Ira Joel Haber. Best Exhibitions of 2014. Part 2. More to follow
“An Opening Of The Field: Jess, Robert Duncan and Their Circle The Gray Art Gallery
The Jess-Robert Duncan large show at the Gray Art Gallery titled “An Opening Of The Field: Jess, Robert Duncan and Their Circle is a wonderfully installed show documenting the long relationship of the poet and artist who partnered up for over 40 years, collaborating, collecting and writing poems and making art. They also gathered around them a large group of artists and writers in San Francisco of the 1950’s and the show also highlights the work of these artists. There are some terrific works included by the likes of Edward Corbett, Jack Spicer, Ernesto Edwards, Helen Adam, Wallace Berman, James Broughton and many others most of whom I didn’t know. The shows bursts with paintings, collages, drawings and cases of books, documentation and ephemera. There are also examples of work by Dean Stockwell, (yes that Dean Stockwell) and an early heavily impastoed painting piece by Ronnie Bladen that will surprise those who think of him only as a minimalist sculptor. Each artist has a small informative biographical label with a photo of them next to their work which is a nice touch, and once more this gallery has mounted a terrific show highlighting works by artists who by and large lived their lives and made their art without much thought to fame or admiration.
Judy Rifka. Trestle Projects.
I took in the beautiful and fine show of large black, white and gray collages by Judy Rifka today. These are huge, tactile and stunning and loomed over me in their winter grayness but have much joy and exuberance to them. They are hung on the walls without glass or frames to protect them and I was able to run my hands over their very rough vulnerable and textured surfaces (these pieces are almost tapestries) and the upper walls have instances and spots of graffiti by Victor Ving whose "signature" Rifka found on the roof of her apartment building in Chinatown while working outdoors on some of the smaller works that are also shown here in her workspace and is a generous gesture on her part, but then again these are generous works in themselves. You should try to see this show
Ray Johnson. Sidney Mishkin Gallery
If you are around east 22st you might want to check out the small but very good exhibition of Ray Johnson's collages that is at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery of Baruch College. I had no idea this place even existed until I saw a notice about this show. These are bullet like pieces, small but for the most part very potent and strong, if not deadly, and full of pop images before pop was pop and Ray was probably the most important mail artist that ever used the post office. I liked his abstract collages as well as the more popular imagery ones, and I don't think Ray would go for all this "new" technology stuff. You can't be touchy feely in emails. I like his work and I'm sorry that he killed himself. Most of the pieces in the show are from the collection of William S. Wilson a close friend of his and whose mother was the zany artist and maker of assemblages and collages herself May Wilson, now thats an exhibition I would like to see, but I shouldn't hold my breath.
Tara Donovan. Pace Gallery
The quite spectacular and terrific large sculptures by Tara Donovan that take up the two large spaces at the Pace Gallery that are imaginative, strange, theatrical and very beautiful. One of the pieces consists of millions and millions of 3 x 5” white styrene index cards that were put together with glue to form 8 large odd monolithic sculptures that have a primordial look to them, that play around with the light almost making them look like rock formations with line drawings on them. The other large piece is made from thousands of acrylic rods into sphere like shapes that at first look appear to be soft and tactile and not hard and pointy. This is the first show of Donovan’s work that I’ve seen, and for once the attention and recognition paid to her is well deserved.
Ron Nagle/George Ohr. Look Closer, Look Again. George Adams Gallery
I love the ceramics of George Ohr and Like Ron Nagle’s ceramics so I thought that this duo show would be great. It isn’t and the main problem is the pairing of these two very different ceramists and the installation. Ohr who liked to call himself “the mad potter of Biloxi” (check out his portraits to see why) worked from the late 19th century into the early part of the 20th century and whose wonderful pieces were way ahead of their time. Nagle is a popular California ceramist who makes small loopy sometimes marvelous eccentric pieces that usually are brightly colored and textured, (you want to reach out and pet them) and are sometimes figurative. Ohr’s colors and glazes are usually muted and somber. The pieces are organic and alive with movement in the way the clay was handled which is sometimes folded, twisted, dented and poked and are very unique. In the exhibition the work of the two are placed on shelves lining the gallery sometimes in pairs and sometimes solo and Nagle suffers in the pairing, maybe its the choices of the pieces shown by him, but at times I felt like the premise of the show was a contest between the two, sort of a dancing with the ceramists, and for me “the Mad Potter’ won hands down. I think both artists would have been better served with individual exhibitions than this skimpy showing of only 15 pieces.
Jay DeFeo. Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
I wasn’t so crazy about the large retrospective of hers last year at the Whitney, it seemed all over the place to me, and the focus on her “The Rose” left me high and dry, maybe there was just too much expectation hanging around this show for me. That said the current exhibition of her work is very wonderful and pretty much changed my opinion I had of her work. I like when this happens. The show includes fifty works of small photographs, drawings a few paintings and photocopy works. Its all black white and gray, intimate and moving.
Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948-1988. The Museum Of Modern Art.
This large enticing but uneven retrospective of the late Brazilian artist Lygia Clark now at The Museum Of Modern Art has a lot to offer and its good to see the Moma displaying the work of a little known (in this country anyway) artist. I actually met her in the early 70’s but can’t recall much about it this meeting, except for her lovely smile that she threw at me from time to time, and I could easily apply that lovely smile to a large amount of the work in this sometimes thrilling sometimes annoying exhibition.
Spread out in a graceful and welcoming installation that takes up 4 large galleries on the 6th floor the show opens with lots of her small tight abstract geometric paintings from the early 1950’s that are beautifully painted in subtle colors and are influenced by the Constructivists (her few very early representational paintings also in the beginning of the show are not very good).
The paintings move on and change but are still small and abstract but more minimal and are mostly in black, white and gray and some might find these works too designed and corporate logo looking. In the next gallery are her many small abstract metal hinged sculptures that she called “Bichos” which means critters and are laid out on low plain plywood tables and were originally meant to be played with and changed into different shapes and arrangements by viewers, the Moma offers up a few of these for viewer participation which I didn’t partake in.
This brings me to my aversion to participation art. Once in the early 70’s a long gone curator and very rich collector of photographs and photographers took it upon himself to pick up one of my boxes that was being shown in a gallery in Soho and thinking that just because it had loose particles in it, it was alright for him to pick it up and shake it. Needless to say he cause damaged and needless to say he heard from me. Even if this “accident” didn’t take place I would still not be a participator and usually flee from any works of art or performances that I have to be an active, unwilling and embarrassed participant.
That said its in the final gallery that I had the most trouble but it does bring to light the misleading and unnecessary title of the show “Lygia Clark: The Abandonment Of Art 1948-1988. Here we are presented with her work that she did after she stopped making art (for a period of time) and started to devote her time and energy to art therapy and sensory perception pieces that she used in her treatment of psychotic patients. In this part of the show viewers can cut up long narrow rolls of white paper or put on her scary “sensorial masks” and body suits that look like something from a slasher movie or play with soft small fetishistic balls, rubber gloves and other weird things that look like objects you might find in a sex shop. This is a complex and demanding show, and easily one of the best exhibitions of the year, flaws and all.
The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation
I did this today, and it was a real treat. Their four story home which also served as Chaim Gross's studio is open to the public. I had a lovely solo tour of the house and gallery including his studio which is untouched down to his box of crayons still on his work table by a lovely and knowledgeable ass't to the director of the foundation. And then there's the remarkable collection of art that they collected over the years including drawings and paintings by many of the greats of the 20th Century both European and American along with a superb collection of African Art. I was oohing all over the place. You can actually go into their living room and I was even allowed to peek into their rather modest kitchen. This is a hidden treasure of the city and you can visit on thur & fridays 1-5 or by appointment.
Maria Lassnig. P.S. 1.
I took advantage of the cooler weather to take a long jaunt (3 different trains) to go to PS1 and take a look at the Maria Lassnig and James Lee Byars shows before they close. Maria Lassnig just passed at 94 I see, and I was unfamiliar with her work, so it was a nice find for me to see her paintings that spanned a very long and fruitful career. I went through the wrong door and started the show from the most recent work which at first took me aback a bit, All those twisted figures and faces painted in those tutti fruity like colors, sharp lime greens and screaming blues, and all those alien like faces, distorted, violent and yes compelling. I soon calmed down and started to get into her work,and by the time I wound up in the early work I was won over. This was a life well lived and painted, so if possible you should try to get there to see this show that will surprise but not necessarily delight you.
Jennifer Wynne Reeves. Bravinlee Programs
The Jennifer Wynne Reeves show at Bravinlee Programs is sadly also a memorial exhibition as she passed a month or so ago. These are small and intimate works that while intricate in scale are pretty big in emotional pull. Reeves mixed up her mediums to invent and invite us in to her magical fairytale like landscapes and views, but horribly her life itself was hardly a fairy tale no prince charming rode in to the rescue. There are ships at sea, strange bits of foliage and trees and buttons, bits of wire all mixed up and in with molding paste which seemed to be a favorite medium of hers, with the images generally placed on paper with rough and torn edges. The colors are delicate yet vivid that seem to have a longing for peaceful interludes. This is a show of grace and dignity.
The Jess-Robert Duncan large show at the Gray Art Gallery titled “An Opening Of The Field: Jess, Robert Duncan and Their Circle is a wonderfully installed show documenting the long relationship of the poet and artist who partnered up for over 40 years, collaborating, collecting and writing poems and making art. They also gathered around them a large group of artists and writers in San Francisco of the 1950’s and the show also highlights the work of these artists. There are some terrific works included by the likes of Edward Corbett, Jack Spicer, Ernesto Edwards, Helen Adam, Wallace Berman, James Broughton and many others most of whom I didn’t know. The shows bursts with paintings, collages, drawings and cases of books, documentation and ephemera. There are also examples of work by Dean Stockwell, (yes that Dean Stockwell) and an early heavily impastoed painting piece by Ronnie Bladen that will surprise those who think of him only as a minimalist sculptor. Each artist has a small informative biographical label with a photo of them next to their work which is a nice touch, and once more this gallery has mounted a terrific show highlighting works by artists who by and large lived their lives and made their art without much thought to fame or admiration.
Judy Rifka. Trestle Projects.
I took in the beautiful and fine show of large black, white and gray collages by Judy Rifka today. These are huge, tactile and stunning and loomed over me in their winter grayness but have much joy and exuberance to them. They are hung on the walls without glass or frames to protect them and I was able to run my hands over their very rough vulnerable and textured surfaces (these pieces are almost tapestries) and the upper walls have instances and spots of graffiti by Victor Ving whose "signature" Rifka found on the roof of her apartment building in Chinatown while working outdoors on some of the smaller works that are also shown here in her workspace and is a generous gesture on her part, but then again these are generous works in themselves. You should try to see this show
Ray Johnson. Sidney Mishkin Gallery
If you are around east 22st you might want to check out the small but very good exhibition of Ray Johnson's collages that is at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery of Baruch College. I had no idea this place even existed until I saw a notice about this show. These are bullet like pieces, small but for the most part very potent and strong, if not deadly, and full of pop images before pop was pop and Ray was probably the most important mail artist that ever used the post office. I liked his abstract collages as well as the more popular imagery ones, and I don't think Ray would go for all this "new" technology stuff. You can't be touchy feely in emails. I like his work and I'm sorry that he killed himself. Most of the pieces in the show are from the collection of William S. Wilson a close friend of his and whose mother was the zany artist and maker of assemblages and collages herself May Wilson, now thats an exhibition I would like to see, but I shouldn't hold my breath.
Tara Donovan. Pace Gallery
The quite spectacular and terrific large sculptures by Tara Donovan that take up the two large spaces at the Pace Gallery that are imaginative, strange, theatrical and very beautiful. One of the pieces consists of millions and millions of 3 x 5” white styrene index cards that were put together with glue to form 8 large odd monolithic sculptures that have a primordial look to them, that play around with the light almost making them look like rock formations with line drawings on them. The other large piece is made from thousands of acrylic rods into sphere like shapes that at first look appear to be soft and tactile and not hard and pointy. This is the first show of Donovan’s work that I’ve seen, and for once the attention and recognition paid to her is well deserved.
Ron Nagle/George Ohr. Look Closer, Look Again. George Adams Gallery
I love the ceramics of George Ohr and Like Ron Nagle’s ceramics so I thought that this duo show would be great. It isn’t and the main problem is the pairing of these two very different ceramists and the installation. Ohr who liked to call himself “the mad potter of Biloxi” (check out his portraits to see why) worked from the late 19th century into the early part of the 20th century and whose wonderful pieces were way ahead of their time. Nagle is a popular California ceramist who makes small loopy sometimes marvelous eccentric pieces that usually are brightly colored and textured, (you want to reach out and pet them) and are sometimes figurative. Ohr’s colors and glazes are usually muted and somber. The pieces are organic and alive with movement in the way the clay was handled which is sometimes folded, twisted, dented and poked and are very unique. In the exhibition the work of the two are placed on shelves lining the gallery sometimes in pairs and sometimes solo and Nagle suffers in the pairing, maybe its the choices of the pieces shown by him, but at times I felt like the premise of the show was a contest between the two, sort of a dancing with the ceramists, and for me “the Mad Potter’ won hands down. I think both artists would have been better served with individual exhibitions than this skimpy showing of only 15 pieces.
Jay DeFeo. Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
I wasn’t so crazy about the large retrospective of hers last year at the Whitney, it seemed all over the place to me, and the focus on her “The Rose” left me high and dry, maybe there was just too much expectation hanging around this show for me. That said the current exhibition of her work is very wonderful and pretty much changed my opinion I had of her work. I like when this happens. The show includes fifty works of small photographs, drawings a few paintings and photocopy works. Its all black white and gray, intimate and moving.
Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948-1988. The Museum Of Modern Art.
This large enticing but uneven retrospective of the late Brazilian artist Lygia Clark now at The Museum Of Modern Art has a lot to offer and its good to see the Moma displaying the work of a little known (in this country anyway) artist. I actually met her in the early 70’s but can’t recall much about it this meeting, except for her lovely smile that she threw at me from time to time, and I could easily apply that lovely smile to a large amount of the work in this sometimes thrilling sometimes annoying exhibition.
Spread out in a graceful and welcoming installation that takes up 4 large galleries on the 6th floor the show opens with lots of her small tight abstract geometric paintings from the early 1950’s that are beautifully painted in subtle colors and are influenced by the Constructivists (her few very early representational paintings also in the beginning of the show are not very good).
The paintings move on and change but are still small and abstract but more minimal and are mostly in black, white and gray and some might find these works too designed and corporate logo looking. In the next gallery are her many small abstract metal hinged sculptures that she called “Bichos” which means critters and are laid out on low plain plywood tables and were originally meant to be played with and changed into different shapes and arrangements by viewers, the Moma offers up a few of these for viewer participation which I didn’t partake in.
This brings me to my aversion to participation art. Once in the early 70’s a long gone curator and very rich collector of photographs and photographers took it upon himself to pick up one of my boxes that was being shown in a gallery in Soho and thinking that just because it had loose particles in it, it was alright for him to pick it up and shake it. Needless to say he cause damaged and needless to say he heard from me. Even if this “accident” didn’t take place I would still not be a participator and usually flee from any works of art or performances that I have to be an active, unwilling and embarrassed participant.
That said its in the final gallery that I had the most trouble but it does bring to light the misleading and unnecessary title of the show “Lygia Clark: The Abandonment Of Art 1948-1988. Here we are presented with her work that she did after she stopped making art (for a period of time) and started to devote her time and energy to art therapy and sensory perception pieces that she used in her treatment of psychotic patients. In this part of the show viewers can cut up long narrow rolls of white paper or put on her scary “sensorial masks” and body suits that look like something from a slasher movie or play with soft small fetishistic balls, rubber gloves and other weird things that look like objects you might find in a sex shop. This is a complex and demanding show, and easily one of the best exhibitions of the year, flaws and all.
The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation
I did this today, and it was a real treat. Their four story home which also served as Chaim Gross's studio is open to the public. I had a lovely solo tour of the house and gallery including his studio which is untouched down to his box of crayons still on his work table by a lovely and knowledgeable ass't to the director of the foundation. And then there's the remarkable collection of art that they collected over the years including drawings and paintings by many of the greats of the 20th Century both European and American along with a superb collection of African Art. I was oohing all over the place. You can actually go into their living room and I was even allowed to peek into their rather modest kitchen. This is a hidden treasure of the city and you can visit on thur & fridays 1-5 or by appointment.
Maria Lassnig. P.S. 1.
I took advantage of the cooler weather to take a long jaunt (3 different trains) to go to PS1 and take a look at the Maria Lassnig and James Lee Byars shows before they close. Maria Lassnig just passed at 94 I see, and I was unfamiliar with her work, so it was a nice find for me to see her paintings that spanned a very long and fruitful career. I went through the wrong door and started the show from the most recent work which at first took me aback a bit, All those twisted figures and faces painted in those tutti fruity like colors, sharp lime greens and screaming blues, and all those alien like faces, distorted, violent and yes compelling. I soon calmed down and started to get into her work,and by the time I wound up in the early work I was won over. This was a life well lived and painted, so if possible you should try to get there to see this show that will surprise but not necessarily delight you.
Jennifer Wynne Reeves. Bravinlee Programs
The Jennifer Wynne Reeves show at Bravinlee Programs is sadly also a memorial exhibition as she passed a month or so ago. These are small and intimate works that while intricate in scale are pretty big in emotional pull. Reeves mixed up her mediums to invent and invite us in to her magical fairytale like landscapes and views, but horribly her life itself was hardly a fairy tale no prince charming rode in to the rescue. There are ships at sea, strange bits of foliage and trees and buttons, bits of wire all mixed up and in with molding paste which seemed to be a favorite medium of hers, with the images generally placed on paper with rough and torn edges. The colors are delicate yet vivid that seem to have a longing for peaceful interludes. This is a show of grace and dignity.
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