It's a Plane!

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Installation view of Plane Speaking. This is what you see when you walk into the gallery and look toward your left

 Clockwise from left: Don Voisine, Reed Danziger, Joanne Mattera, Don Christensen; foreground, Tilman

All images mine unless otherwise noted

Plane Speaking, up through February 12 at McKenzie Fine Art, is a 13-artist show that examines the use of planarity in abstraction. Valerie McKenzie curated the show, the fourth in a series of January exhibitions at her gallery that focuses on one particular aspect of abstraction. I’m one of the exhibiting artists so I wouldn’t presume to review it, but as a participant I’d like to show you around. I took a lot of pictures, many of which I’ve posted here and below.

Don Voisine, Defarge, 2010, oil on wood, 24 x 20 inches

Image via McKenzie Fine Art website

As is often the case, once an idea gets posited, it seems to be everywhere. I love when that happens. As I’ve been making my rounds, I’m seeing a lot of planar abstraction. There’s planarity that remains rigorously aligned with the two-dimensional surface, some that creates the illusion of pictorial depth, some that extends from the picture plane into three-dimensional space, and some fully dimensional. This report will continue into next week with work by Steven Alexander (one of the artists in this show) and Taro Suzuki, both at the Heidi Cho Gallery; Sven Lukin at Gary Snyder Project Space;  Richard Bottwin at OK Harris; Tatjana Busch at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaekel;  Don Dudley at I-20 and others. Let's begin.

Installation view as you turn slightly to your right. Foreground, Tilman sculpture; clockwise from left: Brent Hallard, Dannielle Tegeder, Ion Zupcu, Kim MacConnel

Kim MacConnel, 11 Bunny, 2010, enamel on wood, 18 x 18 inches

Image via McKenzie Fine Art website

Tilman, detail view of New York Slant, 2010, acrylic on MDF, 36 x 100 x 36 inches

Closer view of the right corner: Hallard, Tegeder, Zupcu

Dannielle Tegeder, Rust Conductor Plan with Sound Frictions and Chroma-Construction, 2008; gouache, ink, colored pencil, graphpite and pastel on paper, 39.5 x 27.5 inches

Image via McKenzie Fine Art website

Ion Zupcu, November 11, 2009, #2, 2009, silver gelatin print, 15x15 inches

Image via McKenzie Fine Art website

Brent Hallard,  Nick of Red and Nick of Yellow, each 2010, acrylic on aluminum, 13 x 16.5 inches

Swinging around into the far corner, clockwise from left: Danziger, Mattera, Christensen; Tilman in foreground

Danziger, Mattera, Christensen (with a little peek of Sara Eichner's painting, far left)

Don Christensen, Timmy's Dilemma, 2010, acrylic on wood, wire, clamps; 62 x 32 x 24 inches

There's an exquisite tug of war between the magenta element that rises from the flat surface, which is painted to suggest a faceted diamond, and the actual dimensionality of the sculpture. (Can you  tell that the painting surface is the top of a table?)

An installation of six paintings from my ongoing Silk Road series

Below: Silk Road 148, 2010, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

Reed Danziger, Untitled, 2009, oil, pencil, pigment, shellac on paper on wood; 32 x 46 inches

This corner of the gallery, with work by Steven Alexander and Sara Eichner,  is not visible from the entrance

Steven Alexander,  Mother Tongue #8, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches

Two from Sara Eichner

Above: Green Hexagons, 2009, oil and pencil on panel, 15 x 15 inches; image via the McKenzie Fine Art website

Below: Hexagon Intersection (Tan on Yellow), 2008, oil and pencil on paper, 15 x 25.75 inches

With Eichner's work to your back, this is the view looking toward the entrance

Below: the installation view to the right of the door

From right:  Heather Hutchison, Tilman, Karen Schifano, Don Voisine; Tilman sculpture, foreground

Heather Hutchison, True Fullness, 10.5 x 10.75 x 4.25 inches; and Resurrection,  12.25 x 11.5 x 2.5 inches; both 2010, enamel on acrylic sheet

Angled view of Hutchison's True Fullness

Angled view of Tilman's Stack, 2010, lacquer on MDF board, 16.5 x 12/75 x 3.25 inches

Karen Schifano,  New House, 2008, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches

Below: Schifano with her rectilinear backpack

For more images and a gallery essay, click here.

I'll have more planar work to show you next week.