The subtleties are impossible to discern in reproductions, but these works are knockouts. (There was a strict NO PHOTO policy at the Strozzi, and guards everywhere -- so these images are lifted from the internet).

Bronzino, Lady with a Small Dog, 1532, oil on panel

Bronzino, Stephano IV, 1546, oil on panel

Bronzino, Lucrezia Paniatichi, 1540, oil on panel

Bronzino, Lorenzo Lenzi, 1527, oil on panel

Bronzino, Woman, 1530, oil on panel

Bronzino, Eleonore of Toledo & her Son Giovanni de Medici, 1545, oil on panel

There is a virtual walk-through of the entire exhibition HERE.

Some Images from Siena

2010-11-26T08:16:00.003-05:00

Duomo interior, Siena

Duomo, Siena

Aesthetics of Decay - Part 3

Just across the piazza from the Duomo is the 1,000 year old hospital, Santa Maria della Scala. Incredibly, it functioned until 1998, when it was turned into a museum. The history and archeology of this site is deep and rich, and the building itself is fascinating. Here are just a few images from some of the oldest frescoes in the building.

November in Italy is wonderfully free of tourists. One gets a much better sense of the scale of the spaces when they are not packed with people. And the light is beautiful.

Piazza del Campo, Siena, November 20, 2010

KATE BECK at Pelavin

2010-11-07T13:48:00.001-05:00

Kate Beck, Anxieties & Alienations, 2010, 89 x 184 inches, poured oil, enamel & powdered graphite on 5 aluminum panels

Kate Beck, Anxieties & Alienations (Detail), 2010, poured oil, enamel & powdered graphite on aluminum

Kate Beck is showing a beautiful group of exquisite works at Pelavin Gallery in Tribeca (through December 11). The exhibition is entirely black and white and gray -- and is spot on in its focus and intensity. Using a combination of powdered graphite, oil paint and enamel, the paintings are made by pouring straight lines from the top of the panels with astonishing precision. The various materials are layered in rhythmic patterns creating striated undulating surfaces that alternate between matte and glossy, deepest black and shimmering grays. Some of the paintings utilize aluminum substrates giving the surfaces a clean hard presence. Also included is a series of lovely and subtle small graphite drawings on aluminum. In all the work there is a stark contrast between how the work reads from a distance, and the infinite nuances that are revealed upon close inspection. There is nothing easy, technically or conceptually, about these works. They are the products of a tenacious process of will -- a deep coalescence of mind and matter that locates feeling in the most direct interactions with the fundamental properties of materials.

Kate Beck, Forgetting Air, 2010, 60 x 60 inches, poured oil, enamel& powdered graphite on linen (image from gallery website)

Kate Beck, Existere, 2010, 60 x 60 inches, poured oil, enamel & powdered graphite on linen (image from gallery website)

SUZANNE CAPOREAL at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe

2010-10-29T10:30:00.006-04:00

Suzanne Caporeal, 2010, 604 (Cooperstown, New York), 60 x 90 inches, oil on linen

It's been a good season so far for abstract painting in Chelsea -- and by far the standout show of the moment is a group of new paintings by Suzanne Caporeal at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe (through December 4). The show is titled The Memory Store, which clues us into the artist's process of working from a distillation of direct observation -- criss-crossing the country exploring and collecting the peculiarities of the American cultural terrain. But of course it is one thing to keenly observe, and quite another to transform those observations into eloquent abstract paintings. Caporeal's work is not just about experience, but about transmutations that occur between experience, memory and visualization. She arrives at images that are vague recollections of passing glimpses, translating them into sensuous, spare and ambiguous paintings. Her oil surfaces are silky and translucent, and her edges are blurred and full of subtle incident. The configurations only hint at their sources, floating in and out of recognition like memories float through time.

Suzanne Caporeal, 2010, 605 (Sun Prairie, Wisconsin), 90 x 60 inches, oil on linen

Suzanne Caporeal, 2009, 598 (Woosung, Illinois), 72 x 54 inches, oil on linen

Suzanne Caporeal, 2010, 617 (Clarksville, Tennessee), 72 x 54, oil on linen

Suzanne Caporeal, Installation

VIBROLUX at Gremillion, Dallas

2010-10-14T11:04:00.006-04:00

This is the inaugural one-person exhibition at the beautiful new Dallas branch of Gremillion & Co. For this exhibition, I'm showing a selection of paintings from the past five years, plus a few works on paper, and a group of new large-scale pieces.

DAN FLAVIN at Paula Cooper

2010-10-09T13:10:00.006-04:00

Dan Flavin, Untitled (to Barry, Mike, Chuck and Leonard), 1972-75, 8ft x 8ft installed in corridor, yellow & pink flourescent light fixtures

Dan Flavin, Untitled, 1969, 96 x 24 inches, yellow & pink flourescent light fixtures

An exhibition of four works by Dan Flavin at Paula Cooper (through October 30) presents a fairly rare opportunity to glimpse the genius of Flavin's contribution. Each of the four pieces, made of pink and yellow flourescent fixtures, offers a simple iconic configuration that activates the space with maximum color intensity. The most elaborate work in the show is the 8ft square "barred corridor" piece, in which a grid of pink lights faces one direction, backed by yellow lights facing the other direction, built into a long corridor. From one end of the corridor, the space is bathed in yellow, with a sort of afterglow of pink in the spaces of the grid. From the other side, the space is pink with yellow undertones. Such direct and elegant formal solutions, yielding spacial experiences of extreme sensuality, set Flavin's best work apart from the dry austerity that characterizes much of the work of his compadres.

In the Studio

2010-10-01T13:43:00.004-04:00

Steven Alexander, Body Double, 2010, 72 x 54 inches, acrylic & gold leaf on canvas

MORE PAINTINGS HERE

SUZAN FRECON Lecture at the Studio School

2010-09-30T14:27:00.007-04:00

Suzan Frecon, Composition in 4 Colors 1, 2009, 108 x 87 3/8 inches, 2 panels, oil on linen

Suzan Frecon, Cathedral Series, Variation 7, 2010, 29 5/8 x 24 inches, oil on wood panel

On Tuesday, October 5, Suzan Frecon will be speaking at the New York Studio School in conjunction with her tour de force show at David Zwirner (through October 30). Maybe she will talk about how she gets those sumptuous surfaces. More likely, she'll talk about painting's continuing connection to the most primal human impulses. It's bound to be worth your time, and it's free -- at 6:30.

Suzan Frecon, Cathedral Series, Variation 5, 2009, 29 5/8 x 24 inches, oil on wood panel

KIM UCHIYAMA at Lohin Geduld

2010-09-19T07:18:00.015-04:00

Kim Uchiyama, Excavation, 2010, 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

In her exhibition of new paintings at Lohin Geduld (through October 9), Kim Uchiyama has expanded her approach to material and process, opening up her surfaces to reveal some of the history embedded in the accumulated layers. These new openings not only allow a richer and more complex play of color, they also shift some of the emphasis of the paintings toward allusions to time and objecthood. There is now a visible element of contingency built into her process that allows the paintings to breathe more deeply, heightening the surface tensions of the color interactions. Uchiyama has arrived at a distinctly Cagean compositional system in which the small vertical canvas, divided into horizontal bands of varying heights, forms a simple iconic configuration -- an inclusive vehicle that allows infinite iterations and ultimate intuitive freedom. It is a system that encourages the color to do its thing to the hilt, and within which all sorts of luscious surprises occur. No apparent color code is at work here -- what we see is the result of pure sensibility constructing rhythmic waves of sensation. There are lots of paintings in this show -- all very small, most the same (20x16") dimensions. This regularity along with the sheer intensity of color makes it easy to scan the room and never really focus on any one piece for too long. But each of these little jewels deserves and rewards extended viewing, allowing the nuances and resonances to emerge, the planes to shift as your focus changes, the color and surface to evoke ancient origins.

Kim Uchiyama, Stratum, 2008-10, 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

Kim Uchiyama, Fragment, 2008-10, 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas

In the Studio

2010-08-27T15:08:00.008-04:00

Steven Alexander, Baby Lee, 2010, 54 x 28 inches, acrylic on canvas

MORE PAINTINGS HERE & HERE

Summer Love at Janet Kurnatowski

2010-08-18T15:30:00.013-04:00

Kazimira Rachfal, Untitled, 2008, 10 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

It's a bit after the fact, but among the many interesting summer group shows this season was a beautiful show called Summer Love, full of wonderful small-scale abstract paintings at Janet Kurnatowski in Brooklyn. This exhibition was another affirmation of the vitality of abstraction and sensuous painting in New York. Each work in the show was a handmade jewel, intimate in scale, expansive in scope. It was obvious that none of these artists were involved with notions of strategy, but rather that each was engaged in a personal poetic dialogue with the language and history of painting, and with the world.

Cynthia Hartling, Untitled, 2009, 10 3/4 x 12 inches, oil on linen

Jackie Meier, Untitled, 2010, 15 x 15 inches, oil on canvas

Scott Malbaurn, Nautical Flip, 2010, 18 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

Mara Held, Pulceria, 2009, 18 x 12 inches, egg tempera on linen over panel

Elizabeth Hazan, Untitled (Crystalline), 2010, 14 x 18 inches, oil on canvas

BRAZIL - Part 6 In the Studio at Teresopolis

2010-08-13T08:20:00.024-04:00

View from the studio, Teresopolis

Up in the mountains, about 85 km north of Rio, are the secluded farm, home and studios of Gonçalo Ivo -- where I was most privileged to live and work for 3 amazing weeks. It is a lush and magical environment that has been shaped over the years into a utopian engine for optimum creative production. Here are a few images:

Gonçalo (right) and his long-time assistant Jose at work in Studio #1

Gonçalo & assistants wrapping paintings for his exhibition at Galeria Anita Schwartz

Moving them out - it takes a team

My new paintings (above & below) -- drying

Finished work ready to be delivered to Galeria Murilo Castro

A few small gifts for my most gracious hosts

Gonçalo (left) works on new watercolors in Studio #2, while his father, renowned poet Ledo Ivo (right) reads some Shakespeare

Ledo, Leonardo, Antonia and Denise Ivo -- relaxing in Studio #2

Paraiso

Brazil - Part 5 More Encounters in Rio

2010-08-10T17:31:00.014-04:00

Alvaro Seixas

Alvaro Seixas at Amarelonegro

Brazil Paiva at the National Fine Arts Museum

Alberto Guinard, Lea & Maura, 1940, 86 x 104 cm, oil on canvas - at the National Fine Arts Museum

Cristina Canale at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio

A group of small canvases by Fabio Miguez in the racks at Anita Schwartz

Rodrigo Andrade in the racks at Anita Schwartz

Manfredo de Souzanetto at Gustavo Rebello

Julio Villani

Luciano Figueiredo

Luciano Figueiredo, Studio View, Rio

Brazil - Part 4

2010-08-06T16:49:00.009-04:00

Gisele Camargo

My stay in Brazil was only three weeks, most of which was spent completing a group of new paintings to be shown at the Salao de Arte fair in Sao Paulo (August 17 - 22). But when I wasn't in the studio, I had the tremendous privilege of meeting a great many members of the Brazilian art community -- artists, dealers, collectors, curators, writers, editors, passionate art lovers. Without exception, everyone I met was open, warm, engaged and enthusiastic -- generous and patient with my abject lack of Portuguese, and astonishingly upbeat, with a wonderful sense of humor that is deeply ingrained in the culture.

Here is a small selection of work by just a few of the artists I met in Rio de Janeiro:

GISELE CAMARGO

Gisele Camargo, Tarkovski, 2010, 70 x 235 cm, 4 panels

Gisele Camargo, Tarkovski, 4th panel

Gisele Camargo is the youngest of this group, she works as a studio assistant for Beth Jobim, and shows with Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemoranea in Rio, and with Galeria Oscar Cruz in Sao Paulo. Highly prolific, she often shows groups of dozens of small paintings arranged in a tight grid that runs across the wall and around a corner. While this strategy makes for striking installations, I found myself much more drawn to the complex dynamics and poetry of each individual composition.

LUCIANO FIGUEIREDO

Luciano Figueiredo

Painter, writer, curator, thinker, Luciano Figueiredo divides his time between Rio and southern France. A younger proponent of the Concrete Art impulse, Luciano's recent work involves the painstaking construction of small exquisite geometric objects, made from multiple layers of canvas -- painted, adhered in layers, then cut and folded. While I was visiting his studio, Luciano showed me an amazing catalog from the Museum of Concrete Art (l'Espace de l'Art Concret) near Nice -- comprising the world-class Sybil Albers and Gottfried Honegger collection of reductive painting and sculpture. More images from Luciano's studio to come.

LUCIA LAGUNA

Lucia Laguna

Lucia Laguna makes thick juicy oil paintings that are built intuitively from unlikely juxtapositions of organic and industrial shapes and spaces. Her more simple compositions have the stately elegance of a Diebenkorn, while the more complex pieces evoke a messy collision of technology and entropy. Both modes are supremely sensual, with deep surfaces and luscious color. Lucia shows with Galeria Laura Marsiaj in Rio.

MANFREDO DE SOUZANETTO

Manfredo de Souzanetto

Manfredo de Souzanetto makes sensual objects that occupy a shifting passage between pictorial and physical space. Impeccably constructed out of wood, canvas, pigment, his paintings evoke the rhythms and presence of bodies in motion, their surfaces rich with touch. Manfredo has restlessly and deeply explored the ambiguities of this territory, and the inherent poetics of many various materials, for more than 30 years. He will be presenting a major museum show in Rio this fall.

I wish to thank these artists for their time, patience and openness. I look forward to seeing you all again on my next trip. More images from Brazil to come.

GONÇALO IVO at Anita Schwartz Rio de Janeiro

2010-07-21T16:13:00.034-04:00

Gonçalo Ivo, Installation View, (center) Campo Santo, 2009, oil & mixed media on linen 260 x 580cm

The only commercial gallery space in Rio de Janeiro that rivals the expanse and grandeur of the "art temples" of Chelsea is Galeria Anita Schwartz, where Gonçalo Ivo has just opened a magnificent exhibition titled Campo Santo (Holy Ground), through September 4. This show is a culmination of, or maybe a first glimpse at a shift in Gonçalo's work that has been developing over the past few years. The first and most obvious new development is in the scale of the paintings. In the gallery's ground floor space, a cavernous white cube that makes a 6 ft painting look like a small spot on the wall, the artist has installed three massive works, each about 8.5 x 22ft, that radically alter the space of the gallery, activating its expanse with color and surface resonances that hold the viewer's primary and peripheral vision in a constantly shifting scenario. Along with the dramatic scale of these paintings, the surface of each piece is built of many layers of oil, color over color, to create a thick amalgamated physicality. In the central "white" painting (above), the huge field is made of gravel-like grit impregnated with gooey pigment that forms pools of sludge creating gorgeous subtle color nuances. To the right (below), the artist presents an elaboration of an ongoing motif related to rivers -- long horizontal color arrays. The muted earth colors of this painting, inspired by a visit to a medieval chapel in Spain, evoke a sense of embedded history. The surface is made of thousands of small brush strokes, piled layer upon layer, embodying a long meditative process of accumulation that reveals a history of its own.

Installation View, (left) Santa maria de Taull, 2009, oil on linen 260 x 650 cm, (right) Campo Santo, 2010, 230 x 160 cm, tempera, calcination, silver leaf on wood

On the left hand wall (below) we see another tour de force painting. The deep undulating blues of its central field are created in many thick and thin layers, contrasting cobalt and black blues overpainted with a luminous ultramarine. The thick accumulation of fat oil brushstrokes recalls the late paintings of Milton Resnick, but with a distinctive chromatic assertiveness. The blues of this painting, set off by the purples and greens of the upper and lower color bands, create a physical and psychological space of their own -- pulling us into the field, engulfing our vision and our senses.

Installation View, (left) Oratorio da Noite, 2010, 260 x 650 cm, oil on linen

On the two short walls are paintings in the shape of crosses -- weathered wood objects with sensuous surfaces made of tempera with gold and silver leaf. These objects, and others in the upstairs space, create a complex and charged juxtaposition with the large paintings -- connecting assertions of the opulence and vitality of contemporary abstract painting with ancient cultural impulses and iconography. The crosses expand and clarify the context of the work, exploring painting's historic existential connection with human sensibility.

Installation View, (left & below) Untitled, 2010, 360 x 140 cm, tempera and calcination on wood

In a small alcove, is a group of watercolors (below), exquisite in their delicacy. In stark contrast to the sheer physicality of the big paintings, the watercolors reveal the genesis of Gonçalo's process, rooted in the intuitive poetics of color.

Gonçalo Ivo, Oratorios, 2010, 5 watercolors, 45 x 38 cm

Continuing up the stairs, we encounter more painted wood objects, including a transcendent Giotto-blue cross that fuses with the Brazilian sky.

Mulher Africana, 2009, 385 x 30 cm, tempera & calcination on wood

Scrovegni, 2010, 360 x 110 cm, tempera on wood

Detail of Scrovegni, 2010

Now we enter the upstairs gallery, a sort of penthouse space with a sliding glass wall leading to a terrace overlooking the granite peaks of Rio's shoreline. On the facing long walls, the artist presents two large (200 x 400 cm) powerful black paintings -- one a metallic green black, the other a deep purple black -- with thick chunky oil surfaces. Their presence is imposing and ominous, yet the subtlety of their color resonances eventually invites us up close. Placed around the concrete floor of the interior space is a group of small marble objects that each have embedded in their upper surface a cross and a stone. Outside on the wooden deck of the terrace, is a group of larger concrete slabs with embedded wooden crosses and stones. The glass doors form an interesting transparent barrier between the smooth formality of the marbles inside, and the rugged "poorness" of the concrete objects outside.

(left) Campo Santo, 2010, 54 x 34 x 12 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on marble, (right) Campo Santo, 2010, 50 x 32 x 16 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on marble

Installation View, (indoors left) Campo Santo, 2010, 50 x 50 x 16 cm, concrete, tempera, stone on marble, (indoors right) Oratorio da Lua Nova, 2010, 200 x 400 cm, oil on canvas, (outdoors left) Campo Santo, 2010, 125 x 80 x 10 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on concrete, (outdoors right) Campo Santo, 2010, 125 x 80 x 10 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on concrete

Installation View, (outdoors left) Campo Santo, 2010, 220 x 80 x 10 cm, gesso, tempera, silver leaf, stone on concrete, (indoors left to right) Oratorio para Sexta-feira, 2010, 200 x 400 cm, oil on canvas; Campo Santo, 2010, 50 x 32 x 16 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on marble; Campo Santo, 2010, 54 x 34 x 12 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on marble; Campo Santo, 2010, 54 x 30 x 10 cm, gesso, tempera, stone on marble; Oratorios, 2010, two watercolors, 45 x 38 cm each

In this upstairs space, Gonçalo has created a deeply poetic environment that is charged with emotion and layered cultural implications. It's meaning is not explicit, but its presence is unequivocal.

Gonçalo Ivo, Installation view with (right) Oratorio para Sexta-feira, 2010, oil on canvas, 200 x 400 cm

The scale and scope of this exhibition really deserves a museum setting, even though the installation is specific to this particular gallery space. The implications of the work transcend any local setting, not to mention any notions of commerce. This show is a potent testament to the ability of abstract painting to embody and evoke feeling -- to stand as proof of the potential richness of existence. Gonçalo has created more than just a group of new paintings -- he has made a momentous act of devotion, at once heroic and humble, ambiguous and true.

Gonçalo Ivo with Oratorio da Noite, 2010, 260 x 660 cm, oil on linen

Off to Brazil

2010-06-30T08:30:00.002-04:00

Museum of Contemporary Art, Rio de Janeiro (image from the internet)

I will be on a 3 week blogging hiatus while I'm in Brazil. I'll be busy making paintings and getting acquainted, and hopefully taking lots of photos. Look for the full report in mid-July. Happy summer everybody!

DOUGLAS WITMER at Some Walls

2010-06-29T09:33:00.009-04:00

Douglas Witmer, selections from Fruitville, paint on found wood, all less than 8" in any direction

Douglas Witmer is for the first time showing a remarkable group of 3-dimensional works at Some Walls in Oakland through July 25. The exhibition is also featured online with a fine essay by Chris Ashley who is the mastermind of the Some Walls project. The pieces, collectively titled Fruitville, are at once ephemeral and physical, witty and iconic. They are parts of an ongoing project in which Witmer has engaged for years, and are brilliant examples of how the probing sensibility of the painter investigates and activates all aspects of the world. Images from the artist's website.

As You Like It - Part II at Heidi Cho

2010-06-28T16:56:00.001-04:00

Steven Alexander, Heard Somebody Call, 2010, 60 x 42 inches, acrylic on linen

Steven Alexander, You & You #17, 48 x 10 inches, acrylic on linen

I'm very pleased to be showing these two paintings in a wonderfully diverse group show at Heidi Cho Gallery that opens Thursday, July 8, 6-8pm. It features eight other artists including Fay Ku and Taro Suzuki. If you're in NYC during the month of July, I hope you'll check it out.

BRAZIL - Part 3

2010-06-27T10:35:00.007-04:00

A few more interesting Brazilian painters, before my departure later this week.

Elizabeth Jobim

Cassio Michalany

Images from the internet.

GENE DAVIS at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe

2010-06-22T10:11:00.012-04:00

Gene Davis, Saratoga Springboard, 1969, 114 x 279.5 inches, acrylic on canvas

Gene Davis, Untitled, 1961, 92.5 x 89.5 inches, Oil/magna on canvas

Gene Davis, King's Gate, 1978, 69 x 93 inches, acrylic on canvas

Don't miss this show of paintings by the remarkably under-appreciated Gene Davis (1920-1985) at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe through July 16. Usually regarded, if at all, as one of the Washington Color Painters, he was actually a truly singular painter -- for my money, way beyond Noland & Louis. He understood the contingent nature of color, and composed paintings that endlessly explored the rhythmic possibilities of color resonance as a catalyst for heightened experience. These are complex and powerful works that still operate at full-tilt potency. Images from gallery website.

LESLIE WAYNE at Jack Shainman

2010-06-12T08:23:00.007-04:00

Leslie Wayne, One Big Love #33, 2009, 11 x 9 inches, oil on wood

Leslie Wayne, One Big Love, #26, 2009, 11 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches, oil on wood

Leslie Wayne, One Big Love #32, 2009, 9 3/4 x 12 3/4 inches, oil on wood

Leslie Wayne is showing a group of 17 new works at Jack Shainman Gallery through July 16. For years Leslie's paintings have explored extremes of physicality and scale. With this exhibition, she continues to push the envelope, creating minuscule objects that really read as wall-mounted sculpture even though they are made of oil paint on a flat surface. While some pieces are made by peeling from the surface and folding thick layers of half-dried paint -- as in One Big Love #32 -- other works appear to be assembled out of loose chunks of accumulated paint, like primal fetish objects. The paint is used almost like clay, but with inherent luscious color. Within this process of layering and scraping and folding and adhering, the artist gains access to deep personal resonances, becoming immersed in a continuum of shaping -- ultimately arriving at a group of tiny objects that are intensely charged with energy and feeling.

Brazil - Part 2

2010-06-09T12:44:00.026-04:00

Continuing my meandering research of Brazilian abstract painters....

Adolfo Estrada

I've just been informed by my friend Gonçalo that Estrada is actually an Argentinian living in Madrid -- but he is a strong presence in Brazil and shows there regularly. Sorry for the oversight -- but wonderful paintings.

Images from the internet.

BRAZIL - Part 1

2010-05-24T13:41:00.022-04:00

In July, I will be spending three weeks in Brazil (much more on that to come) -- and in preparation, I've been looking at a lot of Brazilian painting. Geometric abstract painting has been deeply embraced in Brazil, and still is -- creating a sustained legacy of rich and varied work. I am just beginning to scratch the surface of this parallel universe of rigorous and beautiful painting by artists who are virtually unknown to the NY art world. Here is just a small sampling to begin -- with more to come. Images from the internet.

Gisele Camargo

Milton Dacosta

Antonio Dias

Jose Carlos Cesar Ferreira

...And last but not least -- some new work by Gonçalo Ivo, who has a show opening July 14 at Galeria Anita Schwartz in Rio de Janeiro (more on that too).

Gonçalo Ivo, 2010, 200 x 400 cm, oil & tempera on canvas

Gonçalo Ivo, 2010, 260 x 660 cm, oil & tempera on canvas

Gonçalo Ivo, studio view 2010 (photos by Gonçalo)

TAD WILEY at Heidi Cho

2010-05-18T11:00:00.009-04:00

Tad Wiley, Counterpane, 74 x 56 inches. oil based enamel on wood panel

At Heidi Cho Gallery through May 22 is a powerful show of recent works by Tad Wiley. Towering vertical configurations evoke architectural references, but also possess a mysterious totemic presence. The luscious surfaces, which vary from matte to shiny and thick to thin, are built with layers of oil enamel in slabs of flat color with bits of previous colors sometimes visible. These paintings command the space dramatically, creating an arena of undulating rhythm in the gallery. But each work also pulls the viewer up close to examine the nuances of its surface. Wiley is making deeply sensuous objects that are alive with a primal pulse -- grounded in their solid materiality and asserting the possibility of transcendent states.

Tad Wiley, Kuoshio, 72 x 48 inches, oil based enamel on wood panel

SUZANNE ULRICH at OK Harris

2010-05-18T10:16:00.006-04:00

Suzanne Ulrich, cut, torn, painted and pasted paper

A beautiful exhibition of small collages by Boston artist Suzanne Ulrich just closed at OK Harris. Each piece is composed of minute paper rectangles of varying colors, assembled into simple geometric configurations. Sometimes the shapes are painted and sometimes she relies on the different natural colors of the paper for subtle contrasting whites. These are exquisite works that are personal and humble in their materiality, and inclusive in their scope. Sorry I do not have titles or dimensions, but all dimensions are under 12 inches.

Suzanne Ulrich, cut, torn, painted and pasted paper

Suzanne Ulrich, cut, torn, painted and pasted paper

Suzanne Ulrich, cut, torn, painted and pasted paper

Suzanne Ulrich, cut, torn, painted and pasted paper

AMY SILLMAN: Fear of Painting?

2010-05-17T07:46:00.002-04:00

In all the hoopla surrounding the recent Amy Sillman show which just closed at Sikkema Jenkins, we've heard and read myriad discussions of the various trappings of the exhibition -- the narrative drawings, the zine, the CD, the grand concept, the paintings as illustrations of the concept -- but almost no direct discussion of the paintings themselves. As paintings do, they have sat mute, engulfed in the noise of the critical sparring. Unfortunately, the instigator of this noise was the artist herself -- apparently so intent on talking the talk and walking the walk that she loaded her show with retrograde baggage and tangential impulses -- apparently afraid to "simply" make paintings. Don't get me wrong, the large paintings in this show are impressive -- muscular, layered, searching -- great color, dynamic spacial contrasts -- if only they were allowed to be themselves, purely visual statements -- not ideas about painting. It's an aspect of much of Sillman's work that I have always found to be it's Achilles heel, her insistence on narrative -- or her inability to fully embrace the painting language without the crutch of some textual addendum. In this show, her fixation on the lightbulb symbol and search for a symbol for feeling, and all the attendant oh so clever babble, reveals a truly sophomoric indulgence that is way below Sillman's keen intelligence and protean talent. One wishes she would just shut up and paint.

And when she does --- look what happens...

Amy Sillman, oil on linen, 14 x 11 inches

These three tiny paintings easily disappeared into the expanse and bravado of the many large works and the walls full of drawings. But in my view, they were the saviors of the show. The massive overwrought self consciousness of the 8 ft paintings was glaring in stark contrast to the simple felt directness of these little beauties.

Amy Sillman, oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches

Amy Sillman, oil on linen, 12 x 9 inches

In the Studio

2010-05-10T09:20:00.005-04:00

MIRROR, 2010, 32 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

More paintings HERE.

JAMES BIEDERMAN at Janet Kurnatowski

2010-05-08T14:28:00.008-04:00

James Biederman, Zing, 2010, 22 x 22 inches, oil on linen

James Biederman, Ventriloquist, 2010, 22 x 20 inches, oil on linen

Just opened at Janet Kurnatowski (through June 6) is a group of new small paintings by James Biederman. The products of time spent in a remote Andean village in Colombia, these works literally ooze with rich color and viscous substance. Not unlike the deep vegetation of the rainforest, the paintings are dense and lush, built by layering successive open gestural configurations to achieve a teeming allover space -- a packed concentration of color and motion. The configurations, no doubt distilled from landscape, vary greatly from one painting to the next, and all possess a juicy spontaneity. We can feel the physical sensation of the brush moving through and across the oily surface, and sense the connection between the painter and the moment of each gesture. In the back room is a small portfolio filled with amazing drawings that are as raw as the paintings are refined. Each drawing is the reinvention of a process, a deeply felt response to a deeply observed world.

RACHEL HAYES

2010-05-04T09:43:00.006-04:00

Rachel Hayes, Choo Fence, Monticello, NY

Rachel Hayes, Duality of Light Without Violence, 2008

Rachel Hayes, Rainbow Quarry, Colorado Springs

If you can imagine a body of work that is the offspring of Robert Irwin and Alan Shields (remember him?), it might look something like the work of Rachel Hayes. Using translucent colored fabric, she activates spaces and sites with layered saturated color and light, and sensuous handmade tactility. Her deep sensitivity to the inherent sociological and psychologocal resonance of materials and processes imbues her work with a primal congruence that can transform our sense of place and self. Images from the artist's website.

KELTIE FERRIS

2010-04-20T16:01:00.013-04:00

Keltie Ferris, Spider Silva, 2008, 80 x 80 inches, oil, acrylic & spray paint on canvas

Keltie Ferris, Red Yellow & Blueprint, 2010, 34 x 28 inches, oil, acrylic & spray paint on canvas

I keep seeing knockout paintings by Keltie Ferris. She shows at Horton in Chelsea, and I think she's one of the most interesting younger painters out there. I'm always struck by the balance she achieves between structure and improvisation, and the beautiful surfaces she gets with such a direct process. The paintings buzz with ecstatic energy that is both primal and playful.
Images from Horton website.

MONDRIAN at the Met

2010-04-15T15:57:00.005-04:00

Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1921, about 20 x 20 inches, oil on canvas

Every time I go to the Met, I ritually visit this little painting -- as though it's calling me from its assigned spot tucked away in a corner of the Modern galleries. It never ceases to amaze and inspire. Perhaps most notable for its lack of white, it also features a brilliant orange and the strange neutral warm gray that both reads as a green and resonates with the orange. In exquisite condition, the surface is so supple with the artist's touch that it almost looks wet. This painting is so pitch perfect that it literally creates its own atmosphere -- and the trademark smudged spaces between the black bars and the edges are ingenious. Image from the Met website

GEOMETRIC THEMES & VARIATIONS at Gallery OneTwentyEight

2010-04-08T08:35:00.009-04:00

Steven Alexander, Sage, 2010, 20 x 16 inches, acrylic & gold leaf on linen

Only a few days left to catch Geometric Themes & Variations at Gallery OneTwentyEight, 128 Rivington Street, through April 10. It's a wonderful diverse group of 20 artists including Joanne Mattera, Don Voisine, Scott Malbaurn, Richard Kalina, all exploring various materials and processes through geometric form, or visa versa. Thanks to Gloria Klein for curating the exhibition, and for inviting me to participate.

Joanne Mattera posted an excellent feature on the show HERE.

GONÇALO IVO's New Large Painting

2010-04-05T16:17:00.009-04:00

Gonçalo Ivo, 2010, oil on canvas, 8.5 x 22 ft

Gonçalo Ivo, work in progress, Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Photos by Gonçalo Ivo

TANTRA at Feature

2010-03-21T16:39:00.005-04:00

Portrait of Kali, 2007, 13 x 10.125 inches, paint on found paper

The Birth of Speech, 2008, 11.5 x 9.375 inches, paint on found paper

The Goddess at Her Center, 2008, 12.75 x 9.75 inches, paint on found paper

Divine Love, 1990, 12.375 x 10.675 inches, paint on found paper

The World's Two Poles United, 2000, 11.75 x 8.75 inches, paint on found paper

The Paw of Time, 2009, 11 x 10 inches, paint on found paper

Dance of Energy, 2008, 13.75 x 9 inches, paint on found paper

Tantra: Anonymous Paintings on Paper is a remarkable exhibition at Feature Inc. through March 27. It presents thirteen small paintings on paper from the Rajasthan region of northern India. They are all contemporary works, made by anonymous painters who are practitioners of tantraism, and each image embodies some specific essential aspect of the vast spiritual and philosophical practice of Tantra. The images and colors are part of a centuries old, highly codified didactic ritual -- but nevertheless, resonate as a form of poetic abstraction that is most seductive. My first encounter with this tradition was in 1975 when I was in grad school at Columbia, and came across a beautiful book of these images (Yoga Art by Ajit Mookerjee) in the Columbia book store. Not only was I mesmerized, returning day after day to look at the book (since I couldn't afford to buy it), but my work was profoundly affected by the connection between ontological or existential states and abstract form embodied in these works -- not to mention the sheer beauty and simplicity of the paintings.

In the Studio

2010-03-14T17:22:00.005-04:00

Tracer, 2010, 14 x 61 inches, acrylic on 6 canvases

More paintings HERE.

ART FOR HAITI AUCTION at Lohin Geduld

2010-03-13T13:58:00.005-05:00

Buy a painting and support this important effort. More info HERE.

SCOTT RICHTER at Elizabeth Harris

2010-03-12T08:32:00.004-05:00

Scott Richter, Blackboat (for Fouquet), 2003, 12 x 11 inches, oil paint & medium on carpet

This is the last day to see Scott Richter's new show at Elizabeth Harris. For anyone who loves paint, and the process of painting, this show is a delight. The pieces are built out of layer after layer of thick juicy oil paint that is mixed with Scott's special medium (I think it's silicone based) to achieve a rich physicality and a surface that looks like it's still wet. Though very small in scale, the paintings are very thick, the paint surface sometimes extending several inches into the room, with all the layers visible and oozing around the edges. These are wry, joyous and playful objects that revel in the language and substance of painting.

Scott Richter, Untitled (for Max), 2009, 24 x 20 1/2 inches, oil paint & medium on plywood

BILL JENSEN at Cheim & Read

2010-03-02T07:59:00.008-05:00

Bill Jensen, Images of a Floating World (Passare), 2009, 26 x 20 inches, oil on linen

Bill Jensen, Luohan (Niafunke), 2008-2009, 28 x 23 inches, oil on linen

Bill Jensen, Luohan (Red Pine), 2008, 28 1/4 x 23 1/4 inches, oil on linen

Bill Jensen, The Tempest (Ryder), 2007-2008, 48 x 34 inches, oil on linen

It is always exhilarating to see a group of Bill Jensen paintings, and the new show at Cheim & Read (through March 27) does not disappoint. Comprised of a group of new oils on linen as well as a large selection of works on paper in tempera and in ink, the show is not only a feast of color and surface, but a welcome blast of intense engagement with the painting process -- and the world. Over the years, Jensen has slowly and deliberately worked his way deeper and deeper into a seamless synthesis of experience and practice -- an ontological state of total inclusiveness. Having left direct references to visionary landscape behind, he has freed himself to fully exploit the physical and metaphysical possibilities of color, rhythm and substance. It might be easy to equate this work to action painting, but it is actually operating in a very different realm -- and the key to that difference lies in the small scale of these paintings. This work is not about grand gestures and heroic presence. Each painting is a humble realization -- a highly compressed aesthetic event in which the process of painting and the process of living are one thing.

SHARON BUTLER's New Paintings

2010-02-19T14:04:00.002-05:00

Sharon Butler, Untitled, work in progress, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas

Painter, blogger, art professor, writer, Sharon Butler recently posted images of a fantastic new group of works in progress. Take a look HERE -- and visit her wonderful blog, Two Coats of Paint. Image from Sharon Butler's website.

BLINKY PALERMO: To the People of New York City -- Revisited

2010-02-13T16:15:00.003-05:00

I'm unclear about all the details, but this book was originally published in 2006, then quickly went out of print. Finally, late last year, after much delay it was re-issued by Dia and Richter Verlag. Having failed to acquire a copy of the original printing, I'm not sure if this new version contains any additional information, but I assume the lengthy delay had something to do with editorial revisions. It is indeed an exhaustive analysis from every imaginable angle of Palermo's last and most important work. The essays by Lynne Cooke, Christine Mehring, Anne Rorimer, Pia Gottschaller, and several others, are full of historical, theoretical and contextual information, and deeply scholarly explorations of this enigmatic piece. Also included is a wonderful recollection by David Reed, and most interesting to me, an interview with Joseph Beuys. It is Beuys who most acutely illuminates the character of this work when he refers to Palermo's "porosity".

For myself and many other painters of my generation, To the People of New York City was a watershed work that almost magically synthesized the impulses of that moment into a new approach to painting. The work was first shown in 1977, shortly after Palermo's death, at Heiner Friedrich's gallery in Soho. Although Palermo had built a strong reputation in Germany, very few people in New York had ever heard of him. I was lucky enough to be working at the time with Alanna Heiss at P.S.1, and one day when I entered her office for a meeting, she just started chanting "Blinky Palermo....Blinky Palermo....go see Blinky Palermo...." -- so of course I did. One of the small disappointments with this new book is that there are no images of that original installation (actually there is one grainy b/w image of one corner of the gallery) -- and at this point, it is very hard to remember specific aspects of the installation, but what is still absolutely vivid is the feeling that it evoked -- the primal hum of that room.

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City, 1976, Installation detail, Dia, NYC

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City, 1976, Installation detail, Dia, Beacon

Taking a cue from the implications of Newman's Stations of the Cross, and Rothko's Chapel works from the previous decade, Palermo conceived a serial group of objects unified by color and configuration. Responding to the reductive materiality of Ryman, he devised a group of aluminum panels that appear to float in front of the wall, and applied acrylic paint in the most direct manner. From his teacher, Beuys, he understood the notion of creating a ritualized space, and that every material substance is charged with its own energy. Palermo's genius was creating a pulsating visual poetry that envelops the viewer in a sensate choreography, that has the open-ended improvisation of jazz and the playful directness of the Ramones -- a space in which the highest aspirations of painting are inseparable from its ancient ritual origins.

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City, 1976, Installation detail

Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City, 1976, drawing, graphite & marker on paper
All images from the Dia website

GONÇALO IVO Interviewed at Geoform

2010-02-05T09:27:00.020-05:00

Gonçalo Ivo, Studio #2, Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Gonçalo Ivo, Pano da Costa, 2009, 38 x 51 inches, tempera on canvas

Gonçalo Ivo, 2008, Tissue d'Afrique, 79 x 59 inches, oil on canvas

Geoform, Julie Karabenick's excellent online scholarly resource, curatorial project, and international forum focusing on the use of geometric form and structure in contemporary abstract art, is featuring a wonderful interview with Brazilian painter Gonçalo Ivo. The piece is rich with images of Gonçalo's recent and earlier work, as well as insights into the poetry of his thinking and working process. Read it HERE.

Paper Works at Janet Kurnatowski

2010-02-04T13:10:00.009-05:00

Paper Works, Installation View (with my acrylic on paper piece top center)

Mark Dagley with one of his very cool prints

Through Feb 21, at the Janet Kurnatowski Gallery in Brooklyn, is a wonderful salon-style show of drawings and paintings on paper, in which I am honored to be participating. The show features the work of 64 artists including Don Voisine, Kazimira Rachfal, Mark Dagley, Ben La Rocco, James Biederman, Gabriela Evertz... It's an energetic hodgepodge of styles and sensibilities that rewards sustained viewing, and is testament to the vitality of abstract painting. Check it out.

DAVID REED: Works on Paperat Peter Blum

2010-01-30T15:02:00.007-05:00

In his first exhibition with Peter Blum in Soho (through March 6), David Reed is showing a fascinating group of works on paper, including color studies and working drawings. The color studies are small quick paintings on paper that feature Reed's signature swirling slabs of color, but are much more offhanded and loosely structured than the paintings, with the white of the paper playing a positive role in each piece. They are beautiful abbreviated moments of high facility that in some ways make his large-scale paintings look excessively labored. Which leads us to the working drawings -- groups of notebook pages filled to overflowing with visual and verbal notes addressing every imaginable nuance of Reed's practice. It is hard to imagine that he actually engages in such an obsessively detailed process. The pages read like an ongoing conversation with himself, and reflect not only the precision of his material process, but the perpetual uncertainty that infuses his decision making. It would be interesting to know if Reed has always worked this way, or if such copious verbal notations entered his practice later as studio assistants took over more of the hands-on labor. At any rate, these are wonderful things to peruse, and they reveal a much more personal aspect of Reed's process than has ever been seen.

Brooks Run to the Ocean...

2010-01-26T11:39:00.005-05:00

Steven Alexander, Installation View, 2010, Gremillion & Co. Fine Art, Houston

I just returned from a fantastic opening of my show in Houston. More installation shots are HERE, and you can read Kate Beck's catalogue essay HERE. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Ron Gremillion and everyone at Gremillion & Co. -- It is a privilege to be associated with such a great group of people.

JULIAN JACKSON at Kathryn Markel

2010-01-08T11:40:00.010-05:00

Julian Jackson, Ariel, 2009, 56 x 48 inches, oil on wood

Just opened at Kathryn Markel in Chelsea (through February 6), Julian Jackson is showing a gorgeous new group of paintings that seem to be lit from within. The show's title, Will 'O the Wisp, refers to the phenomenon of naturally occurring phosphorescence that perfectly embodies Julian's intent. Painted on panels with beveled back edges, these pieces appear to hover in front of the wall, and the smooth surfaces look as though the color is somehow invested rather than applied. Built out of layers of overlapping rectangles, the compositions are as solid as urban landscapes, but the spaces are absolutely etherial. Nuanced contrasts in value, saturation, warmth and coolness, make the color relations undulate, pulling us into a soft and constantly shifting space that is as disorienting as it is seductive. These works gracefully perform an almost impossible transformation of the material elements of painting into a pure experience of luminescence.

ANTONIO MURADO at Von Lintel

2010-01-08T11:06:00.006-05:00

Antonio Murado, El Carmen, 2009, 48 x 32 inches, oil on linen

The more intimate space of Von Lintel's new 23rd Street gallery is a perfect setting for a group of new paintings by the Spanish painter, Antonio Murado -- through January 16. Unlike much of Murado's previous work, large two-color wall-like paintings with distressed and crazes surfaces, these new works are not only smaller in scale, but more lyrical, almost narrative. Large layered and scraped shapes are set off by groups of colored spots that read as roses, sometimes in clusters and sometimes dispersed around the edges of the composition. As always, Murado's surfaces are beautiful -- in these works, they are oozey and fluid, sometimes thick and sometimes scraped down to the linen. There is a pervasive sense of nostalgia in this show, as the layered and fragmented images float and disperse like memories, laced with the melancholy of passing time.

Happy 2010

2009-12-30T11:20:00.004-05:00

Here's wishing all my friends and colleagues a year full of peace and pleasure.

I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus as I frantically finish work for my upcoming show in Houston. It's almost there -- new posts coming soon.

In the Studio

2009-12-08T12:09:00.011-05:00

Hot Topic, 2009, 72 x 54 inches, acrylic on canvas

MORE HERE

Mattera & Butler in Miami

2009-12-05T08:21:00.004-05:00

It's that time of year again -- the Miami art fairs are underway, and the tireless Joanne Mattera is on the scene again bringing us daily reports, images and insights -- from the point of view of a business savvy painter. We can follow her around (without the backache) at Joanne Mattera Art Blog. For more great coverage from another painter's perspective, see Sharon Butler's Two Coats of Paint. Thanks Joanne and Sharon.