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
Filed under: Review | Tags: Conceal Project, Curator's Office, Dawn Black, Matthew Smith
Dawn Black’s second solo show at Curator’s Office in Washington, D.C. doesn’t veer too far from her first go in 2009. Pulling characters from her ongoing Conceal Project, her current show, The Magic Foxhole, uses J.D. Sallinger’s unpublished short story of the same title — an absurdist tale about the follies of war — as a point of departure. Like her previous exhibition, Black’s own absurdist scenes subvert context in detailed ink, gouache and watercolor works on paper. And instead of narratives, the artist offers her nuanced understanding of the power roles and cues that result from masquerade and from our propensity for playing dress up. - Matthew Smith, D.C. Contributor
Black | American Gothic, 2011, Ink, gouache, watercolor on paper, 11” x 17” (courtesy Curator’s Office)
Filed under: Art Fairs, DC | Tags: ADA Gallery, Andy Moon Wilson, Bart O'Reilly, Conner Contemporary Art, Curator's Office, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, DC, Ella Kruglyanskaya, eMerge, Jiha Moon, Jimmy Trotter, kendell carter, Matthew Smith, monique meloche, Nina Bovasso, White Columns
(e)merge kicked off with a preview and poolside party on Thursday evening. Featuring two platforms, one for galleries and the other for unrepresented artists, the fair occupies the first three floors of the Capitol Skyline Hotel as well as the lower level parking garage. I took a look around the gallery platform on Friday — just about 40 exhibitors — and will be checking out the artist platform on Saturday. My report on the galleries, with lots of images, after the jump. - Matthew Smith, DC Contributor
Bathroom installation by Andy Moon Wilson, at Curator’s Office
Filed under: Art World, Q&A | Tags: Andy Moon Wilson, Curator's Office, Matthew Smith, Simon Gouverneur
Andy Moon Wilson, Untitled, 2010 | Colored pencil on paper, 10 x 10 inches. Courtesy the artist and Curator’s Office, D.C.
Andy Moon Wilson, featured in edtion #45 of New American Paintings, owes a debt of gratitude to abstract symbolist painter Simon Gouverneur (1934-1990). That’s the idea behind Debt: Simon Gouverneur and Andy Moon Wilson, currently on view at Curator’s Office in Washington, DC. The show features works by Moon Wilson that, like Gouverneur’s paintings, allude to quantitative precision. Yet unlike Gouverneur, Moon Wilson is detached from the mystical symbolism that often characterized Gouverneur’s work. Nevertheless, the visual comparisons are exciting. I recently caught up with Moon Wilson to ask him about his current project and about the influence that Gouverneur has had on his work. —Matthew Smith, DC contributor
(detail) Simon Gouverneur, Peyote II, 1985 | Egg tempera, graphite, and acrylic on canvas, 48in x 48in. Courtesy of the Estate of Simon Gouverneur and Curator’s Office, Washington, DC.
