Summer 2022 exhibitions coming soon!
Past Exhibitions:
UNDER ERASURE
An exhibition curated by Heather + Raphael Rubinstein at Pierogi Gallery
NOVEMBER 28, 2018 – JANUARY 27, 2019
https://www.under-erasure.com // Reviewed in the New York Times, the Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint
Taking its title from Jacques Derrida’s concept of “under erasure,” the exhibition will include both visual artists and contemporary writers whose work features different varieties of erasure. For Derrida (as for Heidegger before him) to put a word under erasure (sous rature) is to signal the inadequacy of inherited language while also recognizing its inevitability. Since Derrida introduced the concept of under erasure in his 1967 book Of Grammatology, this emphatically visual act of intervention has become an indispensable technique in diverse disciplines.
A TIME BEFORE WE WERE BORN: VISIONS OF ARCADIA IN CONTEMPORARY PAINTING
June 26th – September 29th, 2018
The exhibition includes work by Susan Bee, Katherine Bradford, JooYoung Choi, Rafael Ferrer, Roy de Forest, Paul Georges, Chris Johanson, Po Kim, Fay Lansner, Judith Linhares, Donna Moylan, Jan Müller, Archie Rand, and Purvis Young.
Taking its title from a 1983 Talking Heads song “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody),” this exhibition looks at how painters have drawn on existing mythologies, as well as inventing their own, to create visions of lost (or maybe promised) paradises, visual songs of innocence and experience that transcend periods and cultures, speaking to a deeply imbedded human need for images of hope and harmony. One way of thinking of the history of modern art is as an oscillation between the urban and the pastoral, between a confrontation with the realities of the industrialized life of cities and the lost paradise of the natural world, and of an imagined realm in which humans lived in harmony with nature and with one another. This pastoral vision can be traced in works such as Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings and Matisse’s Luxe Calme et Volupté, works in which the anxieties and terror of the modern world have been banished. Extending the definition of “landscape” to include ambiguous spaces that erase the boundaries between interior and exterior, A Time Before We Were Born also recognizes that versions of the pastoral are often haunted by darker intimations, and sometimes by a sense of wild abandon. These are not classical visions of a perfectly ordered nature.
A Time Before We Were Born includes a number of epic-scale paintings, several of which have not been publicly exhibited for many years, as well as more intimate works. The exhibition spans multiple generations and decades, beginning with a look back to the cohort of painters who in the 1950s married the energy of Abstract Expressionism with a rediscovery of figuration and mythological and literary allusions. Representing this tradition are paintings by Paul Georges and Jan Müller, both of whom studied with Hans Hoffmann. In the 1970s, Roy de Forest, a proponent of California Funk art, depicted his own brand of an earthly paradise, while Fay Lansner developed a liberated figurative style drawing on the legacy of Matisse. Contributing to a renewed interest in figurative painting from the 1980s on, artists such as Archie Rand and Donna Moylan infused their narrative paintings with multi-layered references to art history and world religion. Often Arcadian paintings can carry in them an implied critique of injustice, as one sees in the work of Po Kim and Rafael Ferrer. More recently, artists such as Susan Bee, Katherine Bradford and Judith Linhares have employed highly personal styles to populate imagined worlds with allegorical figures and motifs, while JooYoung Choi draws on comics and animation to propose mythic narratives of innocence and fantasy. With playful visual wit, Chris Johanson draws equally on the languages of abstraction and figuration in paintings where nature and culture find an uneasy truce, while in Purvis Young’s urgent painting, mythic insects and Zulu horsemen contend for the viewer’s attention.
Roy De Forest, View of Lake Louise, 1979. Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 87 inches. © The Estate of Roy De Forest. Private Collection. Courtesy George Adams Gallery, New York
Roy De Forest, View of Lake Louise, 1979. Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 87 inches. © The Estate of Roy De Forest. Private Collection. Courtesy George Adams Gallery, New York
Jan Müller, Search For The Ball # 2, 1957. Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Bookstein Projects, New York. Archie Rand, Sisters, 1983. Acrylic, enamel and crayon on canvas, 58 x 143 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Archie Rand, Sisters, 1983. Acrylic, enamel and crayon on canvas, 58 x 143 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Chris Johanson, You and everyone else (in some way), 2016. Acrylic and household paint on found wood, 43 x 57.75 x 3 inches. © Chris Johanson; Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.
Chris Johanson, You and everyone else (in some way), 2016. Acrylic and household paint on found wood, 43 x 57.75 x 3 inches. © Chris Johanson; Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York.
Donna Moylan, Plymouth, 2016. Watercolor on paper, 21 x 28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Donna Moylan, Plymouth, 2016. Watercolor on paper, 21 x 28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Fay Lansner, Untitled, 1960s. Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. Courtesy Estate of Fay Lansner.
Fay Lansner, Untitled, 1960s. Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. Courtesy Estate of Fay Lansner.
Jan Müller, Search For The Ball # 2, 1957. Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Bookstein Projects, New York.
Jan Müller, Search For The Ball # 2, 1957. Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Bookstein Projects, New York.
JooYoung Choi, Welcome Home, We’ve been waiting for you, 2015. Acrylic, paper, and painted canvas on stretched canvas, 96 x 72 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
JooYoung Choi, Welcome Home, We’ve been waiting for you, 2015. Acrylic, paper, and painted canvas on stretched canvas, 96 x 72 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Katherine Bradford, Grand Night Swim, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist and CANADA, New York.
Katherine Bradford, Grand Night Swim, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist and CANADA, New York.
Paul Georges, Backyard Sagaponack w/ Muse, 1980-82. Oil on linen, 55 x 165 inches. Copyright 2018 Paul Georges Studio, NYC. Courtesy Paul Georges Studio, NYC.
Paul Georges, Backyard Sagaponack w/ Muse, 1980-82. Oil on linen, 55 x 165 inches. Copyright 2018 Paul Georges Studio, NYC. Courtesy Paul Georges Studio, NYC.
Po Kim, We Are, 1992-1994(1981-1982). Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 216 inches. Courtesy of The Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Foundation, New York.
Po Kim, We Are, 1992-1994(1981-1982). Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 216 inches. Courtesy of The Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Foundation, New York.
Purvis Young, Angel with Ants and Zulu Riders. Early 1980s. Paint on plywood, 83 x 33.5 inches. Courtsey of the Daniel Aubry Gallery.
Purvis Young, Angel with Ants and Zulu Riders. Early 1980s. Paint on plywood, 83 x 33.5 inches. Courtsey of the Daniel Aubry Gallery.
Rafael Ferrer, Conquista de La Soledad, 1990-91. Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches. Collection Francoise Ferrer. Photo credit: Gary Mamay.
Rafael Ferrer, Conquista de La Soledad, 1990-91. Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches. Collection Francoise Ferrer. Photo credit: Gary Mamay.
Susan Bee, Idyll Wilds, 2011. Oil on linen, 34 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Susan Bee, Idyll Wilds, 2011. Oil on linen, 34 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Judith Linhares, Water, 2012. Gouache on paper, 29 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and P.P.O.W, New York.
Judith Linhares, Water, 2012. Gouache on paper, 29 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist and P.P.O.W, New York.
Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Art Gallery, 417 Lafayette Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10003