Big Black Objects

Armory Show: Avery Preesman at Zeno Gallery, Antwerp. Ridder, Dood en Duviel, 2004-2005, triptych; oil, wax pigment, cement

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In fashion, two of anything is a coincidence; three is a trend. This axiom was on my mind as I began to see first two, then three, then more—many more—black objects at one fair after the other. Did anyone else notice this?

The objects themselves are varied, as you can see above and below. The cage-like object protruding from the wall at the Armory Show produced in me a primal frisson of fear, while the large cube at Pulse, which commanded the open space in the center of the venue, pushed the button on a mental soundtrack that began duuuuuh duuuuuh duuuuh DAA DAA.

The bituminous staircase at Scope was clever (though having seen the similarly constructed table and chair at Scope Miami, the surprise factor was missing here); the big fabric sphere, at the Armory Show, was oddly appealing; while the vaguely anthropomorphic sculptures made from polystyrene pellets and trashbags at Pulse evoked Rodin. There were even a few paintings that had sufficient objectness to be included here (one would be Chris Martin’s) or a shape that so reflected ones I was seeing in three dimensions that I included it.

Materials ranged from cloth to Mylar to packing peanuts and trashbags, charcoal to wax, coffee-cup lids to roofing sheets. As for the licorice pipe and shoes, the only recognizable objects in this lineup, they were just dementedly fabulous.

Cue the sound track of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and scroll down:

Closer view of Ridder, Dood en Duviel

Armory Show: Mindy Shapero at Breeder Gallery, Athens. No information given for the looping sculpture, foreground

Armory Show: Vincent Tavenne at Galerie Giti Nourbakshch, Berlin. No title given for the spherical sculpture, foreground, which is cloth over a modular wooden armature

Pulse: Nathaniel Rackowe at Bischoff/Weiss Gallery. Black Cube, 2007, corrugated bitumen roofing

Scope: Bahk Seon Ghi at Krampf Gallery, New York City. Charcoal installation, 2007, charcoal, nylon thread

Pulse: Johannes Girardoni at Lukas Feichtner Gallery, Vienna. Diptychon and Drip Box, both 2008, beeswax, pigments, wood

Bridge: Arthur Mednick at Ch'i Contemporary, Brooklyn. Three small metal sculptures, left, with a closeup of one below (the painting is by Norman Mooney):

Armory Show: Tara Donovan at Pace Wildenstein. This sculpture is actually silver Mylar, but the curving folds give it an inky blackness

Armory Show: Chris Martin at Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York City. I don't have the title for this painting, which has funny little raised discs placed all over the surface. The composition is very sculptural, don't you think? The sculptures to the left are by Jessica Stockholder

Armory Show: Jacob Dahlgren at Andrehn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm. Sydney, 2006, coffee-cup lids and aluminum.

Detail below

Pulse: Seung Wook Sim at Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago

Armory Show: Padraig Timoney at Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Napoli. Exhausted Quarry, 2008, pigment, rabbitskin glue, ink and wood on canvas; diptych

Pulse: Dan Steinhilber at G Fine Art, Washington, D.C. Untitled, 2008, polystyrene packing peanuts, polyurethane glue, polyethelyne hose, trashbags

Volta: Jesse Bercowetz at Galerie Michael Janssen, Cologne/Berlin

Pulse: Andy Yoder at Edward Winkleman Gallery, New York City. Above, Pipe; below, Licorice Shoes. The pipe is woven, like a basket. The shoes are 10 feet long.

On the Geometric Trail: Part Six

On the Geometric Trail, in Chelsea

On the Geometric Trail, Part Two: SoHo

On the Geometric Trail, Part Three: Isensee

On the Geometric Trail, Part Four: Two of a Kind

On the Geometric Trail, Part Five: McKenzie

Larry Zox at the Stephen Haller Gallery

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I promised a post on the geometry behind the wall against which these containers were stacked. Here it is: Larry Zox at the Stephen Haller Gallery. See the painting in the lower left corner of the picture below? We're entering the doorway there.

Geometry on both sides of the wall. We're entering the gallery at the lower left corner of the picture

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Below, as you enter: Esso Lexington, 1968, acrylic, epoxy on canvas, 79 x 64 inches. This is a composition that Zox mined over and over in different combinations of hues

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To be honest, I hadn’t known about Larry Zox until a conversation with Stephen, about a year before he mounted his first show of Zox’s work in 2005 . This was at the end of a relatively long career for Zox, one that had seen his work in numerous museums, even a retrospective at the Whitney. By the time that first show at Haller went up, Zox’s heyday was over. The show was stellar—a combination of his hard-edge geometry from the Sixties and Seventies, along with newer, softer compositions that introduced a looping, nicely lyrical line.

A second show followed in 2006, and then—I’m not sure of the exact chronology—Zox died. Wherever the lyrical color fields might have gone, we won’t know. Both bodies of work are in the current show. I’m partial to the Seventies geometries with tinted color, a nice hard/soft combination in which the edge is mollified by the gentler palette.

Looking into the main gallery: No information on the gallery website for this large horizontal painting, but it ranks among my favorites. The paint is rendered with an almost suede-looking surface that's at odds with the hard-edge shapes. I love that!

In the main gallery: No info on the gallery site for this painting, either, but I can tell you that it's part of the Diagonal series from the Sixties

Looking into the center gallery, far wall: Change of shape--and century. Hayward, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 57 inches

In the center gallery: No info on this large horizontal, but it resembles other work on the gallery's website from the Seventies

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Chris Martin at Mitchell-Innes and Nash

A few doors down at Mitchell-Innes and Nash, Chris Martin delivers his geometry with eye-searing color and collaged surfaces—glitter, newsprint, sponges (?)— that inform his shapes with a slight depth and dimensionality. While Zox’s painting seems to have come from his brain, Martin’s comes from straight from the gut. It’s raucus. It rocks.

Chris Martin: Untitled, 2007, oil, gel medium, collage on canvas, 64 x 59 inches

Chris Martin installation view at Mitchell-Innes and Nash: Seven Pointed Star, left, and Untitled, both shown below

In conversation with Craig Olson in a recent issue of The Brooklyn Rail, Martin said this about his process:

"These forms come from a long process of unconscious drawing. Then there is this desire to see it in paint—a kind of compulsive curiosity that drives me to choose colors, mix up buckets of paint, and prepare a surface. The actual performing of a painting involves giving oneself over to a series of actions and trusting in the body and what the body knows. And when I step back to look at this thing, I’m still trying to figure it out just like everybody else."

Chris Martin: Seven Pointed Star, 2007, oil and collage on canvas with gel medium, 54 x 45 inches

Below: Untitled, 2007, oil and collage on canvas, 54 x 49 inches

Next posts: Harriet Korman and Juan Usle