Joan Snyder: A Year in the Painting Life

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Installation view into the large main gallery, with Brooklyn, Wol, Oh April and  Big Blue
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Joan Snyder has been busy. Her show, A Year in the Painting Life, at Betty Cuningham in Chelsea, offers a look at what she worked on during the past 365 days. The number of paintings is impressive, both in number (15) and in size (the cenerpiece of the show, Oh April, is 54 by 210 inches, almost 18 feet wide).

Brooklyn, 2010; acrylic, pastel, burlap, fabric, herbs and rosebuds on linen, 54 x 72 inches

If I had to describe Joan Snyder’s painting to someone who had never seen it before, I would call it "Woodstock abstract expressionism"—fields of rosebuds, petals, seeds, herbs, straw and mud in concert with muscular brushwork, lovely colors and raggy burlap. (Maybe it's no coincidence that she lives part time in Woodstock?) Her paintings almost always feel like springtime—or more precisely, like the point in a cycle that has just ended with or is just about to begin with, spring. I don’t love every painting, but I respect Snyder’s unique vision and means of expression, which has been consistent for over 40 years. And you can get lost up close in her surfaces.
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This wall is at your shoulders when you walk into the main gallery

At right: The Fall with Other Things in Mind, 2009; oil, acrylic, papier mache, cloth, seeds, dried flowers and herbs on linen; 54 x 72 inches ..

Information unavailable on website for painting in foreground. The gallery website shows a different painting in its place. I love the palette of this one

View between front gallery and main gallery

Left: Summer Fugue, 2010; oil, acrylic, papier mache, cord, wooden frame, burlap, silk on linen and wood panels

Right: Are Mine, 2010; oil, glitter, rosebuds and burlap on panel, 30 x 30 inches.

Detail of Are Mine below:

A Year in the Painting Life is up through October 30. Installation shots on the gallery website are plentiful. Navigating it is tortuous; there's a small window that requires you to scroll up and down as well as back and forth. But stick with it. Snyder's work is worth the inconvenience of the site.

Entanglements

Judy Pfaff at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe through October 16

No information on the gallery website for this work 

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As an artist who finds inspiration in the order of the grid, I can get a bit twitchy around tangles. Judy Pfaff and Jennifer Steinkamp both have solo exhibitions in Chelsea in which entangled elements are the essence of the work.

Judy Pfaff’s show, Five Decades, I love. No twitching here. In the front gallery of Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe four large wall-hung sculptures push out into the center of the room. I wish the space were larger so that each work could have more breathing room; on the other hand, the proximity of the works pulls you into an intimate relationship with each one. There’s nothing you can do but get up close and personal. And for Pfaff’s work, that means getting to peer past the burgeoning form into the structure of the work itself.
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Detail of the work shown top

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Judy Pfaff: Es Possible, 1989, painted wiggle board and steel, 96 x 144 x 48 inches. Detail below:

The show is a survey, with work from the Seventies on. The hallway features prints, including some with encaustic, which give them a materiality in two dimensions. The back gallery, illuminated by a large skylight, holds  two works, one a single free-hanging work, linear and volumetric, rather more like dimensional drawing than scuplture. Five Decades is up through October 16.

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Judy Pfaff: Los Voces, 1992, lacquered steel, steel, aluminum wire, 96 x 123 x 96 inches

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Jennifer Steinkamp’s installation at Lehman Maupin, on the other hand, made me twitch. Normally I enjoy Steinkamp’s work. This time, not so much (though I love the simplicity of the installation). Three videos, one projected on each of the gallery’s walls, feature video animations of  kinetic interlacements. My first association was to knitting, but as the blue and red strands slithered and undulated across the screen, the associations became more organic—veins and arteries, then worms and eels. It’s not a show you want to see when you’re tripping, I’ll tell you that. It’s up through October 23.

Above and below: Jennifer Steinkamp at Lehman Maupin

 Both works are from the Premature series

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By chance, at the James Cohan Gallery across the street, one of Ingrid Calame’s paintings  featured a similar—and altogether more inviting—tangle. While the exhibition features some of Calame’s tradmark tracings, the artist also showed oil-on-aluminam-panel paintings derived from the markings on a factory floor. The show, Swing Shift, ran through October 9. 

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Ingrid Calame at James Cohan Gallery: Arcelor Mittal Steel Shipping Building One, Right Nos. 274, 275, 277, 2010, oil on aluminum, 36 X 72 inches
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Installation view below 

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Marketing Mondays: CV vs Resume vs Bio

CV? Résumé? Bio?

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After two requests in the past four months to trim my résumé (“edit,” is the diplomatic term), I’m wondering why we spend the first half of our careers working to build it up only to be asked, ever so kindly, to cut it down. I’ve trimmed a christmas tree. I’ve trimmed hedges. I’ve trimmed my toenails and my hair. But I’m feeling like I want to hold onto my long, luxurious résumé. I’ve worked hard to grow this thing!

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One dealer I work with said, “No collector wants to read through that long list.” Another wants my résumé to be the same length as the other artists for the gallery book. “We’ll have the long version for anyone who’s interested.” Uh, I guess that won’t be the collectors.

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However, after researching the topic for this post, I see that those dealers are not out of line with their request for a short résumé. According to the College Art Association’s guidelines for visual artists: “It is meant to be short and simple to review . . .one to four pages.”.
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Here are a few definitions that should clarify our work summaries:.
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Curriculum Vitae, also known as a cv: A summary of one's education, professional history, and job qualifications. (I love this: It’s fom the Latin, the course—i.e. racetrack—of life).

The College Art Association, writing for visual artists, describes the “long cv” as “a framework on which to build” your professional academic history. Visual artists, take note: "Please remember that there is a difference between a curriculum vitae and the artist résumé. The curriculum vitae is a record of all of your professional activities and is intended for use in academic situations. The artist résumé is an abbreviated document that is used in conjunction with commercial galleries, the search for exhibition opportunities, and certain grant applications. It is typically one to four pages in length.".
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Résumé: A brief account of one's professional or work experience and qualifications. It is essentially a short cv but with an emphasis on exhibition, award and biliography as opposed to academic issues such as teaching and committees. The CAA offers guidelines here.
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Biography, or bio: A brief narrative account of one’s life and career. Most artists and dealers tend to use bio and résumé interchangeably, so it’s a good idea, if someone requests your “bio,” to confirm whether they are looking for a narrative or the easier-to-peruse résumé..

Here’s a great example of an artist’s bio: "Andrea Polli is a digital media artist living in New Mexico. Her work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Polli's work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally, has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. Her work has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News, NY Arts and others. She has published two book chapters, several audio CDs, DVDs and many papers in print including MIT Press and Cambridge University Press journals."

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As you can see, this opening paragraph includes elements of the artist statement and résumé. You can read more here.

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Next week, we can talk about the résumé itself—at what point does “Education” become less important than “Solo Exhibitions,” for instance? And how do midcareer artists deal with the age issue? But for now . . .

Over to you: Do you keep long and short versions of a résumé? If you teach, do you also maintain the conventional cv? And are you confounded when faced with a request to write a bonafide bio?

My New Best Friends

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Joanne Mattera, Diamond Life, 2010, encaustic on panel, 17 x 17 inches

See an installation shot here (scroll down until you come to it)

I am really excited about my diamonds. No, not those shiny compressed carbon things. My new paintings. Of course I was aware of the shape (Noland's canvases are classic), but it's something else again when you take your own work, skew it, and see how the visual energy changes as those corners start pushing into the space beyond their borders as well as reorienting your attention to the field within in.

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And wouldn’t you know that as soon as I turned my square 45 degrees, I started to see a ton of other art out there with the same skew, as well as rhomboids with varying degrees of elongation. I love when that happens.

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Say hello to some of my gems and a few of my new best friends.

Working installation on my studio wall, of Soie, gouache on Arches 140 hot-press, each 22 x 30 inches, with a few individual shots below:
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Soie 14


Soie 4


Soie 22

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I saw most of the following works in a span of a couple of days while I was making my rounds in Chelsea, but to curate the post more fully I photographed a Brancusi and a Mondrian while at MoMA, pulled two from the Internet, and went back into my archives for another.
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Brent Birnbaum, from the exhibition Used Books, organized by Ryan Frank, at the Curatorial Research Lab at Edward Winkleman through October 9
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Polly Apfelbaum, Off Colour, an installation at D'Amelio Terras, through October 23.
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James Lahey, installation view of Guido's Rhombus, at J. Cacciola, through October 31.
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Sol Lewitt at James Cohan (it's been up in the back gallery for a few months)
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Ken Sofer, Twaek, 2010, acrylic on wood, 29.5 x23.5 inches at the Howard Scott Gallery 25th Anniversary Exhibition, through October 16.
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Larry Zox, acrylic on canvas, in the back gallery at the Stephen Haller Gallery
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Don Voisine, Weave, 2009, oil on wood, 16 x 26 inches, via the McKenzie Fine Art website (Read my report of the artist's 2009 solo here.).


Brancusi, Endless Column (Version 1), 1918, oak, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City
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Grace DeGennaro, gouache on okawara paper, from her exhibition Return to the Source at the Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Mass., last year. (Read my report here)
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Ken Weathersby, 179 (twn L and R), 2010, acrylic paint film with removed area over wood scaffold over linen, each 24 x 19 shown together
(I shot this photo during a recent studio visit which will be the subject of a future post. Click here for better images on the artist's website)
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Julie Karabenick, Composition 92, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 45 x 45 inches; image from David Richard Contemporary Art, Santa Fe.

Mondrian, Tableau 1: Losenge with Four Lines and Gray, 1926, oil on canvas, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City

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Lines and Curves

Two current exhibitions take us through very different journeys with color and geometry: Archeo, Kim Uchiyama at Lohin Geduld (up through October 9) , and Recent Paintings, Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner (up through the 30^th). .
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Kim Uchiyama at Lohin Geduld: View on the wall to the right as you enter. The rhythm of the paintings is heightened by their uniform size and the spacing of each work in the installation ..

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Kim Uchiyama shows easel-size paintings, all 20 x 16 inches, oil on canvas. Her approach is direct: She uses the format of the stripe to create color relationships. These are not Gene Davis stripes of flat uninflected color, nor are they Sean Scully bands of heavy impasto. They are Uchiyama stripes: varied-width bands of color, luminous and chromatically resonant, applied horizontally—sometimes with a light and flat touch, other times with a heavily laden brush. I don’t know whether or not these paintings began as sketches, but it’s clear Uchiyama developed them intuitively. Indeed, not only have the paintings been built up, hue over hue with hints of color previously laid down, they have also been scraped back selectively, offering "overheard" glimpses of studio conversations that have taken place between the artist and work the over time..

.Swinging around counter clockwise, this is the view that faces you when you enter

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Continuing counterclockwise, with the support column as your marker, you see the work on the wall to the left of the entryway. I've taken you around this way because I want to show you the painting just to the right of the column . . .

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Stratum, 2008-10, oil on canvas

All of the paintings in this show offer glimpses of their archeology (and I like them all), but I happened to have a good detail of this one: .

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Uchiyama has cannily combined the modernist stripe with the most suggestive element of landscape painting: the horizon. It's not the line itself that suggests landscape but her handling of the view into and beyond it by means of the layering and scraping. What's more, she has compressed into each painting any number of views from different times of day, of ocean and land, and of the light or darkness that always lies tantalizingly just beyond. Al di la, the Italians call it, over there. It's also another way of saying heaven.

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At Zwirner, Susan Frecon shows large paintings, nine feet high, which are composed of two rectangular panels placed one above the other. The result is a format longer than it is wide, with a horizontal that bisects each painting. Here that bisecting line can read as a horizon, so it’s a struggle to see beyond the "mountains" and "lakes" of her curved forms. I don’t want landscape associations to get in the way of her reductive compositions—as everything I have read about the work tells me that is not her intention—but with their earth colors and mineral pigments, the paintings are very much rooted to the notion of terrestrial.

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While her hues have a deep richness, Frecon is not a colorist. In part because the often high gloss of the oil requires you to move around each painting to find a suitable viewing spot, there’s a lot of physical interaction with each work. When you do connect, it’s not ultimately about the hue but about the relationships of the curve to that insistent horizontal, as well as to the varying curves of the arcs themselves. Color heightens those relationships, of course.

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Above: View as you enter the gallery with composition in four colors 2 in the foreground . . .
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. . . with a closer look, below, below at the painting on the far wall:
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.pompeiian persian, 2010

All the works are oil on panel, 108 x 87 3/8 inches, composed of two panels .

View into the far gallery; image from the gallery website
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This is difficult work to photograph. That brown painting in the distance is actually the painting posted individually above, and I'm pretty sure that the one just to its right in this image is, soforouge, which was included in the recent Whitney Biennial


This painting, cathedral series, variation 6, 2010, is on the wall facing the painting that opens this section. You can see its subtleties better in the image below:
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.composition in four colors, 1, 2009

From the main gallery, you walk through this hallway to get to the viewing room where the small paintings are. A tour of the exhibition on the gallery website may help orient you better than these few images can
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I’m impressed by the muscle and intent of the large paintings, but it’s to the small studies that I am most compellingly drawn. So intimate they are, so completely at one with color, shape and scale. I love them.

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Above and below, cathedral series, variation 4, 2009, oil on wood panel, 14 7/8 x 12 x 1 inches
 

Marketing Mondays: The Academic Gallery, Part 2

Academic Galleries, Part 1

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No, this is not a museum gallery or a bluechip commercial space. It's the OSilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville, Westchester County, about 15 miles from Manhattan

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In Part 1 last week: Our gallery directors discussed the value to artists of an academic gallery show, and they talked about how they select artists for exhibition. This week they offer advice and observation.
Our experts: Patricia Miranda, artist, educator, and director of the OSilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York; Jane Allen Nodine, artist, professor of art, and director of the Curtis R. Harley Gallery at the University of South Carolina Upstate, in Spartanburg, South Carolina
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What advice would you offer artists thinking about submitting work to an academic gallery?Nodine: Visit academic galleries in your area and whenever you travel. Look online to see the reputation and exhibition history of an academic gallery, and if it appeals to you, look at their submission guidelines. Introduce yourself to gallery directors and put them on your mailing lists. Like their commercial counterparts, academic galleries have particular goals or a mission, so not all college and university galleries will be a viable option for you. You have to do your homework, but it can pay back in numerous constructive ways.

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Miranda: I really do look at work that artists send. Artists should keep in mind that we work far in advance and are more likely to plan thematic group shows, although this is not always the case. Organized, professional packages really do make a huge difference, and in addition to a regular submission packet, I like to be updated about ongoing work. Curators often like to watch an artist’s work for a while before choosing to exhibit it, to see an artist grow and develop, and to see if that artist is a good fit for the gallery or a particular show.
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How does the academic gallery fit in with the local/regional art scene?
Miranda: Concordia is less than 15 miles from Manhattan, so we are surrounded by a wealth of culture and art. We exhibit local as well as regional and international artists, and we're always striving to make connections with local institutions, such as the Hudson River Museum, as well as local arts organizations and community groups. This past summer we mounted a historical exhibition about WWI and II veterans from Bronxville, Eastchester and Tuckahoe—and the West Point Jazz Band performed to a large community response. I think following a show of contemporary women artists from South Asia [the major spring exhibition] with a regional historical show is one of the unique things a gallery in an academic institution can do.
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.Nodine: We are a state university located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, about an hour south of Charlotte, North Carolina. There are three private colleges in our city, and each has one or two galleries with scheduled exhibitions. There is a community art museum, several commercial galleries, an artist-in-residence program with alternative space gallery, and an artist cooperative with exhibition space, which is a rather active art scene for a city of about 40,000. Since we are not tied to the sales of work, we are freer to venture into the margins. Viewers know there will be educational support materials to accompany exhibits, or the artist will be present to speak about the work. All of the galleries in town know each other, and I find we typically complement actives in some manner.
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Miranda: I always think of Holland Cotter's article for The New York Times, Why University Museums Matter. He wrote: "University museums are unlike other museums . . . They are, before all else, teaching instruments intended for hands-on use by students and scholars. As such, they often house objects that are considered of second- and third-tier value at auction but that fill out a deep and detailed account of cultural history."
.I love this description, that we exhibit work which offers an important ingredient to our cultural conversation. We are more grassroots, more responsive, perhaps, to the idea that art is like any other language--something that needs time, needs nurturing and education--and that a lot of work has value in this dialogue beyond the blockbuster show or simply a monetary one. Art is after all, about a dialogue between the artists, their environment and experience, and the world around them. I believe academic galleries do justice to that conversation.
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Of course, you don't want to inundate curators with info, email or phone calls. We generally have extremely an small staff covering an enormous amount of ground, and it can seem invasive to send too much. But I genuinely do like to get exhibition announcements, and I will try and see shows when I can. I do keep artists in mind for long periods of time, and keeping me updated is a good way to be sure of that. Also, I always find it interesting when an artist proposes an idea for a thematic exhibition that is larger than his or her own work, an idea for a show that might open up a new subject or explore an old one in a new way. Most artists don't curate their own shows, but an artist's good idea might result in an exhibition including their work. As curators we are always listening for new ideas. In 2011 we will have an eco-arts exhibition, exploring new ways artists use their work to speak about the environment, a show that came about through such conversations with artists.
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Update 10.11.10:  Read about Nancy Azara's show at the University College Art Gallery of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Click here for article and pics.

Above: Nancy Azara creating work for her show, Spirit Taking Form: Rubbings, Tracings and Carvings," at Fairleight Dickingson University in Teaneck, New Jersey

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Below, the artist installing one work

So, The Recession is Over

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If the Liu Xiaodong solo at Mary Boone in Chelsea is any indication, the good times are rolling back in. .

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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?

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OK, time to play the first installment of that political game called, Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Christine O'Donnell: I am a Christian but I have "dabbled" in witchcraft. I want to serve in the United States Senate, yet I say things like, "If we're descended from apes, how come they haven't yet evolved into humans?"
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to Dumb Ass: Wicca is an earth-based spirituality that reveres nature, including our evolutionary history. However, there is at least one mama grizzly that has evolved into a human. She wears lipstick and talks to tea bags. You wanna refudiate that?
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Update 10.2.10: No wonder she doesn't want to believe in evolution. She's descended from Bozo the Clown! True story. (Here's how my buddy Chris Rywalt sums it it: "One is a comic performer enacting hilarious and stupid tricks for an uneducated audience, and the other one is Bozo the Clown.")
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Reverend Eddie Long: I lead a megachurch in Atlanta, where I frequently rail that homosexuality is "immoral." Yet here I am photographing myself with my i-Phone while wearing my gym clothes so that I can email the pics to young boys..
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to Hypocrite: Homosexuality is part of the great spectrum of nature. What's "immoral" is telling your congregation one thing and doing another, especially when it (allegedly) involves foisting yourself onto unwilling underage male partners. By the way, the necklace doesn't go with the spandex.
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Senate Minority Leader John Boehner: I am a Republican, which by current action virtually ensures that most people of color will receive a less-than-fair break financially and societally. Yet I myself am a person of color. Orange.
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Am I a Hypocrite, a Dumb Ass or an A-Hole?
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Note to A-Hole: There's an "Orange and Proud" group you may wish to join. They're called pumpkins.