Link to Post:
http://glasstire.com/2013/05/03/biggs-and-collings-suspicious-utopias-an-email-interview/
Michael Bise interviews Emma Biggs & Matthew Collings on the occasion of the exhibition Biggs and Collings: Suspicious Utopias at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, on view through May 11, 2013.
Biggs and Collings comment: "At the moment in art culture, any proposal to do with “form” is considered bad. As something transcendent, it is automatically linked with considerations of ideology and hegemony, and is seen as an illusion that allows the viewer to remain blind to social realities. Hot contemporary art is interested in plugging in directly to those, and in this kind of art, form can be anything so long as it is explicable in terms of that connection. We, on the other hand, believe that plugging-in to social realities is often an illusion. We think institutional critique, for example, has become formulaic. We address this problem in the textual component of our show in Fort Worth. Our paintings don’t avoid difficult issues but neither do they spell them out as directly readable propaganda. We look at the material and the tangible. Things have to work: the colour has to be objective, it has to be meaningful on colour terms – the same with shape, line, tone – all the elements we use. We attack mystification ruthlessly. If there are comfortable illusions, we see our work as a blow against them."
Link to Post:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2013/05/artseen/ted-stamm-paintings
Pac Pobric reviews a recent exhibition of paintings by Ted Stamm at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York.
Pobric writes that in 1973 "Stamm began to focus more fully on the overall structure of his work, and soon after he discarded the more traditional square and rectangular supports. His attention turned elsewhere: to the shapes of shadows, or the design of a baseball diamond. What Stamm saw in these models was an escape from the burden of composition. If he took anything from his earlier experiments, it was that the shape of a painting should be specific and that the problem with more traditional configurations was their seemingly accidental nature. New structures allowed him to more deliberately choose the shape of his work, opening an expanded range of possibilities for art that could feel altogether fresh."
Link to Post:
http://figureground.ca/2013/05/03/a-conversation-with-rebecca-campbell/
Julia Schwartz interviews painter Rebecca Campbell.
Campbell remarks: "There is no illusion I have that I’m inventing anything. I’m returning to something that exists for all of us, so for me, things like death, things like light, because they have happened always does not make them rote or irrelevant. We each have to face death. We don’t get out of that. Nobody gets a free pass. Does that make it not meaningful, like there’s nothing new? The idea of being avant garde or new—Great poetry uses the same set of words, it simply reconfigures them into a way that allows us to be present again with the words. I think that about painting often. People do wonderfully inventive things with form, but there is sort of a finite system that we work within, and I don’t find that to be a downfall."
Link to Post:
http://www.supremefiction.com/theidea/2013/05/studio-visit-james-little.html
James Panero photo-blogs a visit the the studio of painter James Little. The exhibition James Little: Recent Work will be on view at June Kelly Gallery, New York from May 16 - June 18, 2013.
Panero's photo essay documents Little's studio, materials, and process which come together, Panero writes, to realize "a rhythmic sense of composition." He continues: "Shapes, colors, and values all work together to energize the paintings. Little's process requires constant adjustments and an attention to detail. Given the time he puts into each work, he may only create four large paintings a year."
Link to Post:
http://burnaway.org/2013/05/on-painting-and-rome-interview-with-jackie-saccoccio/
Ridley Howard interviews painter Jackie Saccoccio about her work and experience of painting in Rome.
Asked about the reference to portraitss in her recent paintings, Saccoccio comments: "As a starting point, I focus on portrait painting, mostly works from the 1500-1600’s. The original impetus was going through the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. The presence elicited by some of those portraits—Holbein, Correggio and Ghirlandaio in particular—just got under my skin. So initially, I make notes about their paintings and then try to translate them into an abstract language with color and liquidity. Once I get painting though, its improvisational. The portraits are like one mark zooming way in, and then through to another space, unrestricted and untethered. Maybe celestial or spiritual, definitely transcendent. By making them more material, they become more psychological."
Link to Post:
http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2013/05/the-modern-art-notes-podcast-philip-taaffe/
Tyler Green talks to painter Philip Taaffe on the occasion of the exhibition Philip Taaffe Recent Work at Luhring Augustine, New York, on view from May 3 - Jun 15, 2013.
Commenting on the sources for his work, Taaffe remarks: "I have this idea in my head that I am referencing ancient art and the idea of the scribe. Several of the paintings in the exhibition are derived from what I think of as illuminated manuscript paintings, so in other words I am trying to get in touch with this earlier art historical reality and trying to update it in my own sense… the idea of the scribe, the idea of the mosaic patterning, has to do with ancient craftsmanship being brought up to date and being filtered through my own artistic desire, I suppose, in terms of what I would like to see in the world."
Link to Post:
http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=9781
Christian Maychack interviews painter Jim Gaylord about his work.
Gaylord comments: "[Rorschach is] a very relevant concept for me right now in terms of the symmetry that’s happening in some of the work. I was thinking about why a Rorschach image is symmetrical, and there seems to be a reference to the body—our bodies and faces are symmetrical, and we’re used to seeing symmetry in life. So, I think a Rorschach image is such a provocative psychological device, and makes sense to us on such an instinctive level, because of that. If we saw half of a Rorschach, it would just be meaningless blotches, but when there is order imposed on it via symmetry, our mind says that it’s something we should recognize, and we make the next leap."
Link to Post:
http://www.supremefiction.com/theidea/2013/05/gallery-chronicle-may-2013.html
James Panero reviews four painting shows in New York: Dana Gordon & John Mendelsohn: New Paintings at Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn (through May 12), Jane Freilicher: Painter Among Poets at Tibor de Nagy Gallery (through June 14), Fedele Spadafora: New Paintings at Slag Gallery, Brooklyn, and John Dubrow: Recent Work at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
Link to Post:
http://sameoldart.tumblr.com/post/49360163267/andrew-masullo-nonobjective-subjects
A review of the recent exhibition of paintings by Andrew Masullo at Mary Boone Gallery, New York.
"The formulaic can be described as a basic formal framework that is repeatedly applied with only minor variations from one work to another. If there is anything that I might call formulaic about Andrew Masullo’s work, it is his palette. Upon further examination, Masullo’s use of color is not formulaic after all, because it allows us to relate one painting to another. His colors come unmixed and although often described as bright, they have nothing in common with the unpleasantly sweet colors of Peter Halley. Masullo’s compositions, to the contrary, are never alike and remain in continuous flux. It is as if the paintings’ primary purpose is to defeat repetition and embrace contingency."
Link to Post:
http://newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/a-conversation-cordy-ryman/
Arthur Peña interviews artist Cordy Ryman on the occasion of the exhibition Cordy Ryman: Adaptive Radiation at Dodge Gallery, New York, on view through May 12, 2013.
Ryman comments: " I can say that I’m aware that I’m working with a certain visual language which is shared and not mine exclusively. As I’ve used this language over the last 20 years or so I’ve been amazed that this language has a sort of innate flexibility and infinite scope. It can fit any mood, time, and place and always find its own honest cords without being overly contrived. Over time my own personal vocabulary within that language continues to expand. I’ve gotten technically better at some things, probably. My comfort zone shifts from time to time and I get seduced periodically by certain solutions which is always a danger if I stay too long. But as I continue, more and more solutions come up leaving me with a deeper bag of tricks so to speak. Some moves are like old friends and will ALWAYS look and feel right to me. Other moves are like exciting new acquaintances which I want to see again but don’t know exactly what I think of yet."
