People often ask me, ‘what have you seen around?’ and I dig around in my memory for a semi-comprehensive list of from my rounds. So, here is a potential walk of primarily group shows (and one two-person show) mostly on the Lower East Side. Part II will be some one-person shows, and something from Chelsea.
Benjamin King, Untitled, acrylic on paper, 2011
At Longhouse Projects at 285 Spring St in Hudson Sq. (West of SoHo) there is a fine show of work by Benjamin King and Abdolreza Aminlari. I will be posting a longer piece on King’s thoughtful and emotional paintings soon.While these paintings are built on landscape structures, closer looking asserts King’s commitment to the language of Romantic abstraction.
Heading over to the Lower East Side there are all kinds of treasures tucked about. At Brian Morris Gallery, 163 Chrystie St., is ‘How the Light Gets In’, comprising three young painters, Alicia Gibson, Kristina Lee, Jaqueline Cedar, who show a lot of promise. All three seem unintimidated by the traditional painting framework, working with a fresh, unburdened and open approach. Below is one of Kristina Lee’s smallish acrylic paintings.
Further down Chrystie, at Horton Gallery, is a fantastic painting by Dennis Congdon behind the desk. Regrettably I missed his show there last month, however here is a painter who at 60+ should be getting his due. These humorous and masterfully executed paintings in flashe and enamel, evoke both a future post-apocalyptic and archaeological feel in a way that integrates classical, modern and comic book sensibilities. The drawn elements are achieved through creating an elaborate cut stencil.
Dennis Congdon, Afrodite (dishabille), 2013, Flashe and enamel, 94×107″
At Novella Gallery, a basement space at 164 Orchard Street, a group show called ‘Soul’ includes pieces by artists I’ve written about before, Peter Williams and Kyle Staver, shown below, as well as Fred Valentine, Kenny Rivero, Elleen Lin and Ana Weider-Blank. I would go so far as to say that soul is back as an artistic value, or maybe that’s just what I look for and dig out in my rounds.
Installation shots for “Soul’ at Novella, including pieces by (top) Peter Williams, Kyle Staver and Kenny Rivero, and (bottom) Fred Valentine, Eleen Lin and Peter Williams again.
Olive Ahyens, Farewell NYC for now, 2013, watercolor, ink, wax and graphite, 22×16″
Down Orchard St, at Lesley Heller Workspace, Olive Ahyens curated a show titled ‘Enticing Luminosity’. Ahyens’ cityscape drawings present the Apollonian triumph of Manhattan tower-dom (ablove) as something, wobbly, uncertain and temporary. From the always lively Judith Linhares, three flower paintings bring solidity and bounce to the moment in the floral life just as they begin to wilt. In a way they share the quality of imminent collapse of Ahyens’ drawings. Rather than a mood of doom though there is a sense of the moment of beauty seized and fully engaged; particularity in Linhares’ vigorous and sensuous paint handling.
Judith Linhares, April, 2010, oil on linen, 22×26″, courtesy Edward Thorp Gallery
I had not previously seen the tragi-comic works of M Louise Stanley. ‘Rich Lady Languishing ‘ hits the archetypal chord of fantasy opulence. Like the previous two works there is a clear feeling that this moment cannot possibly last, and may in fact be a retrospective gaze into a world simultaneously rotted and desirable.
M Louise Stanley, Rich Lady Languishing, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 40×30″
Still on Orchard St., at DCKT Gallery, another group show, ‘Shorthand’, curated by Trudy Benson and Russel Tyler, which focuses on works that ‘impart eloquent, direct brevity’. The paintings of Andrea Belag are done with hard-won simplicity of means, using very large brushes and wet-in wet viscous paint, producing moments of pleasure and surprise. With ‘In Time’ red paint from the lower portion of the canvas carries into the blue upper portion suggesting a sunset glow such as those favored by the 19th century Luminist painters.
Andrea Belag, In Time, 2014, oil on linen, 70×60″
William Eckhardt Kohler- Painting Lives! 