LEAH GLENN at ALTMAN SIEGEL GALLERY

Try do see this smart  show at Altman Siegel of the paintings of Leah Glenn if you can:

Laeh Glenn
"Ordinary Objects" January 9 – March 1, 2014
Altman Siegel is pleased to present its first solo show with Los Angeles based painter Laeh Glenn.
Laeh Glenn presents a series of paintings unified in size and materials but unique in the formal concerns they address. Engaging with Surrealism, illusionistic space, geometric abstraction, still-life and Minimalism, Glenn’s work directly addresses the traditions and formal tropes of painting with a nuanced awareness of contemporary culture’s excess of and accessibility to images.
If language can be seen as a construction - a combination of individual parts that create varied meaning, Glenn approaches her paintings in a similar fashion, by flattening and unifying genres and formal precedents, re-arranging them and creating new meaning with familiar vocabularies. Her choice of arrangement is a study in semantics; while each painting is an individual work, the tone, understanding and semiotic associations of each picture change according to proximity and placement.
The paintings range from minimal, sculptural monochromes to more rendered, representational work. Enclosed completely or partially by simple black frames, each composition extends beyond the edge of the painting and activates the site of exhibition, the architecture of the gallery but also the relationship between each discrete work.
Laeh Glenn lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her B.F.A. from California College of the Arts in 2008 and her M.F.A. from UCLA in 2012. She has been in several exhibitions including, “Made in Space,” Curated by Laura Owens and Peter Harawik, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and Venus Over Manhattan, New York; “Territory: Week 5,” Thomas Duncan Gallery, Los Angeles; “Spectrum Suite,” Nicelle Beauchene, New York; “The Fishes” Laeh Glenn and Owen Kydd, CSA Space, Vancouver; and “Formwandler” Richard Telles, Los Angeles.
For more information, please contact Altman Siegel at 1-415-576-9300 or info@altmansiegel.com.

WOMEN PAINTERS IN WHITNEY

 

(for complete article go to the website) 

State of Our Art, According to Whitney

A Guide to the 2014 Whitney Museum Biennial

By CAROL VOGEL

 FEB. 27, 2014

WHITNEY Biennials can be daunting, confounding, exhausting and sometimes even outrageous. No matter how the curators organize this sprawling survey of what’s happening in American contemporary art right now, trying to navigate the museumwide exhibition and make sense of it all is a challenge, even for the pros.

For the Biennial’s finale in the Marcel Breuer building, the Whitney invited three outside curators to organize the show: Stuart Comer, chief curator of media and performance at the Museum of Modern Art; Anthony Elms, associate curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; and Michelle Grabner, an artist and a professor in the painting and drawing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In a break from years past, the three have each taken a floor and will present distinct visions, rather than one buildingwide narrative.(The schedule will be posted on the museum’s website.)

The Biennial that aims to capture what’s happening in American art. Themes inevitably emerge, delivered in different ways, in different mediums, by different curators. Here are a few to look out for during your visit.

WOMEN PAINTERS

Women are revitalizing abstract painting, and they are well represented here, with works by artists like Louise Fishman, Jacqueline Humphries, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Dona Nelson, Laura Owens and Amy Sillman.

“I am focusing on a handful of women artists who take on the authority of abstract painting — its history, its ambition and its relationship to power and gender,” Ms. Grabner said. “I wanted to put them together to underscore how different the language of abstract painting can be.”

“Okie Dokie,” 2008, dyed cheesecloth and acrylic on canvas, by Dona Nelson

She isn’t alone; Mr. Elms has included two large-scale abstract paintings by Rebecca Morris on the second floor. Long a fan of Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist architecture, Mr. Elms said the works fit perfectly with the space.

“Untitled,” 2013, by Laura Owens, one of the women revitalizing abstract painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Optimists

I just saw The Optimists at Steven Wirtz Gallery.  The exhibit was suppose to end today, but Steven said it will probably up a little longer.  So, if you haven't seen it, there is still a chance.  Call first before you go at   (415) 433-6879 to make sure the show is still up.

SFAQ REVIEW

The Optimists

Maysha Mohamedi, Rebecca Morris, Ruby Neri, Laurie Reid

January 9 - February 22, 2014

Opening reception: Thursday, January 9, 5:30-7:30 PM

Press Release

Exhibition page

Installation views
   

SFAQ Review: “other thans” group exhibition featuring Mitzi Pederson, Laurie Reid and Alexander Wolff at Et al., San Francisco.

 Here is a review of the show: SFAQ

Forrest Bess at CHRISTIE'S and the WHITNEY MUSEUM

Ok, I posted three of James Kalm's video's today, but I think these were really important shows in abstraction: idiosyncratic abstractions, curent neo-plasticism via Mondrian, and artist in the 80's who have influenced current modes of abstractio. Also, I like the way he shoots gallery shows in that you get an idea of the dialogue between work in the exhibits, as well as how they occupy the space.

Andrew Masullo at MARY BOONE GALLERY

Reinventing Abstraction Curated by Raphael Rubinstein at CHEIM & READ

Check out this video by James Kalm, a working artist living in Brooklyn New York. He has been an active critic for over twelve years writing for the controversial Brooklyn Rail http://brooklynrail.org/.

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NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW:

July 11, 2013

‘Reinventing Abstraction: New York Painting in the 1980s’

By KEN JOHNSON

Cheim & Read

547 West 25th Street, Chelsea

Through Aug. 30

Painting today is not what it was. The last time painting seemed to be urgently important was the 1980s, when Neo-Expressionists like Julian Schnabel and Anselm Kiefer, Conceptualists like Peter Halley and Sherrie Levine, and fun-lovers like Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring were ascendant.

Organized by the critic Raphael Rubinstein, “Reinventing Abstraction: New York Painting in the 1980s” fruitfully if inconclusively reconsiders painters who did not fit into then fashionable categories. His 15 artists, all born between 1939 and 1949 and each represented by one piece from the ‘80s, are diverse. The show includes humorously updated Surrealism by Carroll Dunham and Elizabeth Murray and plays with Modernist devices by Thomas Nozkowski, Jonathan Lasker, Mary Heilmann and David Reed. Bill Jensen and Terry Winters introduce organic, vaguely botanical imagery, while Louise Fishman and Pat Steir revive Abstract Expressionist-type compositions. Joan Snyder and Stanley Whitney created wide, landscapelike works made of myriad paint strokes, and Gary Stephan, Jack Whitten and Stephen Mueller proffer different sorts of enigmatic symbolism.

Did these artists “reinvent” abstraction? That claim doesn’t sound right considering that they all deal in familiar formal vocabularies and that many of them folded in representational imagery. In his catalog essay Mr. Rubinstein rightly credits all with faith in a grand painting tradition dating to the early Renaissance. Implicitly he laments a widespread loss of faith among artists today. But why the medium no longer elicits such quasi-religious devotion from later generations of artists remains to be explained.

APPROACHES TO ABSTRACTION - DAY ONE

HERE ARE SOME HELPFUL LINKS TO IMAGE PRESENTATION:

JACKSON POLLOCK'S "ONE, NUMBER 31" RESTORED BY MOMA

PICASSO'S GUITARS 1912-1914 at MOMA

EVA HESSE - STUDIO WORK





 RICHARD DEIBENKORN

KENTE CLOTH

SEAN SCULLY

ALMA THOMAS

ALMA THOMAS

JOAN MITCHELL

CLYFFORD STILL

CLYFFORD STILL