Filed under: New York, Review | Tags: Alan Shields, Amy Granat, Andrew Lord, Ann Craven, Gladstone Gallery, Hans Josephsohn, Hans Scharer, Kim Jones, Latifa Echakhch, Peter Buggenhout, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Sam Gilliam, Sarah Lucas, Spirit Level, Ugo Rondinone, Whitney Kimball
Walking into the Spirit Level, on view through April 21, at Gladstone Gallery’s 24th Street branch, one passes through a hallway of Ann Craven’s large, dark paintings with taffy-colored off-white holes in the middle. The floor is lined with Latifa Echakhch’s “Frames”: rectangular rugs with the centers removed, so that only thin edges and fringes remain. The pairing sets the tone for the exhibition, and it’s testament to Ugo Rondinone’s curatorial dexterity: the simple combination evokes prayer, death, infinite, cycles, and detritus which inevitably fills up empty space. - Read more from Whitney Kimball after the jump!
Anne Craven | Moon, 2012. oil on linen, 72 x 72 inches.
Photo courtesy of Gladstone Gallery
Filed under: Art World, DC, Q&A | Tags: American University Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Drapes, Kenneth Noland, Matthew Smith, Morris Louis, Richard Tuttle, Sam Gilliam, Washington Color School, William T. Wiley
Installation view, Sam Gilliam, Close to Trees, 2011 | Acrylic, polypropylene, nylon, and a mirror, site-specific installation. Courtesy the American University Museum and Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington, DC.
Sam Gilliam’s most celebrated accomplishment — the suspended painting — made its debut at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in September 1969. While other artists like Richard Tuttle and William T. Wiley were also experimenting with the unstreched canvas during the same period, Gilliam’s sculptural approach was revolutionary in that it repositioned the viewer’s relationship with the painting to include the object as well as the space around it, blurring the boundary between painting, sculpture, and architecture for the first time. Hanging from ceilings and walls but also from freestanding objects like sawhorses, Gilliam’s “drapes” left the wall behind to create physical environments that redefined the conceptual and aesthetic boundaries of abstract painting. —Matthew Smith, DC contributor
