X Marks the Spot: Vivid, Pavers, Mendieta

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In Vivid:  Sigrid Sandstrom, Bruce, 2010, acrylic on board, 18x14 inches

Before I head off to Miami, I want to focus on the X chromosome. There has always been good painting and sculpture by women, of course, but the past few months in New York there have been a number of really good shows as well.  Previous posts on this blog (here, here, here, here and here) have noted some of those shows.

In this post I bring you installation images from three shows, up now.

Vivid: Female Currents in Painting
The show, curated by independent curator Janet Phelps, is at the fabulous new Schroeder Romero and Shredder Gallery on 26th Street.  Springing from what the gallery describes as a “post-everything” sensibility, the exhibition includes formalist abstraction to the more expressionist and representational. I'm probably too rooted in formalist abstraction to love it all, but that's beside the point. This is an excellent survey. Phelps drew from a list of about 150 artists, noting in conversation that she could easily have created an entirely different and equally strong show, so I'm guessing there's at least the possibility of a Part 2 in our future. Lisa Schroeder and Sara Jo Romero, what say you? 

In Vivid, from left: Angela Dufresne, two by Mala Iqbal, Vera Iliatova, two by Rosanna Bruno; on the other side of the door, Nicola Tyson, Andrea Champlin

Jennifer Coates, Iona Rozeal Brown, Carrie Moyer, Jackie Gendel.

Brown and Moyer; foreground,  Rebecca Chamberlain; Elizabeth Bonaventura, Judith Linhares.

Foreground, Dona Nelson.

Barbara Takenaga, Wendy White; distance, Karen Heagle

On the foreground wall: Harriet Korman, three by Laylah Ali
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Pavers
In the Shredder half of the gallery is the the related exhibition of painters and sculptors who bushwacked their way into visibility in two previous generations. This list includes the late Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Guggenheim founder, Hilla Rebay, as well as contemporary powerhouses Valerie Jaudon, Louise Fishman and Melissa Meyer.

In Pavers, from left: Dorothy Morang, two small paintings by Susanna Coffey, Evelyn Twitchell, Melissa Meyer.

Go see this dual show, up through January 22. If you can’t, click on the boldface titles for images of work in the respective shows.

Ana Mendieta: Documentation and Artwork 1972-2010
Across the street at Galerie Lelong, stop in to see the videos, drawings, photographs and a recreated installation of this seminal--or should I say, ovular--artist. The show marks the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death (at 36, from a high-rise fall, under questionable circumstances, though her husband, the sculptor Carl Andre, was acquitted of murder). Given the nature of her death, Mendieta’s body-based art, strong and poetic in equal measure, becomes more archetypal over time.

  Anima, 1982,  14 black rock crystals laid in soil and  grass,  55 x 25 1/2 inches

Left: Untitled (Silueta Series, Mexico), 1976, estate print 1991, 

20 x 16 inches

Right: El Ixchell Negro, 1977, lifetime color photograph mounted on board, 20 x 13 1/4 inches

The show is up only through December 11. Get there if you can, or click here for more info and the gallery’s installation images.