MONIKA BAER

Posted on 2015-12-21

Since the late 1980s as a student at Düsseldorf Art Academy, Baer has maintained a singular practice in dialogue with the history of painting, orchestrating confrontations between disparate visual traditions on her canvases. Trompe-l’oeil renderings, appendages and incisions to the literal surface of the canvas, and atmospheric fields of paint constitute the complex spatial logic of Baer’s compositions. Baer’s studiously painted motifs—deli meats, currency, and brick walls are among the representations that have recurred in her body of work—follow the modernist fixation with the quotidian, but also tether the works to traditional representation. In the works on view, liquor bottles act as a mimetic anchor, receding and advancing, dissolving and materializing again—flirting with the notion of a stable pictorial system.

Opposite – Überlieferung verpflichtet, 2014

Exhibition runs through to January 16th, 2016

Greene Naftali
526 West 26th Street
8th floor
NY 10001
New York

www.greenenaftaligallery.com

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ANTHONY PEARSON

Posted on 2015-12-21

Pearson uses a range of methods and media to create works that offer a meditative experience by way of an extreme sensitivity to materials. His practice originated in photography, and by experimenting with the formal limits of the medium, Pearson has constructed a visual vocabulary that has expanded into sculptural materials such as gypsum cement, bronze, steel, and clay. On the occasion of this exhibition, Pearson will be presenting two bodies of work: Plaster Positives and Etched Plasters. These works simultaneously embody qualities of sculpture and painting and use subtle
relief to employ both seemingly infinite detail and a broad spaciousness. The work is built by way of repetition in both method and movement, with each pour and mark made by hand. The structure of Pearson’s practice results in a subtle interplay between individual works that eventually resonate as a harmonic whole.

Opposite – Untitled (Etched Plaster), 2015

Exhibition runs through to January 16th, 2016

Marianne Boesky Gallery
509 West 24th Street
NY 10011 New York
USA

www.marianneboeskygallery.com

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TETSUMI KUDO

Posted on 2015-12-21

A key figure of Tokyo’s Anti-Art Movement in the late 1950s, Kudo’s performative paintings and installations marked the beginning of his preoccupation with the impact of nuclear catastrophe and the excess of consumer society associated with the post-war economic boom. Relocating to Paris in 1962, Kudo gained recognition for his Happenings, but this exposure to the European intellectual scene also intensified his aversion to the modern agenda. This manifested in the biomorphic sculptures and assemblages that Kudo produced from 1963, in which he sought to expose the limitations of the modernist and humanist values that defined the post-war era.
In his cube series, small boxes contain decaying cocoons and shells revealing half-living forms – often replica limbs, detached phalli or papier-mâché organs – that merge with man-made items. These sculptures were intended as a comment on the individualistic outlook and eager adoption of mass-production which he found to be prevalent in Europe. The mutations are unnatural and impotent – a product of a post-apocalyptic world in which the synthetic triumphs over nature. The cube exteriors are painted as die, a nod to the idea that it is the random forces beyond our control that dictate life, rather than individual agency as western philosophy teaches.

Opposite – Votre Portrait T, 1965 – 1966

Exhibition runs through to February 26th, 2016

Hauser & Wirth
Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zürich
Switzerland

www.hauserwirth.com

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ALLISON SCHULNIK – “HOOF”

Posted on 2015-12-14

Consisting of several new paintings and sculptures, “Hoof” will be her first showing of new work with the gallery in nearly four years. Expanding on her language that traditionally highlights misfits, outcasts, and the misunderstood – Schulnik introduces a wild new cast of mythological creatures replete with centaurettes, unicorns, and otherworldly outsiders in various stages of liberation. Continuing her exploration of selfhood through diverse and rich allegories, her new subjects radiate gracefulness that is both vulnerable and stoic—a type of synthesis that is a hallmark in Schulnik’s work.

Not contented by cut and dry narratives that portray notions of empowerment, her characters are complex. Delving into the intricate web of sexuality, Schulnik takes a Henry Darger approach to Disney’s “Fantasia”- with centaurettes reimagining strength and femininity, as well as humanity. In order to create an honest portrait of contemporary liberation, she provides her mythic beings with fear, angst, sadness, and even weakness. Glorious unicorns of questionable gender are imbued with an aura of disheveled majesty – and a new type of hero emerges. Each protagonist is granted their individual physicality, strength, baggage, and personhood – as they also reflect the bewildering concepts of ego and identity. As fictional as these creatures may be, their personification of the untamed make us long for the best, unapologetic versions of our true selves.

Opposite – Centaurette in Forest, 2015

Exhibition runs through to February 20th, 2016

Mark Moore Gallery
5790 Washington Boulevard
Culver City
Los Angeles
CA 90232

www.markmooregallery.com

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SARAH MEYOHAS

Posted on 2015-12-14

On Friday, January 8th, 7pm, Sarah Meyohas will perform at 303 Gallery. Surrounded by blank canvases, Meyohas will discuss financial markets.

Over the next ten days, Tuesdays to Fridays, 1-4pm, Meyohas will trade stocks on the New York Stock Exchange during regular market hours. She will place her trades directly from 303 Gallery. Once she affects a stock’s valuation, Meyohas will announce the change in market capitalization and record the shift with oil stick. Marks will accumulate in a gestural record of the stock s performance. The line, value over time, is an index of her movement, physically in the gallery and virtually in her ownership. Each painting is one of many financial records, but unique as an artwork. Any trade may only result in one painting.

Exhibition runs through to January 30th, 2016

303 GALLERY
507 W 24th Street
New York
NY 10011

www.303gallery.com

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JĀNIS AVOTIŅŠ – SINCE THE FOUNDATION

Posted on 2015-12-14

The work of Jānis Avotiņš is sourced from 1950’s Soviet propaganda films, post-war national picture books and photographs of poets, artists and intellectuals in the Soviet Union. His paintings awaken a familiar signifier in the collective memory but neutralize emotion through the articulation of what lays in the absent or invisible part of the canvas, which suggests a kind of void. The subjects themselves are a contradiction: although they have nothing to do with the crimes under communism, they still served as model Soviets photographed for propaganda purposes. He goes towards the images that are the loudest and most aggressive in their solemnity and pathos and identifies them as communist tools to inspire the public.

Central to Avotiņš’ technique is the way paint is applied in thin washes of pale, bleached colour overlaid with small alternating brushstrokes. Isolated forms and figures emerge through omission. Whilst some of the artist’s scenes mimic the look of old, Soviet-era photographs, others recall the contemporary appearance of his hometown. Many scenes seem to be part or wholly imagined, dream-like visions of the past, or slowly reconstructed memories of friends, places, events and situations.

The body of work in Since the foundation has a more expressive and stirring quality, something which was avoided in the past. Beyond the historical atmosphere present in his work, there is a longing under the conditions of the decline of Western culture for a general desire of beauty and hope and the rituals leading to it. Each work is articulated in a way that is both ineffable and timeless, rooted in reality but not existing outside of the picture.

Opposite – Untitled , 2015

Exhibition runs through to February 6th, 2016

Ibid.
27 Margaret Street
London
W1W 8RY

www.ibidgallery.com

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