Link to Post:
http://elisabethcondon.blogspot.com/2013/04/basquiat-using-similar-opaque-covering.html
Elisabeth Condon photo blogs visits to recent and current painting shows in Chelsea including two shows at Gagosian, Jean-Michel Basquiat (through April 6) and Helen Frankenthaler (through April 13), Painting Advanced at Edward Thorp (through April 20), Al Held at Cheim and Read (through April 20), Susanna Heller at Magnan Metz (through April 20), Barkley Hendricks at Jack Shainman (through April 6), and several images of paintings by Mary Jones recently on view in her studio exhibition.
Link to Post:
http://tamarzinn.blogspot.com/2013/03/painting-in-black-and-white.html
Tamar Zinn considers the limitations and potential of painting in black and white.
Zinn writes that "painting in black and white is not the same as thinking in black and white. By painting in black and white, the artist has pared down one part of image-making -- color choice, but rather than certainty we are offered a range of possibilities. Is the blackness something concrete or is it atmospheric? Does whiteness always connote a void? Can blackness and whiteness possess many of the same qualities? And of course, labeling colors simply as 'black' or 'white' is simplistic, as there are many variations of blackness and whiteness. Although the palette is limited to black and white, the experience of seeing is complex."
Link to Post:
http://www.nysun.com/arts/two-approaches-to-abstraction/88239/
Xico Greenwald visits two abstract painting exhibitions: Thornton Willis: Steps at Elizabeth Harris Gallery (through April 13) and Al Held: Alphabet Paintings at Cheim & Read (through April 20).
Greenwald writes that despite "superficial similarities, the works on display reflect the strikingly different temperaments and intentions of two ambitious abstract artists... Willis’ work comes out of a belief that 'painting is mystical, even magical,' whereas Held’s paintings, enormous objects influenced by Minimalism’s principle of Gestalt and objecthood, have been willed into existence. Gallery visitors have a chance to see where their allegiance lies."
Submitted by Brett Baker on March 22, 2013
Al Held, The Yellow X, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 144 inches: Installation View, Al Held: Alphabet Paintings at Cheim & Read, New York (image courtesy of Cheim & Read)
Al Held: Alphabet Paintings is on view at Cheim & Read, New York through April 20, 2013.
Al Held's paintings of the early to mid 60s are now on view at Cheim & Read. In them, he abandons the physical monumentality previously achieved through the accretion of heavy layers of oil paint in favor of a more visual, graphic monumentality. This graphic monumentality comes from vigorously painted architectonic arrangements of letterforms painted on near-mural scale canvases.
Held denied a metaphorical interest in the letters; nevertheless, the pictorial device of singling out initials for monumental treatment has precedent, most notably in Celtic illuminated manuscript painting, where the scale and lavish decoration of the initial letter alert the reader to the import of the text that follows. Through their intricate design, these "initials" require concentration and pull the reader into a meditative state. They also function as visual thresholds opening outward and inviting the reader to consider the sacred worlds beyond the boundaries of the page and of earth, itself.
In much Abstract Expressionist painting of the 50s, notably paintings by Rothko and Newman, expanded abstract visual fields reflect the viewer's gaze, conjuring an awareness of self. John Yau, however, recently noted that the forms in Held's early 60s paintings, such as The Yellow X, extend beyond the picture plane, creating an awareness of the environment beyond the canvas edge. "Extending off the painting’s physical edges," Yau writes, "the X is simultaneously skewed and stable, conveying a space that hints at a realm beyond and behind the picture plane."
Making paintings that pointed outward, thresholds onto the physical world, was a stated interest of Held's. He accomplished this through drawing, as described by Yau, and also through color. Held himself noted, in a 1975 interview with Paul Cummings, that he was interested in "'taxicab' colors, loud, crass" - the colors of the city.
More of Held's and Cummings' discussion of the "Alphabet" paintings is below:
Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2013/03/painting-in-chelsea.html
Paul Behnke photo blogs visits to several painting shows on view in Chelsea in March, including: Andrew Masullo at Mary Boone Gallery (through April 27), Baker Overstreet: Frown Upside Down at Fredericks & Freiser (through March 30), Hope Gangloff at Susan Inglett Gallery (through March 23), and Al Held: Alphabet Paintings Cheim & Read (through April 20).
Behnke's photos demonstrate the wide range of painting, in both subject and scale, currently on view in New York.
Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2013/03/al-held-alphabet-paintings-cheim-read.html
Paul Behnke blogs about the striking physicality of Al Held's Alphabet Paintings, on view at Cheim & Read, New York through April 20, 2013.
Behnke writes: "an aspect of the work that was particularly meaningful to me - the edges of the canvas where they wrap around the stretchers. These random details are important to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, the haphazard smudges and smears emphasize the painterliness of these humongous works. This was my first look at these paintings 'in the flesh' and I was surprised at the extent to which the artist's hand was evident. The sides of the canvas, along with brush marks, and the often thick, clotted, and revised surfaces force the paintings to inhabit a no - man's land between minimal, hard edged, conceptually driven work and a more improvazational approach most often associated with the New York School that brings process to the fore."
Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-lure-of-paris-loretta-howard-gallery.html
Paul Behnke photoblogs the recent exhibition The Lure of Paris at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York. The show highlights the lesser known influence of Paris on mid-century American artists and features work by Biala, Norman Bluhm, Ed Clark, Harold Cousins, Beauford Delaney, Sam Francis, Shirley Goldfarb, Cleve Gray, Al Held, Shirley Jaffe, Conrad Marca-Relli, Joan Mitchell, Jules Olitski, Milton Resnick, Jean-Paul Riopelle, George Sugarman, and Jack Youngerman.
Sol Ostrow writes in the catalogue: "In the 1950s, with the triumph of the New York School, the United States for the first time in history had produced visual art of international consequence. Yet, artists from the United States and from all over Europe continued to flock to Paris just as the center of the western art world was shifting to New York... Their reasons varied. Some saw it as an opportunity to be cosmopolitan or to satisfy their wanderlust; others may have imagined the Paris of Le Jazz Hot, café society, and the romance of the pre-war avant-garde, or the chance to see works by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, etc., that they knew only from black and white reproductions. In most cases the women artists had accompanied their significant others, while like the generation before them, the Afro-American artists, sought to escape the racism that was endemic in the States."
Link to Post:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2010/02/artseen/pearlsteinheld-five-decades
Brooklyn Rail editor Phong Bui reviews Pearlstein/Held: Five Decades at Bett Cuningham Gallery, November 19, 2009 - February 13, 2010.
