What I Saw This Summer, Part 3: More Exhibitions

The two shows here are from Chelsea and Dumbo, viewed in late May and mid July respectively: Dannielle Tegeder at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art and the postcard group show, Wish You Were Here 8, at the A.I.R. Gallery.
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Dannielle Tegeder at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art

I saw Dannielle Tegeder's solo show, Arrangements to Ward Off Accidents, at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art in Chelsea in late May. Although I was not sure how the work could live up to the title of the exhibition, I liked it and expected to do a full post on it, but then I took advantage of those cool days in June to work in the studio. Then I started posting on other topics and, well, you know the story. So this "Summer" series gives me a chance to show you some of what I saw and liked there.

Tegeder has a Kandinsky-esque sensibility that is channeled and transformed through the eye and hand of a 21st-Century artist. Her flat abstractions--angular geometry achieved with a fairly neutral palette of gray and ochery tones--held the gray-painted walls of the gallery. The paintings and works on paper articulate a fairly deep and active space, and their relatively large size pulls you visually into that space. I've seen her work before (notably at the GregoryLind Gallery in San Francisco) so it was a pleasant surprise to find a new element here: suspended sculptures that explode her compositions into three dimensions. The installation thus effectively places you within her work.

Dannielle Tegeder: Installation view of a painting and work on paper with three sculptures; image from the gallery website

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In a smaller space, I entered and found myself enveloped by 130 small framed Modernist-style geometries on paper. This installation, The Library of Abstract Sound, connected a sonic swatch to each particular image. A video outside the small room projected the sight and sound. Personally, I found the art-and-music thing too contrived, but the intimate space allowed for the close-up viewing of each framed work. Even without the related sounds the work resonated for me. The show ran May 31-July 31.

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Below: Tegeder's The Library of Abstract Sound, 130 framed drawings displayed on shelves in a small room inside the larger gallery space; image from the gallery website

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In June, on the same day I visited Richard Bottwin's studio in Dumbo, I stopped in to see Wish You Were Here 8, the annual postcard show at the A.I.R. Gallery. Though I have participated in this fundraising show in the past, I did not do so this time. I would have been in excellent company.
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Below you can see two installation shots, along with some of the postcards. Alas, I was not in town on opening night so I didn't get to be part of the acquisition frenzy. Most of the postcards--and all of the ones I really liked, see below--were red-dotted by the time I got to the gallery.
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.At the A.I.R. Gallery: Wish You Were Here 8, a fundraising exhibition with four-by-six-inch work

Below: Nancy Azara

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Above: Another view of the postcard show

Below: Paula Overbay and below that, Don Voisine

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Above: Geometries from Barbara Page and Joan Mastrangelo
Below: Molly Heron

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 Above: Nancy White

Below: Howardena Pindell, an original A.I.R. member in 1972

Above: Darla Bjork

Below: Dorothea Rockburne

 

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I'm not a fan of art auctions, but I think that postcard shows such as these are a great way to help an institution or cause, to exhibit with artists whose work you like (and for emerging artists, to exhibit with artists you might not otherwise have the opportunity to exhibit with yet), and perhaps even add to your own collection. It's the ultimate in equality: everyone's work sells for the same price, which means there's no undermining of your regular gallery prices. At this show the price was $40 or 50, I think (the gallery's website does not have info posted, and the gallery was closed for the summer when I was preparing this post).

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Next "What I Saw" installment: Studio Visits in New Jersey and Pennsylvania