DON CHRISTENSEN: New Work

Don Christensen, Silver Button, 2009, 76 x 50 inches, oil & acrylic on canvas

Check out Don Christensen's exquisite new work on his new website.

PRESENT TENSE at Spanierman Modern

Emery Blagdon, Untitled, 1970, 13 1/2" x 17 1/2", enamel & copper wire on wood

Polly Apfelbaum, One Out of a Big Family, 2000, 29" x 20", synthetic fabric & dye on cotton pillowcase

Taro Suzuki, Untitled, 2002-3, 24" x 18", acrylic on canvas

This summer has been alive with numerous group shows that focus on abstract painting – quite an enjoyable development. Still on view until August 2 is “Present Tense”, a wonderful show in midtown at Spanierman Modern. Curated by Don Christensen and Mary Heilmann, it brings together the work of 14 artists, “selected on the basis of their ability to produce instant and visceral responses in the viewer, without the necessity of contextualization". In a previous post, I discussed the work of Don Christensen, and his connection to the outsider artist Emery Blagdon, who spent his life constructing “Healing Machines” – paintings and sculptures that were intended to transmit electromagnetic healing power. This notion of an exchange of energy between the work and the viewer, the primeval shamanic function of the charged object, is a subtext in this show. But rather than being literally stated or illustrated in the work, it is translated into a more contemporary and viable engagement with the inherent ontological properties of processes and materials – artmaking and the artwork as a focused channeling of those archetypal, formal, aesthetic attributes. Not to say that everyone in the show would buy into the same assertions, but the common threads here are a strong emphasis on the visual over the theoretical, prominent attention to materials and process, interest in non-Western and/or folk traditions filtered through Modernist structures, and the promotion of an open interaction between the object and the viewer. There is also an obvious but subtle element of Pop humor in some of the work, which gives the show a nice buoyancy.

In addition to Christensen’s paintings, ornate surfaces constructed of small bits of wood organized into complex geometric compositions, I was particularly struck by the work of Polly Apfelbaum and Taro Suzuki. Apfelbaum showed a group of small pieces that incorporate what appear to be painted cotton balls, flattened and attached to pastel patterned pillow cases. From a distance the colored spots float and undulate in a blue-grayish atmosphere, and up close, the piece transforms into a powerfully obsessive product of some private domestic ritual. Taro Suzuki’s paintings are made by raking layers of cyan, yellow & magenta pigment across the surface, one at a time with a notched implement. While the process sounds rather programmatic (if again obsessive), the results are unpredictable organic, sensuous, smooth surfaces that are in constant optical motion with dancing color.

There is plenty more to see here in a show that is ultimately about the diverse and vital possibilities and the immediate potency of contemporary abstraction.

DON CHRISTENSEN

Don Christensen, House NM, 2004, 44" x 57", oil based enamel on wood

Don Christensen, Biskit, 2007, 55" x 77", oil based enamel on canvas

Over the past several years, there has been a pervasive renewed interest in, or nostalgia for the New York underground music scene of the late ‘70s & early ‘80s. It was indeed an exciting time of creative cross-fertilization, experimentation and anarchic energy. Many of us who were making music in that scene were visual artists, working in a context that no longer exists. It was a unique moment, a true “post-Art” moment if you will, when the immediacy of live performance, loud dissonance and hopped-up rhythms, was the most direct and natural response to the world. It was also a whole lot of fun. At the center of the No Wave music scene in ’78 or so – without question the most explosive, dynamic and influential band – was The Contortions. The drummer for The Contortions was Don Christensen who joined with the late George Scott on bass to make a jerky driving punk-disco-funk throb that is still unrivaled. But as I said, this moment was very short lived, as the music industry quickly began to co-opt the underground, and change the context from art to entertainment. Don went on to do some other music projects including work with Philip Glass, then began to reorient his focus back (or forward) to painting.

I mention this history because, for me it is hard to look at Don Christensen’s paintings and not relate them to his past music. Often built out of small rectangular hunks of wood, his pieces are literally percussive painting -- polyrhythmic, layered, structurally solid with plenty of synchopation and surprises on top. And like drumming which taps the most primal of sources, his paintings seem to emerge from a ritualized process, or at least a strong sensitivity to those impulses – a possible reflection of his deep interest in outsider artist Emery Blagdon. Also evident is a prevalent element of play that gives rise to unexpected shapes and lively juxtapositions. Some of his more recent paintings are direct enamel on canvas works that simplify the image and loosen the geometry, and in doing so, heighten the tension and focus of the configuration. In all his work, color is the key -- a lively animated substance that brings a kind of Pop humor, and also reads as celebratory.

Recently opened at Spanierman Modern in midtown, is the exhibition titled “Present Tense”, curated by Don Christensen and Mary Heilmann (thru Aug 2). This is a group show that includes abstract works by fourteen contemporary artists, including Christensen and Heilmann. According to the press release, “The works were selected on the basis of their ability to produce instant and visceral responses in the viewer, without the necessity of contextualization.” I like that -- and I look forward to seeing the show and reporting on it later.