Jennifer Wynne Reeves

Artist Jennifer Wynne Reeves passed away two days ago. She was and will remain a painter of passionate truth, who leaves a legacy of paintings and writings treasured by many.

Sharon Butler posts on Two Coats of Paint in honor of Jennifer. The link is here:
Two Coats of Paint: Jennifer Wynne Reeves Prayer for Art, June 2014

More links about Jennifer here:
Painters Table list of JRW blog items

I first met Jennifer on a collaborative project artist Adelheid Mers and I organized in Soho just after 9/11/2001, at 450 Broadway. Twelve artists were invited for a two-week project in which each artist took over the gallery for a day in response to what came before. Jennifer participated as a guest of Eung Ho Park (I believe), and wrote a Picasso quote on the wall about facing the horror of the empty space after war. We reconnected after her excellent 2009 exhibition at Galeria Ramis Barquet for dinner and studio visits and discussed our shared knowledge of Christian Science. She told me about how she moved from Illinois to New York. She was generous in the studio and equally so in life.

She urged me to try thick paint, which I did. Transporting the painting one summer, the rental truck was hit, and the painting spent some hours on a blistering sidewalk. The thick paint began to fall off and was left in a superstore parking lot, somewhere south of New York.

I will post a picture and an essay in a subsequent edit of this post.

Long Museum, West Bund

Chen Zhen, left, Wu Genda, right

A solid overview of 1980s and 1990s Chinese painting. To quote Time Out Shanghai, "This impressive sister venue to the Long Museum in Pudong provides a further showcase of investment tycoon Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei's enormous private art collection. The first collectors from Mainland China to be included in the ARTnews 200 Top Collectors list, the pair have spent twenty years purchasing Chinese works of contemporary and historical art."

Smoke painting by Cai Guo-Qiang--my favorite work there.

Ye Yongching, Painting and Bird, 2010

Zhou Chunya, rock paintings, 1999

Ding Yi - Appearance of Crosses, 2007

Ding Yi - detail

Ding Yi - also represented at the Yuz with large paintings.

Zhou Zietai, 2003 - From the Movie Star Series

Yu Hong, Two of Us No. 2, 2007

A Yu Hong portrait series from the 1990s

Yue Minjun--shades of Alex Katz in a strange way.

Song Yonghong, Light, 1998

Liu Wei, Landscape, 2004

Li Songsong, In God We Trust, 2006

Piece de resistance

Lin Zhaoyang, Youth Never Returns, 1998

One of three ambitious sculptures on view

Paintings awaiting storage or shipment in a back stairwell

Leaving off where we began: Chen Zhen

Myth/History: exhibition at mega collector Budi Tek's new Yuz Museum, Shanghai outpost

Collector Budi Tek's Yuz Foundation opens a new, 9,000 s.f. venue in Shanghai, in addition to the one in Jakarta, Indonesia. The collection is curated by Wu Hung and Martina Koeppel-Yang, among others.
The first images here establish scale. Above, a John Chamberlain-like block of detritus--instead of metal cars, burnt, heaped animal corpses.

Themes of loss and death continue in Adel Abdessemed's three aircraft, pretzeled together and  reminiscent of, in form if not mood, Nancy Rubin's exuberant works.

The first thing you see walking through the door: a large Buddha's hand. This is the back. The front has a symbol emblazoned upon it.

Another view of the planes, and Yang Fudong's cinematic photo series, above

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's Angel, 2008.  Immanence and transcendence, here reversed as strange familiarity induces real space.

Intricate room of meshed screen housing a skeletal creature with waving antennae and breathing spine, breeding custos cavos, a kind of replicating cell according to the artist's mythology.

Xu Bing's tobacco series--several small and large works made in Durham, US about the industry and its links to higher education, among other social influences.

Moving deeper into the space of the exhibition, a Fred Sandback installation.

A densely surfaced ink work by Yang Jiechung (1991-2).

Stepping back

Tsang Tsou Choi, d. 2007, Hong Kong--a so-called lunatic who painted on every available surface.

His work can also bee seen at the Rockbund's current exhibition covered earlier (partially) on this blog.

Mona Hatoum's Impenetrable (2009), black finished steel and fishing wire.

Yu Ji, Flesh in Stone. 

Yu Ji, Public Space #5, in which he posits via Benjamin that memory, when isolated, creates new contexts and possibilities.

Li Shan, The Earth Without Form, 1982. For me the most enigmatic and compelling painting on view. Why? I felt the accrual of brush marks massing like ink, in the language of oil...the thin, yellow lines both containing and expanding on them, a curious addition...having been working on ink paper it felt like a very direct translation of mediums. I want to know more about this artist.

These works by Zhang Peili (Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1993)  recalled the May 2014 exhibition at Mulherin-Pollard Gallery on the LES--as well as1990s figuration in NY with very different purposes.

Wu Genda's large calligraphic works. This takes serious chops to pull off. I believe he makes his own ink from hair, but must research this to make sure, so don't quote me yet.

Zeng Fanzhi's compelling translation from ink. At first, I thought, "Paula Rego," but going deeper one sees the reckoning with gesture, and history.  

Zeng Fanzhi detail from Man and Meat, 1993.

Yue Minju's Enfanta

Shanghai 2008: neon lights by LI Shurui. 

Acrylic. Airbrushed?

A suite of paintings by Liu Wei, Yan Pai-Ming, Mao Yan and Qi Sheihong.

Yan Pei-Ming's portrait of Liu Xiaodong, 2012

By LIU Wei, I believe.

An early Liu Xiaodong work (1991). I enjoyed seeing transitional works by several artists in this collection.

Liu Xiaodong, Detail

LI Songsong's Decameron, 2004

WANG Xingwei, Lower Half, 2000--so reminiscent of the Fraser/Jagger hand tinted photo in the 1960s and with the same idea, going after corrupt officials this time--or so it seems.

Yan Pei-Ming, two of three skulls and a portrait

Exiting, an installation by Madeln Company (collective), 2009. Calm. Reminiscent of the rubble lots everywhere in China's cities, causing architectural phenomena such as 'nail houses.'

Outdoor sculpture garden to the side of Yuz

Exterior--entrance

The wide avenue, Fenggu Lu, heading back to the newly built 11 line (take line to Yunjin, exit right on Yunjin Lu, right again on Fenggu). Like Miami, Shanghai has a number of personal museums. It is fascinating to know a collector's vision. The Yuz Museum opened just several weeks ago, so it will be interesting to see how it unfolds over time.