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12.26.2016

This blog is now an archive. Ten years' worth of posts are on this site and will remain available. A new blog with the same name (but different URL) is in the works now and will go live on January 1, 2017. Please visit me there. But feel free to return to this archive whenever you wish.

10.03.2016

Chromatic Space in Lower Manhattan

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"From the rigorous flatness of hard edge painting to the celestial expanse of color field work, color can enhance or defy the flatness of the canvas, and activate the work in an exciting variety of ways. Dialogues of translucence and opacity, movement and stasis, surface and depth are played out through the use of color in the work of different abstract artists."

--Jonathan D. Lippincott, curator of Chromatic Space

Chromatic Space is on exhibition at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center in Lower Manhattan through November 5. It's the third exhibition this year to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of American Abstract Artists. (My walk-through of The Onward of Art, which took place early in the year, is here.)  Sixty-five current members are represented, along with three past members and five invited guests. This post will give you a sense of the show, which spreads out in the Fiterman Art Center's three galleries. Because I am a member of AAA with a painting in the show, I cannot make this a review or even a report, but I can take you through it photographically. 

The Fiterman Art Center consists of three spaces: Gallery A, a large space with two walls of windows illuminating two exhibition walls; Gallery B, a long hallway wide enough to allow the viewer to step back to see the work on its walls; and past that, Gallery C, a large exhibition hall with windows at one end. We start in Gallery A and move clockwise around the room. Given that the thesis of the show is color, you will see shifts and relationships as we move around this gallery, and from one gallery to another.

In Gallery A, a panorama of two walls. The entrance is behind that far wall. Click pic to enlarge


From left: Merrill Wagner, 6 Brands of Naples Yellow, 2009, oil on linen; and George Sugarman sculpture, Yellow X,  1994, acrylic on aluminum

(I'm including titles in the group shots and more specific information in the individual images, but because you can get a sense of scale from the installations, I've skipped the dimensions)


Sugarman and Wagner; then from left, seen here and below: Iona Kleinhut, Twilight;  Lynn Umlauf, 7.30, 1994 (top), and Babe Shapiro, Calcium Night Lite; Irene Lawrence, To Get There/9



To  the right of Sugarman: Claire Seidl; Jeanne Wilkinson; Gail Gregg; Susan Bonfils, Orion; Stephen Westfall


Claire Seidl, Second Nature, 2005, oil on linen


Jeanne Wilkinson, Crossings 2, 2000-2016, watercolor, ink and graphite on paper. This work is shown framed


Gail Gregg, Flicker, 2003, encaustic on panel


Stephen Westfall, Persona, 2009, oil and alkyd on canvas


On the wall just to the right of Westfall's painting is this one by Siri Berg: The Black Sheep, 2015, oil on board, 60 x 10 x 1 inch. (I've given you dimensions because you don't see this painting in relation to the others.)
 A retrospective of the nonagenarian Berg, curated by Peter Hionas, will be the show after this

We're swinging around Gallery A to this wall, which is the one you see from a distance when you enter from the street. From left: Vincent Longo, Don Voisine, Roger Jorgensen, Robert Murray


Vincent Longo, Lattice Spread Yellow, 2012, acrylic on canvas


Panorama with Voisine, Jorgensen, Murray; Philis Ideal, Richard Timperio
Click pic to enlarge


Don Voisine, Noir (Confidential), 2016, oil on wood panel


Roger Jorgensen, Figures on the Beach, 1953, oil on linen


Robert Murray, Kings Penn Road, 2008, aluminum


Philis Ideal, Heap, 2012, acrylic, collage, resin on panel


Richard Timperio, Green Line, 2016, acrylic on canvas


Ldeal, Timperio and Clement Meadmore

Clement Meadmore, Elaboration, 1997, bronze
Photo: Fiterman/AAA


Ronald Bladen, Flying Fortress (model), 1974-1978, painted wood
Photo: Fiterman/AAA


Having made a complete tour of Gallery A, we're  walking toward Gallery B. Emily Berger's painting is in the distance. You'll see it in closer view as you scroll down


With Longo and Voisine over our left shoulder, we look back into Gallery A and over to the first work in Gallery B: Katinka Mann, Gone To, 2015, flattened sculptural painting


Mann; Lorenza Sannai, Diagramma, 2016, acrylic on canvas


Sannai; Raquel Rabinovich, I am Between Heaven and Earth 1, 1986-87, monotype on Arches paper; Emily Berger


Emily Berger, Morning, 2016, oil on wood
Photo: the artist


Though I shot these two works from the opposite direction, they follow Berger's work on the wall:
Marvin Brown, Untitled, 2015, digital print; James Seawright and Mimi Garrard, Chromatic #1, 2016, digital print


Foreground: Ramon S. Alcolea, Rain and Moon, 2016, wood; center top: Judith Murray, Strider, 1981, oil on linen; David McKenzie, #13-2011-N1, 2011, acrylic on engineered canvas; John Obuck


John Obuck, Thirteen Over One (Ghost Version), 2016, oil on canvas


Here's a view of the wall from the opposite direction. (I'll show you the opposite wall on our way back)

Lynne Harlow, Baker Bridge Road 1, 2015, acrylic on Plexiglass, 4 x 4 x 1 inch


James Gross, Winter, 2003, collage on canvas


Martin Ball, Untitled; Cecily Kahn, Untitled


Ce Roser, Cloud Geography, 1983, oil on canvas


Roser; Irene Rousseau, Stretching the Space 11, 2016, oil on canvas


Panoramic view of two walls in Gallery C
Click pic to enlarge

Manfred Mohr, P1611_5220, 2013-13, pigment in on canvas


Victoria Burge, Light Study 1, 2015, relief print with embossing


Gabriele Evertz, Grays and Metallics (Tallit), 2014, acrylic on canvas


Daniel Hill, #9504, 1995, acrylic on two canvases
Photo: Anne Russinof


Mark Williams, Stand Out, 2010, acrylic latex on linen


Power Boothe, Ellipsis #39, 2016, gouache on paper


Joanne Mattera, Chromatic Geometry 28, 2015, encaustic on panel


Henry Brown, Parallel, 2015, acrylic, pencil, gesso on canvas


Thornton Willis, Stones of Jerusalem, 1986, casein on paper


James Rosati, Penine 1, 1963, bronze


Foreground: Alice Adams, Roof Landing model, 1985, wood and copper-coated plastic; Lucio Pozzi, Pleasant Dissatisfaction, 2016, acrylic on board

View of Gallery C from the far end of the space


James Juszczyk, Cool & Lucid, 2016, acrylic on canvas (top); Sharon Brant, Throwing a Die to Fill in Space #4, 1977, Nu-pastel and graphite pencil on black paper


Creighton Michael, Chronicle 616, 2016, layered acrylic with digital transfer on wood panel


Julian Jackson,View 1, 2016, oil on canvas


Mary Schiliro, Skinny Dip 3, 2016, acrylic on Mylar


Stephen Maine, P16-0321, 2016, acrylic on canvas


Michael, Jackson, Schiliro, Maine; James O. Clark


James O. Clark, Violaceous, 2012, vinyl, argon, light


Panorama of opposite two walls in Gallery C
Click pic to enlarge

Kim Uchiyama; Jane Logemann, b-blue; Steven Alexander


Kim Uchiyama, Light Study #41, 2016, oil on linen


Steven Alexander, Source, 2013, acrylic on canvas


Nola Zirin, Moon Game, 2016, oil, enamel, glitter, mixed media on panel


Mara Held, Doorkeeper, 2016, egg tempera on linen over panel


Li .Trincere, Black 2, 2016, acrylic on canvas; Anne Russinof; Marthe Keller, Raucous, 2007, acrylic on linen

Anne Russinof, Dervish, 2015, oil on canvas


Two views
Jim Osman, Yard, 2015, wood, paint, tree section


View of Gallery C during the opening
Photo: Fiterman/AAA

Now we walk back through Gallery B, looking at the work on our left . . .

Robert Swain, Untitled: ID #BS-232, 2016, acrylic on birch panel


Swain; Corey Postiglione, Tango Interlude #26, 2016, acrylic on canvas

Mark Dagley, Mystery of the Grail, 2015, acrylic on canvas; Nancy Manter; Clover Vail


Nancy Manter, Drive-By #3-4, 2015, flashe and charcoal on Yupo


Clover Vail, Untitled, 2016, sumi ink and ballpoint pen on wood panel


Edward Shalala, Untitled: Rocky River Reverse, Ohio, 2011, #10 raw canvas thread, documentary photography (top); Susan Smith, Mirrors, Plexi, Canvas, 2015, found mirrors and plexi with oil on canvas panels


Vera Vasek, Core Rotation, 2016, acrylic, particulates on Plexiglas


Curator Jonathan D. Lippincott
Photo: Fiterman/AAA


If I may be permitted a brief post-walk-through remark, I'd like to note not only the range of aesthetic expression, as Lippincott did in the comment that opened this post, but the period over which these works were created. The curator selected some paintings and sculptures that were made in previous decades, while in other instances he selected paintings newly off the easel. To me the chronologic diversity added depth not only to the history of American Abstract Artists as a group, but also to abstraction in general. 

Chromatic Space is up through November 5 at the Shirley Fiterman Art Center. The galleries are open five days a week. Info here.

Added 10.7.16: See a video of the exhibition with commentary by the curator, Jonathan D. Lippincott