James Little at June Kelly Gallery

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This is what you see when you walk in and face the opposite wall. We'll start here for our tour around the gallery

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"Gene Davis with points," is how one painter described James Little's new body of work, De-Classified: New Paintings at the June Kelly gallery. He was joking, of course. Davis may be a visual antecedent, along with Barnett Newman and maybe Kenneth Noland, but I'd describe Little's new work as "Geometry with finesse."

Here is an artist who's making hard-edge paintings with a soft material, oil and wax in an encaustic-like mix, and making it work. Over and over again. He has combined lushness of material with preciseness of image. And he's working large. As someone who paints with wax, I can tell you that this combination of hard and soft, in large scale, is no easy achievement.

Continuing around the gallery (I have no info on the first work): Gypsy, 72.5 x 94 inches, and Satchmo's Answer to Truman, 76 x 98 inches; both 2008, oil and wax on canvas

Closer view of both, below

Formally, these resolutely abstract paintings would seem to be about figure and ground, or more precisely about the ambiguity of figure and ground, and thus about the ambiguity of space, and about color and control, flatness and expanse. And certainly about chromatic rhythm. In these paintings, sawtooth elements are placed in side-by-side in discrete segments (occasionally a Davis-like band of stripes changes the visual cadence). As the angles of different colors, sometimes near complementaries, slide into one another, a mirage-like shimmer hovers over the surface. It's in no way Op in the manner of Bridget Riley, but it is retinally invigorating.

Little's paintings are technically virtuosic and visually ravishing . His palette, saturated and opaque, has just a touch of white. It's far from pastel, yet there's an alluring softness to it.

Swoon. .

The show is up at the June Kelly Gallery in SoHo through June 9.

Continuing around from Satchmo's Answer to Truman is Near-Miss, 2008, oil and wax on canvas 72.5 x 94 inches

I was taken by the two framed paintings (not sure of medium) on paper between two larger oil and wax paintings. Beautifully realized, they nevertheless appear to be maquettes or precursors to some of the larger works. I've placed one at the bottom of this post, just under the larger painting it resembles

The Marriage of Western Civilization and the Jungle, with detail below showing the clean lines and luscious surface

We've completed our circuit of the gallery, with the entry at left the the 'V' painting on the right

Below: A small framed painting on paper relates to the large work on the far wall. The large painting is When Aaron Tied Ruth, 2008, oil and wax on canvas, 72.5 x 94 inches

Related reading and looking:
. Ben LaRocco's interview with James in the the current issue of The Brooklyn Rail
. Geoform, an online resource for abstract geometric art.
. Little's own website: www.jameslittleart.com

. Updated 7.14.09: James Kalm's video visit to the gallery followed by a studio visit with the artist

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My Year in Review

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I saw a lot of art in 2008 and wrote about as much of it as I could. What follows is My Top 10, culled from what I posted. It's alphabetical because there's no way I could possibly quantify such a variety of artists, images and issues.
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El Anatsui at Jack Shainman
Call them paintings, tapestries or sculptures. Strips of metal are pierced and held together with twisted wire, row-on-row, but the overall effect is one of fluidity and organic growth.




Bourgeois at the Guggenheim
This was the career retrospective of nearly 70 years of work by a woman who, had she been born Louis, would have been bigger than Picasso. I hate the ramps, but metaphorically this was the place to have had the show: Bourgeois's oeuvre is a towering achievement.
Image courtesy of The Guggenheim


Donovan at the ICA, Boston
I ended up writing just about her cubes in a twinned post with Jackie Winsor, but the whole show, from styrofoam cups to Mylar mounds to drinking straws was a marvel of, well, straw into gold.
Image from the Internet


Geo/Metric at MoMA
An under-the-radar gem that was heads above just about anything else MoMA showed this year. And because all the work was from the museum's collection, photography was allowed. I went overboard with four posts.
Foreground, Bridget Riley

Geometry and Color in General
. All Kinds of Geometry and Abstraction from Abts to Zox
. Acute Conditions, Part 1 and Part 2
. Thomas Nozkowski
. On the Geometric Trail Thomas Nozkowski at Pace Wildenstein
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Heilmann at the New Museum
The perfect yin and yang of loose-limbed geometry and aggressive color in the best new white box in town.
Image courtesy of the museum


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Kapoor at the ICA, Boston
That big red dome of gooey wax, continually slumping and being remade, was the existential showstopper at the ICA in Boston , but don't overlook two concurrent shows at Barbara Gladstone .
Image courtesy of the ICA

Material Color at the Hunterdon Art Museum
“While it is not the entire story, the idea of paint as a sub-stantial material is central in all of these works," says curator Mary Birmingham. (I'm one of the artists in this show.)
Detail of painting by Wil Jansen

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Miami
Say what you will about the humongopalooza that takes place in December, but where else in the country can you see such a range of art in such a concentrated space for 12 hours a day--and bump into everyone you know while doing it?

Objects, Big and Black
The Armory fair and its satellites in March were full of menacing, mysterious, or quirky objets noirs.

Andy Yoder's licorice pipe, at the Winkleman Gallery booth

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A Few Bests and Mosts

Best show that got no critical attention: No Chromophobia
Holland, Roberta, Ken, Jerry, where were you? Curator Rick Witter filled all six exhibitions spaces at OK Harris with paintings in which color, typically embodied via reductive geometry, was the unifying element. (If you left “Color Chart” at MoMA wondering where the other half of the art world was, it was here.)

Best film whose plot you knew that still had you holding your breath: Man on Wire
That's Philippe Pettite on a cable strung between the Trade Towers on the morning of August 4, 1974. I posted it on 9/11.

Photo by Jean Louis Blondeau

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Most Ill-Timed Panel: Is The Killer Art Market Killing Art?
Great discussion back in March but who knew that while they were talking, the banks were collapsing, the Dow was at the precipice, and the economy was about to tank? The Downturn in Chelsea became apparent
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Best Blasts From the Past in the galleries
Morris Louis and Al Held at Paul Kasmin
Jackie Winsor Cubes at Paula Cooper, image left
Tadasky and Anuskiewicz at D. Wigmore Fine Art



Best 2007 show that continued into 2008: Martin Puryear at MoMA to January 14
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Best Bargain of 2008 or any year: Visiting the galleries for free

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Best Surprise: The crowd that turned up for Art Bloggers at Red Dot
Sharon Butler (Two Coats of Paint) and I had convened a similar event in Miami 2007 with a small (but lively) turnout, so imagine our surprise when you actually stepped away from the computer and headed over to this one. Thanks to George Billis of Red Dot for providing the space.
Image courtesy of Hrag Vartanian

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And the Art Booger Goes to . . . . . MoMA's Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today
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The show was good, as far as it went. But let's get real. If color is being "reinvented" without women (6 artists out of 44) then it's really not being reinvented, is it?
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