Monday, February 27, 2012

Davina Semo @ Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam

Saturday, 25th of February, Davina Semo opened her first solo show at Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam.
She presents sculptures and pictures - objects I would instantly recognize as "visual art". As soon as I started reading the titles of her works though, I began doubting if it was really as simple as that. Her titles read like poems that comment the works. The experience becomes multi-layerd and multi-disciplinary.
Go and see it if you can:

"HER DEPARTURES, LIKE HER MOODS, WERE UNPREMEDITATED AND ALWAYS QUITE ABRUPT" etched black mirror, enamel paints / 45.7 x 45.7 cm, 18 x 18 in / 2012


THERE ARE PLAYFUL ANIMALS AND THERE ARE ANIMALS WHO ARE ALWAYS WATCHING / Spray paint transfer on reinforced concrete / 147.3 x 30.5 cm, 58 x 12 in / 2012

SHE WANTED TO WORK HARDER AND TIRE HERSELF OUT SO SHE WOULDN'T HAVE TO LIE AWAKE AT NIGHT / Concrete coated aluminum diamond plate / 91.4 x 91.4 cm, 36 x 36 in / 2012








Monday, February 20, 2012

Lauren Luloff at Horton Gallery, New York



Lauren Luloff: Recent Small Works

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 1, 6-8 PM

504 West 22nd Gallery
Parlor Level
New York, NY 10011

Lauren Luloff's recent collage paintings bring to mind the sky, the worn floor of a textile mill, tea in an old porcelain cup and laundry drying in the sun. Her process is simple: first she stretches semi transparent fabric over stretcher bars, then glues swatches of fabrics and paints on this "ground". Nothing is hidden and everything is revealed. The process, laid bare, yields something mysterious; the work becomes hazy and atmospheric, like dawn or a memory of childhood. The fabrics simultaneously root and dislocate the painted colors, like Matisse who famously always painted with scraps of printed fabrics hanging around his studio.

Or perhaps they are a little like Rauschenberg's "Bed", the piece where he took his bedclothes and tipped them from horizontal to vertical, and magically the most basic and homely thing became art. Similarly, Luloff recycles and pays homage to her life and practice. A life lived just as much in the studio as in the outside world. The pieces of fabric here are, in fact, doubly recycled. Luloff scours thrift shops to find the "right" piece of bed sheet or old curtain. Back in her studio she will bleach or stain patterns and shapes into the fabric which, in turn, are glued onto her "paintings" both large scale and small. The pieces here, on these intimately scaled paintings, are the lowest common denominator, the tender pieces, saved from the dustpan after a day of work; like flakes of gold in a prospector's pan.

The works on display are glimpses into a life unfolding through painting and material. Luloff's work belongs in the lineage of such artists as the before mentioned Rauschenberg, as well as Joan Snyder, American heirs to cubism and artists known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves. There is also atmosphere in these paintings, not unlike painters and notable colorists Helen Frankenthaler or Mark Rothko. Luloff offers a constant contrast between the rooted objects of everyday life and the soaring ambition to transcend those very things.

I have had this same experience when I visit Luloff's funkily majestic Bushwick studio. The space she has created for her herself and her work is endlessly heartening to me as a painter. The capacity for this artist to make things with fabric, glue, and scissors and paint that are so uniquely her own, full of necessity, generosity and grace. This, suddenly I realize, maybe the very definition of painting and quite possibly love. -Wallace Whitney

Lauren Luloff (b. 1980, Dover, NH) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received a MFA from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY and a BFA from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Her work has been included in the notable exhibitions Painting Expanded at Tanya Bonakdar, New York; Not the Way you Remembered at the Queens Museum of Art, New York; and The Working Title at the Bronx River Arts Center, New York. The artist was recently profiled by Johnny Misheff in The New York Times T Magazine and has been mentioned in the Village Voice, The Brooklyn Rail, and Vellum. Recent Small Works is the artist's second solo exhibition with Horton Gallery.


Friday, February 10, 2012

Hypercolor, at Small Black Door


Hypercolor
Opening: Saturday, February 18th, 7:00 - 10:00 PM

"The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color." - Hans Hofmann.

“HYPERCOLOR” brings together a group of ambitious artists who’s practices are hinged on their unique relationship with the formal element. Each embrace a diverse palette, often full of high-key colors that both invigorate and jar their viewer. Though employed for different reasons, these artist's selection of color suggest an undeniable affinity to contemporary popular culture paying homage to the past while offering insight to the future.

Artists Lydia Ainsworth and Lara Gemmiti will perform “Aqua Aura”, a collaborative performance, the night of the opening from 8:30-9

Participating artists include: Liz Atzberger, Joe Ballweg, Saira McLaren, Ziad Naccache, Douglas Einar Olsen, Jamie Powell and Eric Sall, with a collaborative performance by artists Lydia Ainsworth and Lara Gemmiti the night of the opening.

What I Know, curated by Jason Andrew at NYCAMS



What I Know
NYCAMS (New York Center for Art and Media Studies)
Curated by Jason Andrew, Director of Norte Maar
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17th, 6-8 PM
February 17 - March 16

Michele Araujo, Liz Atzberger, Ali Della Bitta, Deborah Brown, Anthony Browne, Sharon Butler, Paul D’Agostino, Diane Fine, Hermine Ford, Ryan Michael Ford, Rico Gatson, Julia K. Gleich, Ben Godward, Tamara Gonzales, Mimi Gross, Brece Honeycutt, Andrew Hurst, Cooper Holoweski, Norman Jabaut, Lars Kremer, Ellen Letcher, Amy Lincoln, Matthew Miller, Jimmy Miracle, Constantine Manos, Robert Moskowitz, Brooke Moyse, Cathy Nan Quinlan, Sean Pace, Michael Prodanou, Kevin Regan, Jackie Sabourin, Patricia Satterlee, Mira Schor, John Silvis, Adam Simon, Andy Spence, Austin Thomas, Melissa Terrezza, Colin Thomson, Julie Torres, Marjorie Van Cura, Lindsay Walt, Letha Wilson, Audra Wolowiec

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Yunhee Min at Exercise Projects Canada



Exercise is pleased to announce its second exhibition:

YUNHEE MIN
Spectra: fixtures, attachments, and ornamentals
February 9—March 4

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 9, 7-10pm

Exercise
147 Main St.
Vancouver, BC
V6A 1B5


Tops at President Clinton Projects




Tops

Opening Reception: Friday, February 10th, 6-9 PM

Open Space

44-02 23rd Street

Long Island City, NY 11101

Ivin Ballen, Josh Blackwell, Vince Contarino, Paul DeMuro, Dennis Farber, Amy Feldman, Stacy Fisher, Joanne Greenbaum, Michelle Grabner, Eric Hibit, James Hyde, Lucy Kim, Yasue Maetake, Fabienne Lasserre, B. Wurtz.

President Clinton Projects is pleased to present ”Tops,” featuring new work by 15 artists based in New York, Chicago and Baltimore. President Clinton Projects is a curatorial project founded in 2012 by Sun You.


For additional information, please contact Sun You at Sunyou728@gmail.com