Report From Miami, Day 1: Basel

Guest Contributor: Mary Addison Hackett / Turns out tweeting, texting, shooting work and seeing the art, was more complex than I thought. After catching a cab from the airport and having the cab driver stop on the freeway to call her husband for directions, we shuttled over to Basel for an obligatory overview. I intended on having an unbiased approach to looking at the work, but I was drawn to the more figurative work this year. Overall Basel felt as blue chip as you'd expect and painterly was hard to come by.

Chris Martin, Coltrane, 2013, mixed media on canvas, 84 1/8 x 63 1/8 inches.

Martin Creed, 2013, Work No. 1753, Katherine, acrylic, oil pastel and pencil on canvas, 18 x 14 in. 

Per Kirkeby, Untitled, 2012, oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 inches.

Carroll Dunham, Terrible Sun, 2013, mixed media on linen, 95 1/4 x 75 1/4 inches.

Malcolm Morley, Thor, 2008, oil on linen with cloth and rubber glove attached, 84 x 63 inches.

John Currin, Reunion, 2008, oil on linen, 22 inches diameter.

Michaelangelo Pistoletto, 1976, Black and Light, (dimensions and media unavailable)

Arguably one of the most interesting paintings at Basel. And yes, that's 1976.

A rapt crowd in front of a furry painting. 

Mama Andersson, On Tenderhooks, 2005, acrylic and oil on panel (3 parts) 25 x 96 inches

Josh Smith, Untitled, 2013, oil on panel, 48 x 36 inches

It didn't seem that crowded. 

The taxi queue for weary fair-goers. 

Related posts:
Painter Tatiana Berg's picks from Art Basel Miami Beach, 2012, Part I (2012)
Tatiana Berg reports from the satellite fairs, Part II (2012)
Images from Art Basel Miami Beach and Amy Sillman Giveaway (2009)
Miami Beach: Swimming in pigment (2008)
 

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Quick Study: Turner Prize, Miami, Zwirner, and, yes, surfing

In line with recent custom, the one painter shortlisted for the Turner Prize--Lynette Yiadom-Boakye--was passed over. Via NYTimes: "The artist Laure Prouvost, whose works combine whimsical objects and drawings in evocative settings with an Instagram-like stream of film images, has won this year’s Turner Prize, the prestigious and often contentious annual award for a British artist under 50." Image above: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, The Generosity, 2010.

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Two Coats of Paint has roped painter-blogger Mary Addison Hackett into serving as our Miami correspondent this year. A painter currently working out of Nashville, Hackett (press pass picture on right) has blogged about her painting practice at Process  since 2005. If you see her wandering around, say hello and invite her to a party. Follow her on Twitter @maryaddhackett.

For anyone who is heading south, check out Hyperallergic's  Essential Guide to the Miami Art Fairs.

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The New Yorker published a profile of dealer David Zwirner last week. Basically, the article confirms that it takes a lot of money to run an A-list gallery and that learning to surf could be a good career move. In the last paragraph, when writer Nick Paumgarten visits Zwirner at his summer house in Montauk, the dealer laments the changes taking place in the East End fishing community:

On our way to buy a striped bass for lunch, [Zwirner] pulled into a lot at the beach to get a look at the surf, and ran into another gallery owner who’d just finished surfing, and whom he talked about afterward as a member of a clique of cool art people and surfers whom he doesn’t really hang out with in Montauk. He has the air of a family man who is resigned to being a square—let ’em laugh. He complained about hipsters taking over the town and took me to Gosman’s, a fish market, where a fleet of commercial trawlers were docked. “This is real, and that’s what’s good about Montauk,” he said. He had a romantic attraction to the rusting, gear-strewn vessels and to the idea, at least, of good hard labor at sea—and he rued the trawlers’ eventual obsolescence. “You just know we’ll all be eating farm fish soon,” he said. He went inside and stood in line to buy a wild striper.

Paumgarten seems to be highlighting Zwirner's obtuseness. He rues the decline of the working-class fisherman in Montauk, yet stokes an analogous dynamic in the art world, where the top galleries and auction houses suck up most of the money and leave mid-level galleries (and artists) struggling to survive.

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In Harper's Ben Lerner writes a thoughtful piece about what art is worth, with an emphasis on art vandalism and how it affects market value. It's behind a paywall, but worth a read.

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 EJ Hauser, Shield Face, 2013, ink and marker on newsprint, 11 x 8 1/2 inches. On view in "Hope Despite The Times," @ ZieherSmith through December 21.

From the press release:

Despite the art world’s record breaking prices and the prevailing, monstrous bloat, we’re confident that there is great reward in the jubilant straightforwardness of the 8 artists presented. Bradford, Hauser, Miler, Mrozowski and Petras live and work in Brooklyn. Minov was in residence in Manhattan at LMCC’s Worskpace 2013 program and was born and continues to work in Sofia, Bulgaria. Matt Stokes is represented by ZieherSmith and lives and works in Blaydon on Tyne, England. Crawford remains a mystery.

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Ed Winkleman says: Everyone should stop talking about the market and start looking at art again.

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The Creative Capital /Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grants have been announced, and Two Coats of Paint is on the list! Oh happy day---> and big congratulations to all.

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And finally, give gifts made by artists this year. I wasted twenty minutes yesterday at Artware, a site featuring household objects designed by famous artists. Kiki Smith espresso cups, Liam Gillick wallpaper, a Vik Muniz ashtray, Tracey Emin beach towels, tree ornaments from William Wegman--I couldn't look away.  

 Raymond Pettibon water bottle. 28 bucks.

Related posts:
The continued under-valuation of art bloggers (2009)
Paddy Johnson wins Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Writing Grant for Art Fag City (2009)

Past Turner Prize coverage 

Figure painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a finalist for the Turner Prize (2013)

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December 2: Andrew Ginzel's list of NYC shows and events

SOME but not all NYC SELECTED SHOWS TO SEE  / Listed south to north. Compiled by artist Andrew Ginzel for his students at the School of Visual Arts. Note: Images have been selected by Two Coats of Paint.

 Stephen Maine @ Brian Morris (Lower East Side)

LOWER EAST SIDE

NLE Lab: Through the Parlor / No Longer Empty / 24 Rutgers / thru 12/14
Sam Anderson / Chapter NY / 127 Henry / thru 12/22
Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson / Pocket Utopia / 191 Henry / thru 12/8
Ned Drew / S&J Projects / 191 Henry / thru 12/22
F. Dimattio; D. Hollingsworth; J. Lasker; D. Rios Rodriguez; S. Slone / Sargent’s Daughter / 179 East Broadway / thru 12/7

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An invitation: SKIN at The Painting Center

Please join me on Thursday, December 5, at The Painting Center in Chelsea for "SKIN," an elegant  exhibition curated by painter Suejin Jo and featuring a couple of my paintings as well as work by Josh Blackwell, Martin Bromirski, Suejin Jo, Scott Richter and Drew Shiflett. (Image above: Installation view: One of my larger pieces on the left, two of Martin Bromirski's new paintings on the right. Images courtesy of The Painting Center.)

 Martin Bromirski, Suejin Jo, Scott Richter

 Sharon Butler, Martin Bromirski, Josh Blackwell.

Drew Shiflett, Scott Richter

From the press release:

The skin of an artwork speaks of the singular visual vocabulary of its maker. Each of these artists found a way of making a unique skin, either by using nontraditional materials or by employing traditional materials in an unusual way. This exhibition features the work of Josh Blackwell, Martin Bromirski, Sharon Butler, Suejin Jo, Scott Richter and Drew Shiflett. 

Josh Blackwell’s skin is plastic. Elaborating upon everyday experience, he makes intentionally redundant objects from found materials that explore the humdrum rituals of use. Treading a precarious path between convenience and excess, the plastic bag has occupied his attention for the past seven years. 

Martin Bromirski tends to torture the skin of the canvas. He deliberately picks cheap ready-made canvases that he paints, rips, cuts out circles, washes in the sink, scrapes, sands, patches and stains till the history of all his trials and errors produces this effect. If he stops from exhaustion, he deems that it is the right skin and moves on. 

Sharon Butler subverts the traditional use of common materials. Her raw canvases are pinned on stretchers in peculiar disarray, unsettling the viewer and causing them to focus on the image in order to figure out why it is sitting there: Is it lost? Does it need help? What does it want to say? 

Suejin Jo paints with oil and acrylic paint in a nontraditional way. Deeply interested in the texture of the picture surface, she painted with oil and dry pigment for over a decade despite health risks. Experimenting to find a healthier alternative led her to discover oil and acrylic paints wet on wet gave a unique skin to the painting.

Scott Richter makes his own medium to give a distintive skin to the work, undergoing considerable effort and expense. He believes that words strip the work of mystery and the dialog with the viewer. His well-known pieces are brilliantly constructed with impasto oil paint and airy whispers circulating among the clearly defined forms. 

Drew Shiflett uses the traditional materials but her way of building the skin of her art work is anything but traditional. She repeatedly draws, paints, cuts, glues, layers, pulls and builds until all the element evolve to reference a sculptural wall or relief.

"SKIN," curated by Suejin Jo. The Painting Center, Chelsea, New York, NY. Through December 21, 2013. 

Related posts:   

The beautiful and bizarre, organic and toxic at Elizabeth Harris (2010)

Martin Bromirski's universe (2010)

Drew Shiflett: The raw transformative power of obsession (2009)

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EMAIL: "Clouds" exhibition details from Adam Simon

Dear Cloud Artist,

Thank you for agreeing to be in the exhibition, “Clouds” at Lesley Heller Projects. I wanted to let you know very far in advance that the dates for the exhibition are December 15th, 2013 through January 26th, 2014. No dimension should exceed 24 inches in any direction. The title of the exhibition is also its theme, to be taken seriously but not necessarily literally. I do hope we get some, but not all, actual depictions of clouds. Have a great summer.

I leave you with the following, sent to me by artist and friend, Paul D’Agostino:

THE STRANGER BY CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Translated from the French by Paul D’Agostino / Paris, Spring 2007

Tell me, you enigmatic man, whom do you love the most? Your father, your mother, your sister or your brother?

I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.

Your friends
You’re using a word whose meaning yet remains unknown to me.
Your homeland?

I ignore even the latitude where it is situated.

Beauty?

I would be happy to love her, goddess-like and immortal.

Gold?

I hate gold like you hate God.

Well then, what do you love, extraordinary stranger ?

I love the clouds… the clouds that pass… down there… over there… the marvelous clouds!

--Email from Adam Simon, received June 11, 2013

David Brody, Cloud, 2013, colored pencil on isometric paper, 11 x 17 inches

 Peter Dudek, Low Cloud, 2013 , Sculpt-a-mold, foam, metal, dimensions variable  

 Brece Honeycutt, Silver Lining, 2013 , cotton, nylon, silk, wool, map pins, 17 x 9 x 2 inches.

 Deborah Brown, Cloud , 2013, oil on panel, 11 x 17 inches. 

If you have some free time, I highly recommend checking out Heller's website, where images of all the work in the show have been posted.

"Clouds," organized by Adam Simon. Lesley Heller Gallery, LES, New York, NY. December 15 - January 26, 2014.  Opening reception: December 15, 6-9 pm.

Artists include Michele Araujo, Valerie Hegarty, Zach Rockhill, John Baber, Lisa Hein, Hanneline Røgeberg,Perry Bard, Eric Heist, Bob Seng,David Brody, Elana Herzog, Ward Shelley, Deborah Brown, Brece Honeycutt, Lisa Sigal, Sharon Butler, Patrick Killoran, Susan Silas, Caroline Cox, Byron Kim, Adam Simon, Paul D’Agostino, Greg Kwiatek, Tim Spelios, Nuno de Campos, Kerry Law, William Stone, Peter Dudek, Eric LoPresti, Richard Sullivan, Joy Episalla, Thomas Micchelli, Jude Tallichet, Rochelle Feinstein, Matthew Miller, Kate Teale, Hermine Ford, Loren Munk, Mark Tribe, Matt Freedman, Edie Nadelhaft, Fred Valentine, Munro Galloway, Laura Newman, Daniel Wiener, Rico Gatson, Bruce Pearson, Carrie Yamaoka, Ben Godward, Liza Phillips, Jacqueline Gourevitch, Cathy Quinlan, Larry Greenberg, Beth Reisman, Charles Hagen

Note: I contributed the little painting pictured at the top of the post. It's from a new series of 18 x 24 inch oil studies painted on hand-stretched canvas. Info: Sharon Butler, Rooftop structure, 2013, oil on hand-stretched canvas, 18 x 24 inches.


Related posts:
Rolling Conversations this Friday night in Bushwick (2011)
  Painting of the Day: "Meeting" by Adam Simon (2010)

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Margaret Murphy: Unavoidable truth

On Artfcity, Whitney Kimball observed, with some justification, that young artists these days seem broadly reluctant to incorporate confrontational political content into their work. But there are many salutary role models, from William Powhida and Jen Dalton to Marlene Dumas and Steve Mumford. Wedding heart and craft, Margaret Murphy should also be included on the list.

Margaret Murphy, Tell Your Son to Behave, 2013, acrylic, ink on fabric mounted on board, 14 x 14 inches.

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Ryan McLaughlin: Painting is flat

Remember Worcester-born, Berlin-based Ryan McLauglin's Treif Collage paintings at Frieze last year? Hovering between still life and abstraction, the charming yet dour small-scale paintings featured a minimal, greyed-down palette and shallow space. In "Raisins," his solo show at Laurel Gitlen, McLaughlin has moved even closer to abstraction, depicting the flattened space of billboards and advertisements. The palette is brighter and the images look redacted, as though McLaughlin has scraped off more concrete, specific images.

[Image above: Ryan McLaughlin, Space, 2013, oil on MDF, framed, 8 x 10 inches.]

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Gregory Amenoff's studies

Gregory Amenoff has discovered a new decisiveness. He generated his previous paintings improvisationally, arriving at images directly through the process of painting. In contrast, Amenoff's new large-scale canvases are based on small pencil studies, which he made during a trip to Paris in the summer of 2012. "I was staying in a nice apartment so I couldn't paint--I'm a sloppy painter. I bought a couple hundred colored pencils and some fairly hard paper, and I decided to develop some new images," Amenoff told me. "For the first time in two years I was really excited by the images."

Gregory Amenoff, Polaris, 2012, oil on canvas, 66 x 60 inches.

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Providence report: Leigh Tarentino and Duane Slick

Iridescence is the unphotographable thread that runs through LeighTarentino's winter landscapes and Duane Slick's stripes and Coyotes on view at the Chazan Gallery in Providence.

Tarentino's shimmering night paintings depict houses, yards and gardens illuminated by artificial lights hung on solitary ornamental trees. Carefully drawn, the masked geometric shapes create containers for less controlled, unruly painterly approaches such as pouring and pooling. The dark images, laced with silver metalic pigment, evoke a palpable sense of longing and loneliness as they emerge from the blackness. An assistant professor at Brown University, Tarentino is working toward several shows, including a 2014 solo at Mixed Greens in New York.

[Image above:  Leigh Tarentino, untitled, 2013, acrylic on panel, 24 x 30 inches.]

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Painting of the Day: Scott Reeder @ Lisa Cooley

Detroit artist Scott Reeder's compelling show at Lisa Cooley is full of wise-ass text-based work that features masking, airbrush and more. In the back room, two large canvases are painted to look like old-fashioned blackboards. The one on the left, Alternative Titles for Exhibitions I've Seen, has been selected as today's Painting of the Day. It reads:

ALTERNATIVE TITLES FOR EXHIBITIONS I'VE SEEN:
Indoor Street Art
Abstraction for Beginners
Believe it or Not, I Own a Computer
Painting is Dead, But These Paintings Are Still Available
The Book Was Better Than The Movie, But This Show is Worse Than Both
Illusion Of Intelligence (Part 3)
Popcorn And Hammocks
Warhol Did It Better, But Warhols are Hella Expensive
Fluxus Redone But Not Mentioned
Even Smaller / Less Impressive
Punk For Sale
We Do It 4 The JPEGS
LAZY Arangements
If Not The Walls Then Where?
(Just Kidding We're Just Going To Lean It Or put it On the Floor Like Everyone Else)
And Your thought You Were Bored Before?
Fake Casual
Post Good
Mad At Museums (Part 6)
Not For Sale! (Until Late)
Just Think Of Me As A Philosopher Who Sells Things
Important Art Referenced Unimportantly
Bad Art In Good Taste
Good Job! (100% Like Everything Else)
Forgetable Objects Arranged According To Current Trends
 We Should Just Throw This Shit Right Into A Dumpster But...
The Men's Movement
Can't Say I Hate It
We're Still Doing Black And White Right?

Are Reeder and William Powhida pals? If not, they should be.

"Scott Reeder: People Call Me Scott," Lisa Cooley, LES, New York, NY. Through December 22, 2013.

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Studio visit: Matthew Langley and the palette knife

My neighbor and fellow abstract painter Matthew Langley and I have always agreed that process is important--that how an abstract painter paints is as revealing as what he or she paints.

At art school in the eighties and early nineties, during a period of intensely tactile materiality for abstract painting, Langley and I both embraced the work of painters like Terry Winters, Brice Marden, Susan Rothenberg, Bill Jensen, Elizabeth Murray, and Jake Berthot. I think Langley, who is from DC, would also include Color Field Painting on his list of important influences. While I was picking up a few of my paintings from his studio the other day, we discussed the unfinished painting that was sitting on his easel.

[Image above: Matthew Langley's studio.]

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An invitation: Water, Water...

Kianga Ellis Projects is hosting “Water, Water… 8 Strange Days in the City That Never Sleeps,” an exhibition organized by artist Edie Nadelhaft that considers how Hurricane Sandy, the superstorm that devastated the East Coast last fall, affected artists both in terms of their studio situations and their work. I remember watching from the seaside cottage I rent during the academic year as the storm raged, the tide rising over the nearby seawall, stopping short of my back door. The high winds felled several large trees, knocking down power lines and leaving us without electricity for six long days. Many boats broke loose from their moorings and landed on the rocks, but most of the homes in my neighborhood were spared.

Nasty and destructive, the storm prompted me to introduce soaking, tearing, and mending into my work. Nadelhaft has included two pieces featuring these elements in the show, along with work by Matt Enger, Elisa Bates, Ronnie Landfield, Edie Nadelhaft herself, Samantha Keely Smith, Bruce Stiglich, and Austin Thomas.

Our thoughts are with the victims of the recent typhoon in the Philippines.

Please come to the opening reception on Thursday, November 14, 2013,  6-8pm. Note that the show is only up for 8 days: Tuesday, November 12, through Tuesday, November 19.

Sharon Butler, Wet on Wet (Hurricane), 2013, pigment, binder, pencil, sewing on unprimed linen tarp, 18 x 24 inches.

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LOVE: Robert Indiana's hard-edged visual essays

Guest Contributor Jonathan Stevenson / “Robert Indiana: Beyond Love” at the Whitney unabashedly aims to extricate the artist from the public’s myopic reduction of his body of work to the iconic "LOVE" image of the 1970s. It succeeds in presenting Indiana as a brave, erudite, disciplined artist whose worldview is far more nuanced and dappled than those four letters suggest.

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IMAGES: Heather Leigh McPherson

Obsessive second-guessing, arguments with herself, and indecision all figure prominently in Heather Leigh McPherson's painting process. A few weeks ago I stopped by her post-industrial-park Providence studio to check out her stunning new series of large-scale paintings.

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Saltz pens a bad review: Eggerer at Petzel

I recently criticized Jerry Saltz for his group scold of contemporary painters, and today on the Vulture blog Saltz names a name, slamming Thomas Eggerer's show at Petzel:

The second I saw Thomas Eggerer's current large show at Petzel Gallery — the artist's fourth here since 2004—I thought, This overrated art star is way out of gas, going through the motions.

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