Filed under: DC, Q&A | Tags: Contemporary Wing, Lauren Gentile, Matthew Smith, Next Generation
A few months prior to opening her new storefront gallery, Lauren Gentile organized the group show Next Generation in a raw warehouse space in downtown D.C. It was timed to coincide with the Rubell Family Collection’s 30 Americans at the Corcoran last winter, and it tapped a few art stars from the Rubell show to select a batch of up-and-comers they viewed as the next generation of great artists. It was a novel conceit for an exciting show, as well as a clever pooling of disparate resources that included direct mayoral intervention.
As of earlier this month Gentile’s putting that resourcefulness to work in Contemporary Wing, her new exhibition space on 14th Street. It’s a coming home of sorts — Gentile was the longtime gallery director at Irvine Contemporary, which occupied the same address until it shuttered last summer. And she’s inaugurating the new digs with an aptly titled solo show, I’m Coming Home, by Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi (NAP #87 and #100), a recent MFA graduate from American University. I recently caught up with Lauren to chat about her new gallery and inaugural show, as well as the Next Generation exhibition. Our conversation after the jump. –Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi | Detail view of “Knok Knok, Who’s There?”, 2012. Acrylic, gouache, imitation gold leaf and handpainted collage on Mylar. 40 x 30 inches
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Filed under: DC, Review | Tags: Curator's Office, DC, Matthew Smith, Tom Green
“Time is of the essence now.” Most of us will never fully grasp the weight of Tom Green’s words when he spoke to the Washington Post last December. He’d been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) six months earlier and was aware that at some point, possibly soon, he’d lose his ability to paint, robbed of his motor skills by this neurological disease. The news of the urgent diagnosis, however, although paramount and ultimate, is but a blip in the long trajectory of the artist’s career in Washington, D.C., a career that also included stops at the Whitney Biennial in 1975 and the Guggenheim in 1981. Opening earlier this month, Of This World at Curator’s Office features Green’s latest works on paper. They’re also his final paintings, restrained and elegant reinterpretations of his longstanding pictorial engagement with semiotics. More after the jump. -Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor.
Tom Green | Of This World 3, 2011 acrylic on paper 29.75” x 22.25”, courtesy Curator’s Office
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Filed under: DC, Review | Tags: Baltimore, DC, Gina Beavers, Matthew Smith, NUDASHANK
There’s no escaping the physicality of Gina Beavers’ paintings. Culled from the unremarkable — quotidian moments and bits of cultural flotsam — her work is grounded by the immediacy of her source material. Despite the occasional abstraction, these representations aren’t meant to veer far from their physical subjects; they’re tethered to experiential moments that are as concrete as the sculptural reliefs on her canvases. Indeed, borrowing from the pictorial language of naive painting, Beavers’ works suggest redemption for what’s unheroic among us. Le Sigh, her solo show at Nudashank in Baltimore, opened earlier this month and I had the chance to drop by for a visit. – Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
Gina beavers | 6-color palette, acrylic & paintbrush on canvas, 12” x 14”, 2011, (courtesy Nudashank and the artist)
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Filed under: Art World, DC | Tags: Arena Stage, Christopher Rothko, Edward Gero, Harvard University, John Logan, Kate Rothko Prizel, Mark Rothko, Matthew Smith, Patrick Andrews, Philips Collection, Red, Robert Falls, Roberta Smith, Rothko Chapel, Seagram Murals
Edward Gero as Mark Rothko and Patrick Andrews as Ken in the 2011 Goodman Theatre production of Red. Directed by Robert Falls. Photo by Liz Lauren.
If abstract painting is an inward journey seeking truth in the human condition, then perhaps Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals are heralds for what we’ll find. Commissioned in 1958 for the dinning room of the Four Seasons in Manhattan’s Seagram building, the murals were a bit of a formal departure for the artist, who had already settled into his classic style of soft rectangular shapes floating on vertical canvases. The paintings also marked the beginning of Rothko’s journey into darkness, as he left behind a brighter palette for progressively darkened hues and a somber affect that would yield his late-career black paintings. Increasingly apprehensive of the posh Four Seasons restaurant as an appropriate setting for the meditative pictorial environment he sought, Rothko withdrew from the Seagram project in 1959, though he would later complete multiple such environments — at the Philips Collection in D.C., in Harvard University, and with the Rothko Chapel in Houston.
This landmark moment — Rothko’s struggles in the studio and his germinating ambition for a pure physical environment for his paintings — is the subject of Red, a screenplay by John Logan, produced by D.C.’s Arena Stage in conjunction with Chicago’s Goodman Theater (at Arena Stage through March 11, 2012). Concurrently with Red the National Gallery of Art is exhibiting the three Seagram paintings from its permanent collection, through August 15.
More after the jump. — Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
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Filed under: Art World, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Must-Sees, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Fe | Tags: Exhibitions, February, Must-SEe, NAP, Paintings, Publishers Pick, Steven Zevitas
One of the best parts of my job is getting to see the careers of artists that we have worked with take off. Artists such as James Siena, Amy Cutler and Matthew Day Jackson were all featured in New American Paintings long before they reached the international spotlight. This month is not only an extraordinary month for the medium of painting at galleries around the country, it is a particularly strong month for New American Paintings’ alumni. No fewer than twenty artists featured in past, or upcoming editions, have their work on view in February. Two of my favorites, Summer Wheat and Benjamin Degen, will be featured in the soon to be released 2012 Northeast Edition (#98).
I want to bring special attention to the work of Sarah McEneaney, who was first featured in the mid-1990s. Based in Philadelphia, Sarah is a profoundly gifted artist, and, in my opinion, simply one of the best painters working today. Her painstakingly crafted egg tempera paintings have always had a startling immediacy. Of the many micro-trends that are noticeable in current painting practice, a certain predilection for “faux-naïve” representation is high among them. Sarah was entrenched in this pictorial language long before it washed over the art world. Unlike many younger artists, her creative direction is not a conceptual gambit; rather, it is born out of an internal necessity. - Steven Zevitas, Editor/Publisher
Summer Wheat | Onlooker, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
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Filed under: Collecting, DC, Q&A | Tags: Andy Warhol, Arlington Arts Center, Collecting, Corcoran, Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC, Erika Ranee, Faith Ringgold, Henry L. Thaggert, Jefferson Pinder, KARA WALKER, Lauren Woods, Matthew Smith, Maya Freelon Asante, Nadine Robinson, Nekisha Durrett, Philips Collection, Renee Cox, Renee Stout, Warhol, Washington Project for the Arts
Andy Warhol’s relationship to abstraction is charged. Despite a late-career painterlyimpulse — which included the Shadows series currently exhibiting at the Hirshhorn — his pictorial language based on representation fundamentally questioned the narrative of post-war painting as defined by Clement Greenberg. And the implications of Pop Art’s emergence over Abstract Expressionism were significant, not least for black artists as changes in collecting preferences opened new doors for art about the African American experience. This was the premise of a talk by art collector Henry Thaggert at the Philips Collection in Washington D.C. a few years back. It’s a perspective that Kara Walker seems to echo, at least indirectly, in a talk on Andy Warhol scheduled for next week at the Hirshhorn. I recently caught up with Thaggert to talk further about Warhol, get his thoughts on collecting art, and about his involvement in the local art scene. - Matthew Smith, D.C. Contributor
Andy Warhol | Shadows, 1978-79. Dia Art Foundation. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Photo: Cathy Carver.
Filed under: DC, Q&A | Tags: Chip Allen, Heiner Contemporary, Matthew Smith, Q&A
Chip Allen’s letting loose. He’s squeegeed, splattered, and gesturally brushed over his geometric abstractions, and by the looks of it action painting’s winning out. His loose, intuitive marks and smudges run interference across seemingly systematic lines, the resulting balance a taut non-resolution that tugs from opposing ends, even if one end does so a bit harder. But there’s no subjugation here. Amalgamation is more like it, and a methodical contemplation on the all-encompassing potential of his medium — oil in his most recent paintings. Brooklyn-based Chip Allen (NAP #75, 2007 MFA Annual) is exhibiting in a group show at Heiner Contemporary in Washington D.C. I took the opportunity to catch up with the artist and ask him a few questions. His answers and more images of his work after the jump. — Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. Contributor
Chip Allen | LALC 01, 2011, Oil on Paper, 22 x 26 in, courtesy of the artist and Heiner Contemporary
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Filed under: Art Market, Art World, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Must-Sees, New Jersey, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, Philly, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Seattle | Tags: December, Must-SEe
In the 300+ gallery exhibitions that we previewed for this post, we discovered a number of New American Paintings’ alumni on view in December. Jim Lutes continues to produce a substantial body of work and, once again, demonstrates why he is one of Chicago’s leading painters. And check out Dolphin Gallery’s group exhibition “Push” which features several NAP artists, including a favorite of ours, Michael Krueger. Other shows that stand out: Fernando Mastrangelo at Charest-Weinberg, Byron Kim and James Cohan Gallery, and Cordy Ryman and Eli Ridgway. Enjoy the list! Please check them out and let us know what you think in the comments section after the jump!
Cordy Ryman | Shadow Boxed, acrylic, enamel and graphite on wood, 38 x 33.5 x 3.5 inches
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Filed under: DC, Review | Tags: Alfred Jensen, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, In The Tower, Matthew Smith, Mel Bochner, National Gallery of Art, Sol Lewitt, The Tower Gallery
As Mel Bochner tells it, his longstanding engagement with language was inevitable. His seminal Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed as Art (1966) — a collection of notes and drawings from the likes of Dan Flavin, Alfred Jensen, Eva Hesse, Sol Lewitt, among others, photocopied and arranged into four identical binders — considers the rules and seriality of communication systems, if not written language directly. At the time, the work signaled a broader paradigm shift toward Minimalism and away from Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, while also heralding the text-based work that would come to occupy Bochner for much of the next 45 years.
The Tower Gallery at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is currently exhibiting a collection of Bochner’s recent Thesaurus Paintings and preparatory drawings alongside his early and precursory text-based Portraits (1966-1968). In the Tower: Mel Bochner thus presents the artist’s reprising of his earlier work — much of which forms the foundation of Conceptual Art and Minimalism — as big, bold canvases inflected with painterly subjectivity. Or as NGA curator James Meyer observed of Bochner’s recent paintings, “a kind of American Realism has entered Conceptualism’s back door.” - Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
Mel Bochner | Die, 2005, oil and acrylic on canvas, 152.4 x 203.2 cm (60 x 80 in.), Courtesy Peter Freeman Inc., New York, © Mel Bochner 2011
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Filed under: DC, New York, Q&A | Tags: artsauce, Benjamin Edmiston, Brooklyn, Christopher Daniels, DC, Matthew Craven, Matthew Smith, Michigan State University, Natalia Yovane, Nick Van Woert, NUDASHANK, Paper Chasers, Sam Adams, Stacey Rozich, SVA, The School of Visual Art
Much of Matthew Craven’s meticulous work exists as both colorful abstraction and surreal historical document. His transformation of images appropriated from history textbooks nudge and reconfigure the original historical narratives. And his modular treatment of familiar forms unexpectedly activates their hidden potential for abstraction. Painting, drawing, collage and installation are linked in Craven’s practice through his fastidiously precise lines, which run across works and from project to project. Last week I caught up with the Brooklyn-based artist — whose work is currently in the group show Paper Chasers at Nudashank — to talk about his work, his influences, and time travel. Our conversation, and lots of images, after the jump. -Matthew Smith, D.C. contributor
