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View from Lockwood

Kathleen Cullen — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:23:54 +0000

View from Lockwood Kathleen Cullen March 22, 2022 - 15:23

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Andrea Burgay, Courage (strength in the face of pain or grief), 7.5 x 5 x .5" Collage and wallpaper sample on vintage book 2019

Seeing the incredibly diverse collage themed show "Putting It Together" at the Lockwood Gallery in Kingston, NY, I was immediately driven back to my art history roots and began researching its origins. One source credits the beginning of collage as occurring in 10th Century Japan. Artists would glued paper and text on surfaces when writing poetry. I was able to sit down to discuss collage with the Lockwood Gallery Curator Alan Goolman to discuss the current show and the history of collage

Kathleen Cullen: Tell me about the gallery and its mission?

Alan Goolman: The Lockwood Gallery was originally designed and built for the architectural offices of Michael Lockwood, Lockwood Architecture and Dynamism Builders. Just over two years ago, Lockwood made the decision to dedicate a large portion of the space to the creation of an Art Gallery.

The Mission of the Lockwood Gallery is to define itself and contribute positively to the considerable arts community in the Kingston, Woodstock and Saugerties triangle, spotlighting the broad range of exceptional artists living in the Hudson Valley… and more recently beyond.

KC: What was the idea behind the show?

AG: I have always had a strong attraction to roadside billboards and advertising posters -- placed, torn away and endlessly replaced over time-in the New York Subway system. I didn’t recognize it then, but I fell in love with what I’d later come to understand was a form of collage.

The Lockwood Gallery is recognized for mounting group shows built on a strong narrative or unifying theme. "Putting It Together" achieves that in a very big way -- 21 artists in an expansive exploration of a single theme-collage.

KC: What you just described is decollage. This is a French term for art created by ripping sections of posters off a wall. One of the best known of these artists is Mimmo Rotella. Rotella took his inspiration from the streets and utilized advertisements in the assemblage of his work. In this show you have a wide array approaches to collage. For example you have Andrea Burgay who has a heavy build up of torn paper from books and magazines that when completed looks layers of time. Then there is the work of Carole Kunstadt. She applies ink and thread to 19th century Dantier' Paris music manuscripts in a format that looks like she is weaving an abstraction that has the power to transport you in the same way music does. How did you select the work? How did their individual styles fit in with the show?

AG: I am familiar with Mimmo Rotella. I remember the first time I stood in front of a monumental piece of his art (It might have been in the Tate Modern or The Pompidou Center, I'm not sure) I was knocked back on my heels. I remember thinking, "Billboards!" As to decollage, I have to admit that I learned of the term decollage working with Andrea Burgay.

Andrea Burgay, Breaking, 14 x 11.5 x 1.25" Collage/decollage of images and wallpaper samples on layered pages

I was fully convinced that collage, as a category, was strong enough to build a show upon. The individual styles of the 21 artists I selected for the show never entered the equation. In context, Andrea Burgay and Carole Kunstadt work perfectly together. It's like tasting menu of chocolate. In the end its all chocolate

As you know, I am what I refer to as an outsider curator. My roots are in the beauty industry. I rely on my experience in brand development, color development, and my unique understanding of applied color theory to curating. For me, curating a collection of lipsticks and curating a show for the gallery have many similarities. I use the unique formation of our gallery walls and my understanding how color works to create carefully tuned visual relationships and transitions throughout. In some ways this is what defines us as a gallery and what we have become known for.

KC: Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque began creating collage as early as 1910. The used found objects, chair canning and newsprint to push art in a different direction and we’re revolutionizing how art was made. In Dadaism and Modernism the use of collage was politically motivated. It was after World War 1 and in a way the artists assembly of different images and objects was asking the viewer to reframe how they see the world. Putting a show together is always an education of sorts-is that true of this exhibition? What did you learn? What surprises arose?

AG: This answer is a bit tongue-in-cheek. True, we learn something from every show. This was especially true of this show. For me personally, I learned that I should never again try to put together a show from twelve hundred miles away from home. As to surprises, I have to admit that I underestimated how huge and beloved collage is globally. The other surprise was, when I returned home it became abundantly clear that from a distance, I the gallery was nowhere near as I imagined it to be.

KC: What do you hope viewers will take with them?

AG: The Lockwoood Gallery is a relatively new gallery. Our location makes us a destination gallery which makes it absolutely essential that when a viewer leaves, they remember their entire experience -- the art, the installation, the space and the narrative. Ultimately, we hope the viewer will take away the desire to return.

The Lockwood Gallery, 747 NY-28, Kingston, NY 12401

Through March 26th. Hours: Thursday - Sunday 11 to 6pm

Phone: (845) 663-2138

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The State of Landscapes

Dom Lombardi — Tue, 04 May 2021 12:10:55 +0000

The State of Landscapes Dom Lombardi May 4, 2021 - 08:10

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Cecilia Whittaker-Doe The Walk 2021 ink, oil on canvas 36" x 36”

LandX

Red Fox Contemporary, Pound Ridge, NY

May 22 through July 4, 2021

It is commonly thought that in Western Art, the interest in representing the landscape as part of a paintings composition cropped up during the time of the Renaissance. From the beginning, representations of the landscape have brought the viewer to virtually experience new places throughout time, offering a sense of discovery, a feeling of hope for a better more peaceful world. More recently, a truer understanding of the force and fragility of nature has come to the fore motivated by politics, profit and pleasure. For this exhibition, I have selected paintings, sculptures, archival pigment prints, ceramics, dioramas, and collages that offer a variety of contemporary views regarding the state of the genre.

Beginning with the shear awesomeness of nature and all its endless contemplations, Todd Bartel offers Garden Study (Surrender to Vastness), 2002, where we find a lone figure standing in stereoscope, at the edge of a great canyon. One quote in the composition reads:

"…to reach the limits of space would be to arrive at our own origins, at the place where life began." - Jean Clair.

Contrasting this great work are two more humorous objects that blatantly addresses a concern for the environment as Bartel channels Man Ray's iconic sculpture, The Gift, 1921.

Cecilia Whittaker-Doe takes us through a wooded walk as horizons shift, planes tilt, rivers reappear and color intensifies. Despite the cubist calamity, there seems to be an odd sort of order to it all, as if each part both supports and contrasts the other. In the end, we are left with a far more sensory experience than we might expect, as our attention is rewarded with a beautifully composed, tactile trip.

Don Doe focuses on the strain of our rising rivers in two paintings: Johnstown Flood No. 91 (1995) and June with my GTO in the Rising Mississippi Delta Flood No. 10 (1993). Employing dark humor, Doe's subjects seem to be unaffected by the imposing destruction of the rushing water long enough to record the scene on canvas. The overall impression is acceptance, especially when looked at through the lens of current day political ploys and punditry.

China Marks makes beautifully constructed, fantastical narratives that delight the eye and broaden the mind. Her way of capturing a complex moment with such dizzying directness is key, while her sense of color, composition and actual conversation makes the trip all the more worth while. I can’t imagine any point in one's life where you could not gain insight or enjoy looking at Marks' work. -- it's all just a matter of time and willingness to seek and find.

Creighton Michael Panorama 0618 2018 archival pigment print (artists proof) 28” x 48”

The archival pigment prints of Creighton Michael reside somewhere between consciousness and subconsciousness -- an in-between state that is not unlike Surrealism. More importantly, Michael's art reflects something of a waking-dream state where reality and memory prove to be deceiving. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what part of Michael's art takes us to this place, but we know we are there and it is simultaneously, both otherworldly and familiar.

Into the Falls (2016) by Inness Hancock takes us to a place where representation and abstraction coalesce. Movement is key here, as thin veils of blue rain down upon the depths of a deep darkening pond. The contrast between the thin washes at the top and middle of the canvas, and the weight of the deep blue pool below anchors the composition and our thoughts as both time and thought wonder.

Brant Moorefield's paintings teeter between perception and reality. Perception, meaning the artist’s inner thoughts, what is internalized and later expressed, even if it does not directly relate to the reality. As a result, we find ourselves caught between dimensions, in a place where the psychological supersedes the actual. There are references to displacement, disorder, deconstruction, and yet there seems to be an overriding sense of resolve and perhaps a bit of redemption to it all.

Annie Varnot Pacific Crest Trail: Sierra Snow Bridge 2018 Oil on panel 36"x48"

Pacific Crest Trail: Sierra Snow Bridge (2018) by Annie Varnot is a bold and brilliant work that essentially communicates two truths. First, that our planet is home to countless awe inspiring vistas -- at times indescribable beauty that we can not live without. Second, what we hold dear, what many of us live to experience, to feel, to see and touch is quite fragile, and what we do, how we over-consume, has a lasting negative effect on our environment.

Patrick Jacobs has the unique ability to take the most complex and compelling fantasy and turn it into an intimate physical reality. His dioramas redefine the genre with otherworldly color, light, form and space resulting in stunningly spectacular worlds that only he could imagine. After seeing Jacobs work, one's general state of mind may experience a shift, more likely the memory of the work will become fixed in your subconscious, and very possibly dreaming will become easier.

Maggie Robertson's ceramics blend the stature of fine china with a sort of organic, "wabi-sabi" imperfection that is oddly comforting. The traditional blue and white glazed bucolic scenes atop the hand-formed utilitarian objects makes for the perfect blend of new and old. Seen in the context of an "exhibition", the works of Robertson become something else, more contemplative and sculptural.

Martin Weinstein Sun Dogs, 3X 2013 Acrylic on acrylic sheet 37” x 40”

Martin Weinstein's paintings define the beauty in the rhythms of the seasons -- the endless (hopefully) return of life in the spring, the brilliance of the summer, the temporary demise the fall brings to our vegetation, and the clear, crisp chill of winter -- all that defines the Northeast is exquisitely expressed in Sun Dogs, 3X (2013) and Winter under Summer, Summer under Fall (2019). In each instance, Weinstein brings heaven back to earth.

The compelling, albethey strange interactions with nature some of us humans might have or imagine come to life in the paintings of Shari Weschler. In Bending #1 (2017) we see what appears to be a burgeoning suburban backyard in spring-thaw mode. Bear Stand (Needs date) shows a young woman creating a sort of "Mother Earth" in-body experience representing the sky, animals and land. Bridging (Needs date) is an obvious play-on-words with a twist, which has a vastly different read in these days of Covid.

Red Fox Contemporary art is located at 55 Westchester Avenue, Pound Ridge, NY 10576. LandX runs from May 22 through July 4, 2021. There is an opening May 22 from 3 – 6 pm. (475) 205-8956

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Short Talk About Artist Mario Schifano

Kathleen Cullen — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 17:44:09 +0000

Short Talk About Artist Mario Schifano Kathleen Cullen February 20, 2021 - 12:44

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En plein air, 1963, Enamel on paper on canvas, 63 x 63 in (additional credit below)

At a time when we are all missing travel, I got to not only to take a quick trip to Italy, but also back in time to the '60s. No, this was not feet of magic, but rather a visit to the Center For Italian Modern Art to see the work of Mario Schifano 1960-1965. Schifano actually visited New York during this period because of his interest in the contemporary art scene here. This interest didn’t anchor him America and he would have a major impact on the Italian art world. I had a chance to talk with Genevieve Martin, the centers Managing Director and the shows curator, Francesco Guzzetti, Ph.D., the 2019–20 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Morgan Library and Museum’s Drawing Institute, and former CIMA Fellow (2014–15), to discuss the artist and the Center For Italian Modern Art.

Kathleen Cullen: Let's start with an update of the mission of The Center For Italian Modern Art and how people can arrange to visit at this time?

Genevieve Martin: The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) is a 501c3 public nonprofit exhibition and research center established in 2013 in New York City to promote public appreciation and advance the study of modern and contemporary Italian art in the United States and internationally. We're founded on a legacy in community building that dates to 1950 when Gianni Mattioli opened his Milan apartment to share his collection of Italian modern art with the public. Regardless of their status -- scholars, artists, and neighbors enjoyed transformative encounters with extraordinary works of art. On Sundays, Gianni would even personally offer guided tours. His daughter, Laura Mattioli created CIMA to ensure that this tradition of compassion, humanity, and community could live on. Without a collection, but instilled with all these values, CIMA is safeguarding and cultivating the next generation of scholars. They travel from all over the world to study the works at CIMA and like Gianni, they welcome you to our gallery and directly share their knowledge, an espresso, and conversation.

The best way to visit CIMA is by reserving one of these fellow-guided tours. They take place on Fridays at 11 am and 2 pm by appointment. On Saturdays, we offer open hours so visitors can explore the exhibition independently between 11 am and 4 pm. Curator-guided audio tours are available at no additional cost. Since many visitors are unable to visit the show in person, we now offer fellow-guided digital tours on Sunday mornings at 11 am. Our membership program allows members to make private visits when we're closed to the public -- a museum to yourself for an hour! Throughout the season, CIMA holds special tours, events, conversations, and study days as part of its programming. Discover our many offerings at italianmodernart.org

KC: Why have you decided to bring the work of Schifano from this period?

Francesco Guzzetti: Schifano's body of work between 1960 and 1965 -- I think -- embodies the Italian-American relationships better than any other Italian artists at that time. The diverse range of inspirations incorporated and even questioned by the artist in his paintings cover the most influential aspects of American art and culture, with special focus on the New York art scene, as it was circulating in Rome since the postwar years. Jazz music, the new tendencies of artists like Dine, Johns, Rauschenberg or Warhol, the sides of New York artistic and cultural scene that he encountered through Frank O'Hara during his first trip to NY between 1963-64, were all integrated into Schifano's unique vision of the art and culture of his time. That's why I thought that the artist's production between 1960 and 1965 could especially resonate with the NY public.

LEONARDO, 1963 ENAMEL ON PAPER ON CANVAS 78 3/4 X 78 3/4 IN (additional credit below).

KC: We know Schifano visited New York during this time. Why did he come and how was he received? Do you think the visit impacted his work?

FG: Schifano owed the experimentation in new media, film especially, to the exposure to the underground films realized in New York. The artist saw all of them and retained a vivid impression, which would leave its imprint on the films he realized starting in 1964 when he made the film Round Trip which is included in the show at CIMA. Schifano stayed in NY for 6 months (Dec. 1963-Jun. 1964), he met all the artists he had already heard of before. His work met a sort of resistance from the reviewers and critics, but was much favored by Frank O'Hara, who wrote a poem for the catalog of Schifano's solo show at ODyssia Gallery in New York in 1964 and would collaborate with him in the most amazing work done by Schifano in New York, namely the 17 sheets of Words&Drawings. For good or bad, the reception of his works helps understand the particular kind of figuration the artist elaborated at that time, with especially resonates with the work of Larry Rivers.

KC: The exhibition also includes work by important modern artists of the time. What is the relevance in relation to Schifano and his work?

FG: The works by Rauschenberg (seven collages never exhibited or published before), Jasper Johns, and Jim Dine all come from the Sonnabend Collection Foundation. Their presence helps understand why the powerful dealer Ileana Sonnabend favored Schifano among all the artists who were based in Rome at the time when she moved there from New York. In addition, the work of these artists was much discussed among the Rome-based artists and resonates with Schifano's investigation of the materiality of the painted surface as expressed in his so-called "monochromes" realized in 1960-62.

GRANDE PARTICOLARE DI PROPAGANDA, 1962 ENAMEL ON PAPER ON CANVAS 74 ⅜ X 59 INCHES (additional credit below)

KC: Schifano would have a long well-established career that would include music and film. What impact does his work have on the Italian art world and what do you hope the visitors to this show will take with them?

FG: Schifano would soon become a reference, a master for the younger generations of artists who revived painting and figuration in the 1980s. His use of photograph and film was also extremely influential. I hope the visitors to this show will take with them the enthusiasm for having discovered the work of an artist who still deserves to be internationally acknowledged as one of the most relevant figures bridging postwar and contemporary art, whose work anticipated many issues and practices which are still relevant today.

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A Collection of Epitaphs

Millree Hughes — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 22:10:44 +0000

A Collection of Epitaphs Millree Hughes February 16, 2021 - 17:10

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Adrian in front of his Richard Smith painting

I would never write my own obituary. I'm far too superstitious. What if Fate misunderstood my "joke"? But Adrian Dannatt does that at the end of his wonderful new book -- Doomed and Famous. It is a collection of epitaphs that he has written for all kinds of eccentric and curious characters from the Arts of New York and Europe. The book is published by Sequence Press in collaboration with Miguel Abreu Gallery. The lives of the famous and exceptional are further honored by an exhibition in the gallery of pieces from Dannatt's personal collection.

Each object has an hard to imagine resonance for the collector so the best way to see this show is by calling the gallery and booking the curator/author to guide you around it.

You will experience the colourful nature both of Dannatt's persona and his take on art and literature in general. In English clothes and swept back hair, throwing out anecdotes and rapid fire digressions, he will explain how each of the artists lives and eccentric habits affected him as he jumps polyvalently across the room from one piece to another.

Everything is evinced by his study of idiosyncratic behavior. Don't worry though, both in the show and in the book he allows us to enjoy these nutters, geniuses, trust fund layabouts, and free thinkers for what they are, without worrying too much about the consequences of any of their actions

The whole show looks like an estate sale. Some pieces, magazines, posters, and poetry books are in cases along the wall to one side and in the centre of the space. One wall is filled with art sometimes five tiers high.

In this group there are some intimate wriggly Matt Mullicans and Derek Boshier paintings on paper.

Nearby is a gorge Nancy Spero silk print text piece, "Torture in Chile" (1975). Words scumbled and rubbed into the surface with a grungy tactility.

Abreu’s gallery has great light.

Either from the shop front window that catches the sun in the morning to the skylights at the back that flood that space. Here are two works by lesser known British pop artists. A Bob Stanley Beatles painting that looks just like a screen print. Even though at first glance it looks like a commercial product. Stanley had a wavering, explorative line that pushed away from the impersonal look of Pop. There's a glorious Richard Smith called "Slices" from 1964. It's a king-sized extrapolation through space of a cigarette packet design.

In the vitrines are typical examples of the kind of characters that Dannatt loves. Many of them British, perhaps because becoming a "character" is a way of dealing with the class system. It allows you to jump out of the standard classifications that the islanders impose on each other.

One way to stand apart as a creative, is to set yourself an impossible task, like Cornelius Cardew represented here by a tract called "Stockhausen Saves Imperialism." A composer devoted to making radically theoretical work that he thought would be embraced by the working classes even though it was very hard to listen to.

Throughout the space there are portraits of our host. By Duncan Hannah, Ena Swansea, and Walter Robinson. The Robinson is based on a Courbet portrait which seems to capture our host in mid-flow.

In another case is book of prose by surrealist Dorothea Tanning, dedicated him:

"talking about everyone and everything and nothing (meaning me)."

My favorite area is downstairs in the gallery basement. Here everything is hugger mugger. A great Marisol lithograph, a divine Salvator Rosa drawing, even a bold physical etching by Allan Jones that is unlike the more slick work he is known for.

Is Adrian Selling up his stuff and writing himself off? That would be a shame, his role in the Art World has always been about personal connections. The old Art World where people met at openings and gossiped, praised and kvetched. But perhaps the idea is to preserve his own persona in our mind, at its point of perfection by play acting the death of its creator.

Rather as the murderer does in Robert Browning's poem "Porphyria's Lover." Where the lunatic beau kills his beloved at the apex of her beauty seemingly (to the narrator) with her permission.

"And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word"

But more chronistically, this show speaks to our situation. Our distanced relationships. Cut off from our friends, seeing art infrequently, if at all. Dannatt can't have you round his house but this is the next best thing. - Millree Hughes

Miguel Abreu Gallery, Winter Hours:

88 Eldridges Street, New York, Tues-Sat, 10:30AM-6:30PM, Sunday by APPOINTMENT only.
36 Orchard Stree, Wed-Sat. for an appointment with Adrian, call: 212.995.1774