Thursday, December 24, 2015

Miami after Basel: Fancy Nasty, Rubell Collection, Ann Craven, Ezra Johnson

The painted-over kitchen in Fancy Nasty--like visiting your grandparents' house in a strange dream

About Fancy Nasty:
For Art Basel 2015, a renegade crew of multi-disciplinary artists have taken control of a huge, soon-to-be-demolished home in an affluent neighborhood in the heart of Miami's art scene. Knowing the whole thing will be bulldozed soon after, each artist assaulted the space with the unfettered swagger that typifies a city known as much for raunch as it is for glamour. Miami is almost unrecognizable from just a few years ago. And the Miami you visit today, like the venue for this exhibition, will be gone by the time you return.

Artists: Stuart Sheldon, Michael Loveland, Brandon Opalka, Randy Burman, Hoxxoh, KEMO/MSG, Benji Cospolite, Andrea Nhuch, Lori Nozick, Gary Feinberg, Karen Starosta-Gilinski, Wyatt Gallery, Tamar Zohara Ettun, Lee-Joon Youn ... and featuring Strawberrita Dreams with Autumn Casey, Jesse Laino, Kelly Breez, Bootsie Castillo, Kyle Chapman, Makane, Annabell Penelope Lee, Renata Rojo, KC Toimil.

Fancy Nasty is brought to you by Build Crew, a nonprofit dedicated to helping artists build, install and place public art. In collaboration with Primary Projects, Your Fountainhead and Spoke, presenting artists NOVE, t_w_o_o_n_e, Mina Hamada, Zosen and Gustavo Amaral. 


The stinky frig with a message to Basel


Reminds me of shows from the 1980s in downtown LA









The pool from afar





RH Quaytman at Rubell Collection's No Man's Land
https://rfc.museum/exhibitions


Amalia Saban


Mary Weatherford, 2015

Karin Davie, 1990s

Suzanne McClelland, early, 1991 or 1992

Detail

McClelland

Detail - lovely charcoal on raw canvas


Jennifer Guidi, whose show at Nathalie Karg just closed 

The hand-made marks are spellbinding over a large expanse


Cady Noland

Hayv Kahraman


Lucy Dodd


Yuskavage

Detail of the flowers


More flowers: Dana Schutz, detail

Ann Craven's moon paintings at Gallery Diet

Ezra Johnson's billboard paintings at Mindy Solomon


E Johnson: exuberant scraps

Ezra Johnson, continued...

Happy holidays everyone~

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Paint: Doig, Westerman, Walker, Ray, Maine + Ulterior Motif

Peter Doig at Werner, uptown. http://www.michaelwerner.com/exhibition/3832/information
Deep chromas, grid work, free paint handling and relationship of study to large work characterize this show. 

Studio portrait

Large version (small to follow shortly). Banded horizon. Textural shifts of black from figure to horse. Odd landscape-making boxes on the left. Magenta river.

Urban animal

Like Guston, Doig can handle an emerald green.

Small study of horseback, in another room.

Fishing study presented on easel with clamp light, best way to see the work.

The larger painting. Water below has a lot of color not absorbed by the  iPhone 4.

Strong, heavy paint then ethereal, scrubbed areas interacting.



At the incredible HC Westerman show at Venus over Mars, full of bite, pathos and political critique.
http://www.artnews.com/2015/11/06/h-c-westermann-see-america-first-at-venus-over-manhattan/

Not to mention solid, brilliant technical skill in all areas of 2- and 3d.
Here, Arizona, on the Navajo grounds I visited in 2013 while in residence at Wupatki National Monument. Could recognize the vibe and the space right away.

And here a different view, an allee brutishly drawn, elegantly colored. 

John Walker, Looking Out to Sea at Alexandre.
http://www.alexandregallery.com/john-walker

He establishes a landscape, and then starts to riff.

Pulling on the patterns of the African textiles he collects and reveres,

and using pattern to navigate the space.





On the LES, a new show by Eleanor Ray at Steven Harvey. http://www.shfap.com

I'd not seen this work before. There were some real gems, this my favorite.

She worked at the Judd Foundation in Soho for some of the works. The relationship of geometry and brushwork recalls, in posting more than in presence, Morandi. A small world of shifting colors and planes...

Stephen Maine at the National Arts Club Marquis Gallery
http://www.nationalartsclub.org/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=346933&vnf=1

Paint as print: opaque impasto overlays on transparent grounds.

The tufts of paint on the overlays catch the light and with the simultaneous contrast  of the colors, lead the eye to see blurs and vacillations


Close to, the added surprise of light density on darker transparency surprises the eye.


A well-curated show at the Painting Center: Ulterior Motif
http://thepaintingcenter.org/exhibitions/ulterior-motif

Glenn Goldberg

Colin Thompson, Glenn Goldberg and Elisabeth Kley in an inspired combination

Hermine Ford

Anoka Faruqee's optical surface

One view: Ford, Faruqee and Fratkin

Scroll by David Fratkin

Jessica Weiss, a big wallpaper portrait

Stamping and collaging



Jill Levine - paint on sculptural form

Susan Wanklyn - egg tempera on board