Filed under: Interview | Tags: Albuquerque, Center for Contemporary Arts Sante Fe, CHERYL, Claude Smith, David Leigh, Larry Bob Phillips, The Big Hoot
The Big Hoot is the result of a fruitfully epic collaboration between Albuquerque-based artists David Leigh and Larry Bob Phillips that draws on the persuasive power of comic-inspired renderings to convey themes of nature, violence, death, beauty and the absurd. The floor-to-ceiling fun-house of expertly rendered grotesquery not only serves to overwhelm the viewer with its vast imagery references and chaotic narrative, but it also provided a backdrop for an interactive performance by CHERYL, a four member, semi-anonymous collective based in Brooklyn, NY. Leigh and Philips spent the better part of three months cooped up in their studios working at a frantic pace to create the individual larger-than-life “pendants,” that would eventually fill the 16’ x 75’ exhibition space. Using an approach that could be considered an architect’s answer to large-scale collage making, images were painted on thin plywood veneer, cut out and stacked away in the artists’ studios. During the installation, Leigh and Phillips curated the images from their sizeable pendant archive they felt best fit the criteria of both practical and conceptual considerations. I recently had the opportunity to ask David and Larry Bob about their thoughts and process of preparing for The Big Hoot. – Claude Smith, Albuquerque & Santa Fe contributor
David Leigh, Larry Bob Phillips | The Big Hoot, latex on panel, 2013, installation view
Patrick McDonough’s lawn chairs are not meant for sitting. And if they begin to seem functional, well, it’s all pretend. The sculptures offer the formal concepts of lawn chairs without actually closing the deal — legs and armrests have gone missing, for starters, and the works themselves are decidedly non functional. Instead of functionality McDonough is interested in their allusions to an American iconography of leisure. Take a look at them and it’s not difficult to imagine the smell of freshly cut grass or the skyward boom of summertime fireworks. It’s part of what the artist describes as his overarching interest in the aesthetics of free time. But there’s something else that’s also at work here; each piece has a significant stake in pure color, in hard edged geometry, and in the rectangular chromatic plane. You won’t need to dig too deep before you start thinking of abstract painting. - Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. Contributor
Patrick McDonough| 122909-lawn chair, Wood, Paint, Outdoor Furniture Fabric, Hardware
Filed under: Los Angeles, Review | Tags: Charlie Jame Gallery, Los Angeles, Trevor Spaulding, William Powhida
At first glance, William Powhida’s new show Bill By Bill at Charlie James Gallery looks like a fairly typical survey of contemporary art. Just about all of today’s most common approaches to object-driven art making are represented. There’s a post-minimalist sculpture, some neo-modernist wall pieces, a hard-edged abstraction, three large digitally printed color field paintings, a neo-expressionist painting, a taxidermied animal, and a neon sign.
Installation view of Bill By Bill. Photo courtesy of Charlie James Gallery
At second glance, the show looks like one big joke about the contemporary art world. Powhida farmed out the making of these ‘artworks’ to assistants, mimicking popular contemporary tropes. He then created some of his signature text-based pieces to accompany each of the works, satirically describing the labor (or lack there of) and intellectual rigor (or lack there of) that went into their creation. - Trevor Spaulding, Los Angeles Contributor
Filed under: Dallas, Review | Tags: Arthur Pena, BLK JPG, Blow Up Gallery, Bret Slater, Brian Ryden, Cassandra Emswiler, Dallas, David Ayllsworth, Eli Walker, Forth Worth Drawing Center, Francis Giampietro, Francisco Moreno, Gregory Ruppe, Jesse Morgan Barnett, John Dickinson, Kerry Pacillio, Kevin Ruben Jacobs, Kim Owens, M, Marcelyn McNeil, Michael Francis, Michael Mazurek, Michelle Mackey, Michelle Rawling, Nathan Green, Raychael Stine, Thomas Feulmer, Trey Egan, Vincent Falsetta
I want to keep this simple. There is a core group of artists in Dallas making the rounds and putting interesting work into the local and national converstion and I just want to put this hard working bunch of artists on blast. Below are a few images from 3 recent group shows curated by Dallas based artists. Most of the artists in these shows, as well as the curators, have links to their site. This, dear reader, is so that you can follow up on an artist or work you might find engaging. Everyone couldn’t get an image into this article so hopefully you will take a minute and click on the artists names to see what they got going on. So, please, take some time to get to know these artists as they very much want to get to know you. Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor
L to R: Bret Slater | Nightshift, 2013, 61″ x 16″ x 2″ acrylic on canvas 2013, Thomas Feulmer| Corner Piece, 2013, barbell, four 25lb. weights, stack of magazines, desk lamps, bulbs, extension cords, Cruising Horny Corners” by Lance Laster, nail, and string, Nathan Green| H.D.A., 2013, mixed media, dimensions variable
Filed under: Competitions | Tags: Arizona, Blanton Museum of Art, Colorado, competition, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Veronica Roberts, West, Wyoming
We have extended the deadline for our West competition which is now May 8th, Midnight (EST). So, if you reside in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming, now is your chance to apply to New American Paintings. We are thrilled to have Veronica Roberts, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Blanton Museum of Art, as our 2013 juror. We’ll be posting more about Veronica in a few weeks, so stay tuned.
So, what are you waiting for? PLEASE DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE!!! It’s easy to submit work, you just need 4 images, 1200 pixels at their greatest dimension or less, and a credit card for our submission fee. Go here and apply now if you live in AZ, CO, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NV, OK, SD, TX, UT, or WY!
As always, you can learn a little more about the competition on our website. Or, check out our FAQs.
GOOD LUCK!
Filed under: Interview, New York | Tags: Arthur Pena, Conversation, Cordy Ryman, Dodge Gallery
I recently saw my first Ryman pieces in person at the Dallas Art Fair. Dodge Gallery had a piece made of 2 x 4’s, painted and hanging on the wall. There was also a corner piece comprised of stacked 2×4’s painted with soft, shiny colors. Upon closer inspection of the corner piece I noticed hand writing that indicated some sort of possible measurement. I couldn’t tell because Ryman had cut the wood off before the information could be fully retained. But the markings were just enough to show his hand. I mean this in both that it injected the work with a very direct connection to the artist in what could otherwise be mistaken to be a minimalist corner sculpture and it also showed his hand in the sense of a “reveal”, exposing the transparency of the process of making that Ryman is so willing to offer. After mounting his first solo show with Dodge Gallery, Adaptive Radiation, and just finishing up a public commission at Michigan State University, Ryman and I had a conversation. - Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor
Cordy Ryman | Adaptive Radiation, 2013, installation view
Filed under: In the Studio, Process Of A Painting | Tags: Ellen C. Caldwell, Erin Murray, In the Studio, Nancy Margolis Gallery, Process of a Painting
Erin Murray’s (NAP #69, #98) oil paintings have a way of making the everyday environment feel surreal, fluid, informal, and in flux. Regular land- and cityscapes are painted to feel slightly off, making the viewer feel faintly uneasy compositionally, yet vaguely at home geographically.
Erin Murray | Settling (good neighbors), 2013, oil on panel, 24” x 24”
Familiar scenes – a pool, a backyard, a house, a farm – look commonplace, but feel so subtly upended that it leaves me, as a viewer, uncertain about the lonely and troubling feeling I have in contemplating and taking in her works. Regardless of my feelings while processing Murray’s works and subjects, the end result of her works is something for which most artists strive and most viewers yearn – her paintings are thought provoking, conceptual, and meditative, all in one. - Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor
