Second-floor installation view of Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone at the New Museum. This and all installation shots courtesy of the museum
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Mary Heilmann turns the idea of the “tortured artist” inside out. Her joyful paintings seem effortless and spontaneous. Her grids and stripes are unmeasured. She makes big, blowsy shapes with thinned paint and loose brushwork, with seemingly no attempt to do anything about the resulting drips except to let them have a life of their own. Sometimes she paints over vast tracts of the canvas; other times there’s a pentimento or perhaps an image intended to be visible beneath the surface. Lines meander geometrically over the surface, occasionally from canvas to canvas, as many works are composed of multiple units.
Above: Hokusai, 2004, oil on canvas, 75 x 120 inches
Above: Surfing on Acid, 2005, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches
Below: Lovejoy Jr., 2004, oil on canvas, 40 x 32 inches
A second-floor installation view: These Heilmann-designed chairs are coordinated with the paintings in this and the other galleries. The grid of the webbing echoes the exhibition's predominant motif. You can sit in them as you take in the work
Second-floor installation views, above and below
Lobby Gallery: a wall of paintings including Lupe, 1987, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 inches; and Sea Wall, 1986, oil on canvas, 60 x 42 inches
Below: Chartreuse Table, 2008, with what I would assume is a collecion of the artist's ceramic work
This has been a fabulous and well-earned decade for Heilmann: solo shows in New York, Antwerp, London, Zurich and elsewhere; featured-artist status at Basel Miami via Hauser and Wirth; simultaneous covers on Art in America and Art Forum last year; this beautifully installed solo at the New Museum, which originated at the Orange Country Museum of Art, and a gorgeous accompanying catalog; a juicy feature in the New York Times. Could a MacArthur grant be next?
Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone is at the New Museum through January 26.
5 comments:
I love Mary's work --- and her too! Great discriptions. I wish I could have made it to the opening. I'll still try to make the show. (I'm linking to this at Sharkforum).
Joanne,
Another masterful post for a beautiful show --- Thanks!
Fabulous! Thanks. A definite MacArthur grant.
macarthur grant? uh, one of us is wrong here. maybe it's me, but really? a macarthur grant? for the paintings or the review? i'm assuming paintings. uh. no. ? is it me? maybe this joanne mattera is an angel but i don't see the genius. it's gotta be me.
sorry, wrong name. maybe this mary heilmann is a genius but i don't see it. i'm a caveman. i must be a caveman. wtf is that table with the bowls? seriously. it's like a display at target but not even in houseware, it's in the dorm accesories section. and it's half price. sorry. i'm a surburban idiot who thinks about target. i don't get it. at. all.
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