abstract expressionism – Page 2

July 27, 2024July 27, 2024, by MICHELE JASLOW

Art Spiel Picks: Lower East Side in July 2024

HIGHLIGHT

Installation view, Shadowland, at Marc Straus, photo courtesy of the gallery

Summer 2024 shows in Lower East Side galleries offer many super solo and group exhibitions. We will highlight three that range from an inaugural show at a new NYC flagship gallery, a solo show of a veteran NYC artist, and a group show of Eastern European artists. That Dog in Me at Jupiter Gallery is a solo exhibition featuring seven new paintings by Travis Fish, who continues their exploration of fandom. Susan Eley Fine Art features the work of the late artist James Moore (1938 – 2013) in the second posthumous exhibition, Something Beautiful Happened. The group show at Marc Straus features Eastern European artists of the post-communist era and their responses to the rapid acceleration of technological development.

May 29, 2024May 28, 2024, by Liz Maynard

Dreams of a Common Language: Elizabeth Duffy, Lu Heintz, and Anna McNeary In OVERLAP

Liz Maynard

Installation View: Left to Right Lu Heintz, *Everything is Fiber: A New Lexicon*, 2024 Graphite on paper Elizabeth Duffy *Wearing / Ceremonial Costume for Gathering Rehill (1904-1972)*, 2023-2024, Unraveled worn braided rugs made into clothing, braided rug poncho with corn-on-the-cob holders, copper dandelion leaves, copper formed shoes, rug remnant; Anna McNeary, *Common Set*, 2024 Fabric, velcro, wooden rack Dimensions variable

The rhymes, homophones, and translations between the work of Elizabeth Duffy, Lu Heintz, and Anna McNeary are object manifestations of “Dreams of a Common Language.” The exhibition at Overlap Gallery in Newport, RI, offers up sweet and salty juxtapositions of textile, prints, sculptures, and installations of Providence-based artists. It takes its title from Adrienne Rich’s 1976 volume of poetry, which ruminates on the possibilities of life liberated from patriarchal constraints and the feminist community emerging from speech in common. Duffy, Heintz, and McNeary explore textile not just as a shared (and often gendered) medium but as a conceptual framework.

May 7, 2024May 12, 2024, by Wallace Whitney

Vom Abend, Joe Bradley at David Zwirner

A room with paintings on the wall

Description automatically generated — Installation view, Joe Bradley: Vom Abend, David Zwirner, New York, 2024. Photo courtesy of the gallery

The ten paintings in Vom Abend, Joe Bradley’s current show at David Zwirner, measure up to 93 x 120 inches and are all dated 2023-2024. They are big and, with one exception, are in landscape orientations. Framed with white oak strips, they have stately feel, yet they are hardly genteel. They are full of crusty skins of dry paint that seem randomly attached to the surfaces. They are creased and folded. They reek of oil paint. And while the color is buoyant, joyous even, they are also dark. Bradley isn’t afraid of black, and he explores shit brown with an alarming gusto. There are passages where the paint seems to have been aggressively ripped off the surface of the canvas, only to be tenderly painted over again. There are staccato stippling marks. There is erasure and heavy impasto in stretches. Although this may sound like the paintings are heavily labored and full of themselves, they aren’t. And careful examination reveals worlds to explore.

April 25, 2024May 12, 2024, by Saul Ostrow

Accommodating the Object: Elizabeth Yamin and Bosiljka Raditsa at The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation

Opinion

A room with art on the wall

Description automatically generated — Installation view. Photo courtesy of The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation

The exhibition Accommodating the Object of paintings by Elizabeth Yamin and Bosiljka Raditsa is presented by The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation in New York and was curated by William Corwin, who describes this exhibition as an intimate survey that offers the viewer an opportunity to compare the works of these two artists, who were active during the latter part of the twentieth century without attaining prominent careers.

December 8, 2023December 24, 2023, by Etty Yaniv

Zahra Nazari: Interiors

In Dialogue

Inside Out Oculus, 2022, acrylic on mylar, 36×45.5 in.

In her Interiors painting series, American Iranian-born painter Zahra Nazari draws on prominent features in classical Persian and Islamic architecture—decorative botanical motifs, arch, and particularly, iwan, the large, vaulted hall semi-enclosed and usually walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. Many scholars believe its origin can be traced back to the Parthian era. While looking at Nazari’s luminous surfaces, it may be interesting to keep in mind the dual role of the Persian arch—it serves both decorative and functional purposes—this richly decorated key aesthetic element in Persian architecture functions not only as an ornament but also as a structural support that provides stability. It is also designed to moderate the amount of sunlight that enters space, especially in iwans or other open spaces. Nazari’s frequent use of Mylar as a surface stirs a play on the notion of external and internal light, and simultaneously, her saturated color palette invokes a hot and arid climate with bright, sunlit days and crisp nights. Repetitive and rhythmical, these motifs coalesce into energetic, translucent, and luminous surfaces, evoking an interior space in flux. Zahra Nazari elaborates on her ideas and process in this interview with Art Spiel.

November 6, 2023November 6, 2023, by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

Fear & Philip Guston

A painting of a chair

Description automatically generated — Philip Guston *Head* (detail), 1968 Oil on board, Courtesy of Museum of Modern Art © 2023 The Estate of Philip Guston

Born in 1913, Canadian American painter Philip Guston began his career in the 50’s in New York during the Abstract Expressionist movement. The Ab-Ex-ers were sweeping the country as the next great thing and developing a bit of a swagger. Painters everywhere were ditching representational painting for the new experimental style of pure abstraction, and Guston was no exception. Well-esteemed and well-reviewed, he was a part of the in-crowd. Everyone loved the guy.

August 14, 2023August 7, 2023, by Art Spiel

Jonathan Torres: Painting Anxiety and Beauty

In Dialogue

Sube y Baja 2021 Mixed media 47” x 39.25”

Jonathan Torres is a Puerto Rican artist born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is based in Brooklyn, NY since 2010 and was recently a resident at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in DUMBO. In his paintings and sculptures a sense of otherworldliness and living in the diaspora recur. For over 15 years, Torres’ practice has grown from exploring different emotional and mental stages that have affected the way people interact with each other throughout various stages of life—crisis and anxiety with a bent of dark humor that have been crucial to the development of Torres’ imagery.

August 7, 2023July 14, 2023, by Elisabeth Condon

Elisabeth Condon Describes a Painting – Sam Francis, Untitled

A picture containing text, whiteboard, rectangle, art

Description automatically generated — Sam Francis, *Untitled*, 1968-9, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 156.25 inches

Painter Elisabeth Condon’s reflections on a painting by Sam Francis were initially presented in the third episode of Elisabeth Condon Describes a Painting, a new series artist Amy Talluto has launched in her podcast Pep Talks for Artists. In each episode in this series, Elisabeth Condon shares her way of looking at one painting, here, at Sam Francis’, Untitled, 1968 -1969, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 156.25 inches, hails from the series known as Edge, Sail, or Open Paintings. Untitled is currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through July 16 in the exhibition Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing.

June 7, 2023May 12, 2024, by Saul Ostrow

Re-evaluating Ellsworth Kelly at 100

opinion

Ellsworth Kelly, *Spectrum IX*, 2014, acrylic on canvas, twelve joined panels, © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Photo: Ron Amstutz, Courtesy: Matthew Marks Gallery

Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) is one of those artists whose status I’ve never understood. While he is held in high esteem by many, I’ve always questioned his significance. Don’t get me wrong, I like his work, but liking it doesn’t necessarily make it significant. His work is elegant, refined, and smart, and yet even in the 1950s-70s, it seemed conservative against the backdrop of Abstract Expressionism, Pop, and Minimalism. What made Kelly different from his peers was that when he was living and studying in Paris after World War2 on the GI Bill, while many of his fellow artists from the States were exploring lyric abstraction and L’informale, Kelly was looking at Art Concrete and had begun to make multi-canvas paintings.

January 2, 2023March 1, 2023, by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

Midlife Big Bangs

Text

Description automatically generated with low confidence — Faith Ringgold, Women Free Angela, 1971, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Drawing Committee, © Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

As an artist, have you ever looked around and felt ancient, withered, and uncool? Well, this pep talk is for you, because we’re about to find out how later in life, big bangs can be the bravest and most creative big bangs of all.