JACKIE MATISSE: New Art Volant

March 7, 2019

ZONE: Chelsea Center for the Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of artworks by Jackie Matisse that span a period of more than 20 years. Included will be examples of her famous hand-made kites and kite tails, mobiles, collages, assemblages, and graphic works. Video presentations of her collaborative projects on display include a film, “Tailing a Dream,” (1985)with composer David Tudor and filmmaker Molly Davies, and “Art Flying In & Out of Space” (2002 – 2005), a flat-screen interactive stereoscopic installation of her recent experimental work in super computing and “virtual reality” with David Pape of the Department of Media Study, University of Buffalo.1

Jackie Matisse grew up in Paris and New York in the ambience of Constantin Brancusi and the Surrealists, and many of the artists associated with her father, Pierre Matisse, and his important 57th Street gallery. She had the personal experience of watching her grandfather, Henri Matisse, create his series of colorful paper collages. By the late 1950s she had started her own family and was assisting her stepfather, Marcel Duchamp, in assembling his Boite-en-Valise (portable museum) while finding her unique direction as an artist in the multi-dimensional motion of kites.

Kites have a rich tradition as objects of ritual display in Asian cultures and a kinship to the ceremonial unfurling of heraldic banners and flags. But kites also convey a popular image that can be shared in play with family and friends and are more modestly engaging and self-effacing than what we expect when we are experiencing “art.” By 1962 Jackie Matisse had begun thinking about kites as a form that could set art in motion. While taking a cab to the airport from NYC, she saw a single kite flying over Harlem that appeared to her like a “line drawn in the sky,” this image inspired her to draw “on the canvas of the sky” and create “Art Volant”(flying art).2 For Jackie Matisse, the emptiness of the sky marked with the “line” of a kite became a work of art.

All of Jackie Matisse’s works, and her particular imagery, imply transitory movement, either literally or metaphorically. Found materials, casually appropriated imagery, light-loving translucence, and freedom of movement are intrinsic qualities of her work. Moreover, her kite-flying is a form of performance art that embraces the random effects of “chance” in the natural environment; an appreciation of “chance” is the sensibility inherent in all of her various works.

The aerodynamic forms of Jackie Matisse’s kite heads and tails, and the simple curved forms that often appear on the tails, are deceptively ultra-modernist when they are displayed indoors in galleries. However, Jackie Matisse has found personal sources for her modernist imagery, transpose strategies that have enabled her to escape from the shadow of the artistic giants in her family.

In the late 1960s, during the period of the Apollo Mission and the first man on the Moon (which Jackie Matisse felt was “the deflowering of the Moon”), she discovered a source for images of the Moon’s shifting visage in the local market place of Nemours where a tableware vendor was breaking some of his dishes in the street to advertise his plates (“Buy them or I will break them!”). 3 The idea of breaking plates in order to get people to buy them, and the uncanny resemblance of the broken ceramic pieces lying on the street to the phases of the Moon, resulted in her use of broken dish shards as stencils for the simple shapes in her work.

Recycling imagery is part of the transitory character of her work. Her long-time friend, the artist and critic Suzi Gablik, has pointed out that Jackie Matisse “is unique in the way that Ray Johnson is for his unusual correspondence art. She is an original, a ‘gutterartist’ who makes art out of gum wrappers, bottles, and bits of trash that one finds on the street, or in a terrain vague(a vacant lot) – sometimes tying bits of this material together or suspending them on human hair gathered from her family and friends.” For her underwater kites she found a special fabric that had the specific gravity of water so that they would have a sense of weightlessness. Gablik has also noted that Jackie Matisse’s working methods always invoke an air of mystery and usually involve a “secret recipe.”4

Jackie Matisse has succeeded in bearing the culture of her unique family by creating art in her own visual language.

End notes:

“Tailing A Dram”was produced under the auspices of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. “Kites Flying In & Out of Space”has been developed since 2002 by the Mountain Lake Workshop of the Virginia Tech Foundation; the workshop is a collaborative, community-based art project focused on the customs and the environmental and technological resources of the New River Valley and the Appalachian region.

2. In the early 1970s Jackie Matisse and a cohort of fellow-artists including Tal Streeter, Curt Asker and Istevan Bodoczky, signed the Art Volant Manifesto, declaring that the kite is “ a vehicle joining the spirit and the physical….the kite’s flying line connects the human hand and mind with the elements.”

3. Leslie Vallhonrat, Art That Soars, Kites and Tails by Jackie Matisse, exhibition catalogue edited by Martha Longenecker, (San Diego: Mingei International Museum, 2000), p. 30. Ms. Vallhonrat’s essay was originally published by the Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA. U.S.A. for the 1999 exhibition, Kitetail Cocktail.

4. Suzi Gablik in conversation with Ray Kass, April 13, 2005, Blacksburg, Virginia.

May 26 – June 24, 2005

Opening reception

Thursday May 26th 2005

6-8pm

"Airborne, Underwater, Cyber Flying The World of Kite Artist Jackie Matisse" by Ben Ruhe

Ever the kiteflying pioneer, Jackie Matisse, of Fontainbleau Forest , France , late last year collaborated on the first high-bandwidth art piece ever created by computer. Working with the Amsterdam Science and Technology Center, Matisse contributed 12 of her very long, beautifully decorated kite tails to the project. Because wind speed was added to the equation, extensive calculations were required for these real-time kinetic art pieces (kites). Computer operations, mainly at universities, around the world each took on a single one of the dozen tails. The computers were located in Chicago, Canada , Japan , Singapore , Virginia and elsewhere.

The simulation took place in Amsterdam in a three-by-three meter room known as the cave. Three-dimensional computer-generated stereo images were projected on the walls and floor. Visitors viewed the images with special glasses, allowing them to experience date in exceptional ways.

The test was dubbed “kites flying in and out of space” because the project was actually an illusion of sorts. A viewer could put his hand right through a flying, fluttering kite.

So what did the successful demonstration mean? One answer was this: the flying kites were a visual metaphor for high speed networking performance, an important harbinger of things to come globally.

Matisse takes a longer view. “The kites evolved from my use of the sky as a canvas and because they are hard to fly in all conditions, I have experimented with alternate spaces in the past, including under the water and on video. This virtual reality networking enabled me to compose and fly many more kites than I would have been able to fly in real space.

Only granddaughter of the artist Henri Matisse and stepdaughter of Marcel Duchamp, two of the four most influential artists of the 20 th century (the others are Picasso and Pollock), Matisse came to kites as her unique, chosen art form after raising a family of four in Paris. Daughter of New York art dealer Pierre Matisse, she had been reared and educated in the U.S. “Kites have helped me maintain my independence, to express what I feel about art through making ephemeral art works in the sky. Kites are a magical, never ending story and that’s why I cling to them. Whether putting kites into the air, or under the water, or into cyber space, I’ll continue to experiment with them.”

Jackie Matisse feels Duchamp helped her find kites because of his tolerant gaze. For her and for artists all over the world, he flung open the door to unheard of materials and potential directions for art. She says she took up kites after buying a 22-foot Thai snake kite, which she unfurled in the wind and soon lost. But it was a Pandora’s box for her; the image of this long kite flying in the air and creating unpredictable movement and color captured her imagination. She has been making and flying kites ever since.

Her view is that “the sky is a vast celestial canvas, offering the artist an unexploited working space. Kites sculpt the air, they play a game of freedom- they tell a mysterious story. They allow an expression of the infinitely variable interplay of movement, light and color.”

One commentator has called her kites a form of aerial painting. It has been observed they can be viewed as site- specific choreography for the sky. Another observer nicely compares them to Tibetan prayer flags inscribed with mantras, fluttering in the wind and connecting with the moving spirits of the air, thus dispensing the mantra’s benevolent power.

“Her work is inspired, comments Scott Skinner, president of the Drachen Foundation and a student of kite making and flying world wide. “Her interest seems to be with the environment as much as with kites. She provides a different way of seeing kites. She turns a kite into a functional object in which to view the environment. Her water pieces, involving mysterious movement, dappled color, implied sound, are particularly powerful. We all like the unexpected, and she provides it.”

In the 1970s, Matisse became associated with a loose association of visual artists who happened to use kites in their art—–not kite-makers turning out art kites, a significant distinction. Others in the group included the American Tal Streeter, the Swede Curt Asker, and the Hungarian Istvan Bodczky. What the group had in common was a modernist sensibility. The emphasis was on the use of simple, sometimes unorthodox material, on unpretentiousness, accident, the transitory. The collective viewed kiting as participatory, kinetic performance art.

Over the last two decades or so, Matisse’s airborne kites led her to more domesticated works—-assemblages composed of box-like wire armatures that support strings of small floating found objects and tiny sails of painted paper or spinnaker cloth. Rescued detritus is transformed into magical, elegant table pieces. Her swimming tails led her to water-filled bottles in which suspended arrangements of small, shaped tails of various materials became miniature studies for her large-scale underwater kite art.

Matisse even figured out a way to put movement into her long kite tails while hanging them indoors. She hangs them up on rollers and powers them into movement vie small electric motors. Simple, but effective. One of these hangs in the living room of her comfortable old house in the middle of a village. Complete with its own large courtyard graced by two large chestnut trees, the house has lots of paintings and sculptures. “Family and friends,” she says of the artists represented. That their names reverberate in Western art history is just the way it happens to be.

Matisse’s kite making studio is elsewhere in the village. It is two stories high and nicely organized. A notable prop there is a kite reel crafted for her by the artist Jean Tinguely. Although utilitarian, it is a work of art in itself.

Amid a Henri Matisse drawing and Duchampian chess paraphernalia and two of his ready mades (the famous bottle rack and the bicycle wheel mounted atop a stool, both replicas), Jackie Matisse gathers in front of the fire with two of her sons. They discuss Duchamp, who they admired and adored. Matisse adds a small note of reality to the talk. “Yes, he was wonderful, of course but he did smoke cheap Spanish cigars. When he played chess, he was wrapped in smoke.” One of her sons adds: “We still use the boxes they came in for one thing or another. A family vignette.” Despite the cigars, he lived until he was 82.

At a time in life when some would contemplate retirement, Matisse remains busy and fulfilled. She maintains a large household, tends to her family (three sons and an daughter, grandchildren, two dogs and a cat), has a large and devoted group of friends around the world. She exhibits her own work (most recently at a one-person exhibition at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego). And, importantly, she helps represent the family in dealings with the Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp heritage—-meeting with curators and scholars, overseeing a journal devoted to the Duchampian legacy, attending the still frequent exhibitions of their work around the world.

The of course when she can make the time, there are always her kites to keep her absorbed in art creative work. Jackie Matisse has this final comment: “Why do I make flying art? To fly is soothing to the soul.”

Dave Pape (Assistant Professor, Media Study, University at Buffalo) on “Art Flying In & Out of Space” (2002 – 2005), a flat-screen interactive stereoscopic installation

“Art Flying In and Out of Space” is a virtual reality simulation of Jackie Matisse’s real-world physical kites, although we may be calling it an ‘interactive stereoscopic installation’ rather than VR in this case. The installation is what’s called a projection-based VR system, as apposed to the perhaps more familiar head-mounted display, where users wear a helmet with computer displays attached. Projection-based VR started with the CAVE system developed at the University of Illinois’ Electronic Visualization Laboratory. One of the key elements of VR is to immerse the viewer in the virtual world (note that the meaning of ‘immersion’ is very loose and often up for debate). Head-mounted displays do this by attaching the display to the viewer’s head; projection-based systems do this by using very large screens that fill one’s field of view. A full CAVE is a 10 x 10 foot room with projections on multiple walls and the floor; due to space and budget restrictions, this gallery installation will only have a single 8 x 10 foot screen; when users stand up close, it will still (more or less) fill their field of view. The screen is rear-projected so that people can stand close without casting shadows on the computer imagery.

The display is stereoscopic, similar to 3D movies. The technology we use is polarized stereoscopy. Two projectors display different images, one for the left eye and one for the right eye. The projectors have different polarizing filters, and viewers wear matching polarized glasses to see the 3D effect.

A six-degree-of-freedom tracking system is used in VR systems to allow the computer to know where things (such as the user’s head & hand) are, allowing direct physical interaction with the virtual world, rather than having interaction mediated by a button/menu/etc GUI. In our case, we won’t be tracking the head (which normally is used to draw the graphics from the tracked person’s viewpoint), since several people will be viewing the display simultaneously, so we will use a fixed viewpoint for the graphics. We will use the trackers to allow 2 or 3 people to fly the kites – the ends of the virtual strings will be attached to the physical trackers, which the people can move around in 3D.

The sound for the piece is music by Tom Johnson. The music is dynamic – it plays in response to the motion of the kites, as manipulated by the viewers. The kites themselves involve a physics simulation known as a “mass-spring model”. Each kite is treated as a mesh of points; the points are affected by physical forces such as wind and gravity, as well as a “spring force” that keeps the kite together as a single surface. The earlier versions of the piece used supercomputers to perform detailed simulations of the kites, with the data being streamed back to the VR system over high-speed networks. As

we don’t have such resources for this installation, a much simplified version of the simulation will be running on the single Linux PC in the gallery. The motion of the simplified kites will still look very similar, just with less detail, and perhaps less realistic (although this is not likely to be apparent to most viewers).

The whole VR Installation consists of 2 or 3 PCs (one with a high-end “gaming quality” graphics card), an electromagnetic tracking system, 2 projectors, polarizing filters and glasses, a special polarizing-preserving screen, and speakers. We assembled the system ourselves at UB from these parts; some companies sell similar systems pre-packaged, but for a lot more money.

Dave Pape

Assistant Professor

Media Study, University at Buffalo

Jackie Matisse's biography and CV

Biography

Born in France, Jackie Matisse lived in New York until 1954. Since then she has lived in Paris making frequent visits to New York. Between 1959 and 1968 she worked for Marcel Duchamp, completing the assemblage of the “Boite en Valise”. At this time using her married name, Jacqueline Monnier, she began to make kites “in order to play with color and line in the sky”. In 1980 she showed kites which were created to be used underwater at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, and since then has continued to make kitelike objects intended for three different kinds of space: the sky, the sea, and indoor space, all linked through her use of movement.

In collaboration with Molly Davies, filmmaker and David Tudor, composer, she created two videos on her underwater and sky work. In the 1980’s she collaborated with David Tudor composer and musician. She just had a comprehensive show of her work at the Mengei International Museum in San Diego, California, U.S.A.

Selected exhibitions and publications

ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2005 New Art Volant, Zone Chelsea Gallery, New York, N.Y

2002 Art Flying In and Out of Space, Virginia Tech’s Perspective Gallery and Virginia Tech Virtual Reality Cave, Blacksburg Virginia, April-May 2002. In collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago.Mountain Lake Workshop, April 2002 with Ray Kass, director.

2001 First event Echigo Triennale, August 2001, Sponsored by Art Front Gallery, Tokyo Japan

2000 Art that Soars, Mengei International Museum, San Diego, Ca. , U.S.A.

1999 Kitetail Cocktail, Goldie Paley Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa. U.S.A.

1998 Jacqueline Matisse Monnier Kiallitasa,Bartok 32 Galéria, Budapest, Hungary

1998 The World’s Most Beautiful Automobile, Milan, Italie , commission of ‘Wand’ a prize for Mr. Giovanni Agnelli.

1993 Magic Hair & Bottled Dreams,Galerie Satellite, Paris, France.

1988 Installation:Elle est rouge la petite fleur bleue, Musée Saint Roch, Issoudun, France.

1987 Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, France

1985 Joan Mirò Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.

1984 Mobilis in Mobile, exhibition and air and underwater performance, Galeria Cadaquès, Spain.

Tangled Tails, performance and exhibition, Atelier Arc-en-ciel, Brest, France.

1982 Exposition à Poils, Samy Kinge Gallery, Paris, France

Ephemeral Gameswith performance, Galeria Cadaquès, Spain.

Underwater Kites and Moving Pieces, Anne Berthoud Gallery, London, England.

1981 The Traveling Exhibition, with performance, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Pa. U.S.A.

1980 Works Underwater and in Space, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

1976 Kites, a Summer Celebration, with performance, ICA, London, England.

Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, France.

1975 Formes d’Air et de Mouvement Musée des Sables d’Olonne, France.

9 Kite Tails Alexander Iolas Gallery, Paris, France.

GROUP SHOWS

2005 La Légèreté,Galerie Pixi, Paris, France

IS&T/SPIE International Symposium, Electronic Imaging 2005, January San Jose, California, Presentation of Art Volant dans l’espaceet ailleursby Dave Pape. No sound.

2004 Set for Cunningham Ballet Co. Joyce Theater, New York. NY

Festival International des Cerfs-Volants, Dieppe, France

Shaped by the Wind : Kites, The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York

2003 Art Volant dans l’espace et ailleurs, presentation of a collaborative project of kites flying in virtual reality, with interactive sound by Tom Johnson; Nicéphore Days, ENSAM, Chalon-sur-Saône, France

Pour le Vacuovélodrome of Alfred Jarry, Nicéphore Days, ENSAM, Chalon-

Sur-Saône, France, 11 Kitetails

60 Poux du Ciel,Nicéphore Days, Espace des Arts, Chalon-sur-Saône, France.

Wabi Sabi in the West, A.V.C. Contemporary Arts Gallery, NY, New York

2002 Le Japon Mystérieux,Galerie Satellite, Paris, France

1997 Odeurs…Une Odyssée,Passage de Retz, Paris, France.

From one point to another, L’Atelier Soardi, Nice, France.

10 Jours d’Art Contemporain, Chateau de Nemours, Nemours, France.

1996 Happy End,Galerie Satellite, Paris France.

1995 First Symposium of Art Volant, Foundation Pilar i Joan Miro, Mallorca, Spain

1994 WeathervanesMusée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France.

Singuliers de L’art Galerie 2000, Paris, France.

1993 Drawing Sounds; An Installation in Honor of John Cage, by William Anastasi, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa. U.S.A.

Rolywholyover A Circusby John Cage,The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Menil Collection, Houston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, Art Tower Mito, Japan.

They quoted Matisse, Galerie de France, Paris, France.

Qu’est-ce que j’ai fabriqué? Qu’est-ce que je n’ai pas fabriqué?

Jean Dupuy, Galerie Donguy, Paris, France;

1991 Le Musée Miniature, Galerie Pixi & Cie, Paris, France.

Les artistes décident de jouer, Association Campredon Art & Culture,

L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France.

Zero Gravity, Art Advisory Service MOMA at City Bank, Long Island City, New York, U.S.A.

1990 Art, Culture et Foi, Galerie St. Séverin, Paris, France.

Art that Flies, with Curt Asker and Tal Streeter. The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A.

Sixième Rencontre Internationale de Cerfs Volants, Dieppe, France.

1988 Festival des Ailes et de l’Espace, with performance, Centre d’Actions Culturelles, St Médard en Jalles, Bordeaux, France.

Lost and Found, The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, Pa. U.S.A1987

FIAC, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris.

1986 XXXI Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, France.

Inspiration comes from Nature, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

Like Kites, MOMA, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

1985 Plein Vent, A.R.E.A., Baie de Somme,France.

R.O.R.. Evening for the “Revue Parlée” with C. Asker, E. Ferrer, Y. Tono, H. Mathews. Presentation of her seven minute video film with David Tudor “Tailing a dream” and performance. Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.

1984 Underwater, Plymouth Arts Center, Plymouth, England.

1983 Fliegende Bilder, Fliegende Plastik, with performance, Föhr, Germany.

1982 Coup de Vent dans la Prairie, Atelier d’A., with performance, Caen, France.

1981 Drachen, Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany.

1980 Group Show, Heath Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A..

Christmas Show, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, U.S.A.

Métiers d’Art, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France.

1979 Sculptures pour le ciel, Maison de la Culture, Rennes, France.

Messages pour l’espace, Centre d’actions culturelles de Sceaux, with performance, Sceaux, France.

1978 Kite Festival, Plaine de la Belle Etoile, Vincennes, France.

1977 Boites, ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France.

Artistes-Artisans, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France.

Pays, Visage de Vent, La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, with performance, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France.

La Boutique Aberrante de Daniel Spoerri, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.

Flags, Banners and Kites, Allied Arts Foundation, Seattle Wa. U.S.A.

1976 Vos Papiers, SVP, Musée des Sables d’Olonne, France.

Images pour le Ciel, Festival d’automne, exhibition and audiovisuel installation, Paris, France1975 Coup de Vent, with performance, Montrouge, Franc1974 Grandes Femmes, Petits Formats, Iris Clert Gallery, Paris, France.

1975 Coup de Vent, with performance, Montrouge, France 1974.

Grandes Femmes, Petits Formats, Iris Clert Gallery, Paris

IN COLLABORATION WITH DAVID TUDOR

2000 Sounds & Files, Kunstlehaus ,Vienna, Exposition of David Tudor’s sound table.

1990 Volatils and Sonic Reflections, Neue Musik München Klang Aktionen 90. Munich, Germany.

Volatils with Sonic Reflections, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York,N.Y., U.S.A.

1988 Lines and Reflections II, Rheinischen Musikfest, Kunstacademie, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Lines and Reflections I, performance with David Tudor, The Kitchen, New York,N.Y., U.S.A.

1986 Sound Totem, 9 Lines, performance with David Tudor and Molly Davies, Whitney Sculpture Court, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

1985 R.O.R. evening for the Revue Parlée with C. Asker, E.Ferrer, Y. Tono, H. Mathews, Centre Pompidou Paris, France. Accompanied by Jackie Matisse’s production of a 7 minute video film called “Tailing a Dream“. Music David Tudor, camera Andy Ferullo and Molly Davies.

1984 Sea Tails, video installation, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.

1984 Sea Tails,David Tudor concert, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

1983 Sea Tails, David Tudor concert, Music Festival, Lugano, Italy.

1983 Sea Tails, video installation, with Molly Davies, and David Tudor, Frankfort, Germany.

PUBLICATIONS

2000 Art that Soars, Kites and Tails by Jackie Matisse, Exhibition Documentary Publication, Mengei International Museum, San Diego, Ca; U.S.A.

1997 The Blue Book,by Jackie Matisse, Editions de l’Onde

1996 Cerfs-Volants L’art en Ciel, Editions Alternatives Eric et Marc Domage

1991 Art That Flies, avec Curt Asker et Tal Streeter. The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.

1980 Water Story,Reaktion, Verlag galerie Leaman

JACKIE MATISSE

Heads and Tails: Hommage to Merce

September 24 - November 20, 2009

JACKIE MATISSE: New Art Volant

May 26 - June 24, 2005

Jackie Matisse Art in America review page1

“Airborne Abstraction”, ART IN AMERICA reviews Jackie Matisse’s exhibition

By Jill Johnston, Vol. December 2005

“Jackie Matisse” participated Virtuality Conference in Turin, Italy

November 3 - 6, 2005

SCULPTURE MAGAZINE review on Jackie Matisse

"Jackie Matisse: Collaborations in Art and Science", November 2006

The Village Voice reviews “Jackie Matisse: New Art Volant”

"Air Born", June 15-21, 2005

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Jackie Matisse

MANHATTAN TRANSFER: Curated by John Weber

March 6, 2019

“Manhattan Transfer is an exhibition of nineteen artists who share the process of relocation from Manhattan to the area of Columbia County in upstate New York. The reasons for this relocation are varied, but generally include economic betterment and insecurity about living and working situations. Many of the contributing artists fell victim to landlords who used commercial leases which had no protection against price gouging. Manhattan had for decades been the mecca of the international art world and, as such, drew thousands of artists to its doors. With the exception of the A.I.R ( Artist In Residence program), nothing official was done by city and state governments to protect and encourage this great cultural asset and heritage. Consequently, artists began to leave the city, seeking someplace within which to function effectively and cheaply. Many came to the Mid-Hudson Valley of Columbia, Dutchess and Green Counties, specifically to the 18th-century city of Hudson and its immediate environs.

In the spring of 2004 I curated the first version of Manhattan Transfer in a small commercial artgallery in Chatham, NY. The intent of this earlier exhibition was simply a means of gathering this body of talent together to demonstrate the professional vocabulary of the newly arrived creative individuals in the area. In this revised version, using many different artists, it is hoped that this show will become a beacon depicting our locale where art can not only survive but flourish.

A big thanks to Jennifer Baahng of Zone Chelsea Center for the Arts.”

J.W.W.

April 20 – June 17, 2006

Opening reception:

Thursday April 20th, 2006

6-8pm

Artists in exhibition:

Richard Artschwager

Jane Laudi

Jason Middlebrook

Christopher Haun

Ellsworth Kelly

Jack Shear

Kate Butler

Michael Tong

Rainer Judd

Dan Devine

Mona Mark

Christopher Pérez

Maïa Müller

Maximilian Goldfarb

Allyson Strafella

George Quasha

Nicholas Kahn & Richard Selesnick

Elizabeth Hall

Michael Auder

Dialogues with John Weber and Participating Panelists

Thursday, May 4th 2006

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: John Weber

RICHARD MAYHEW: Monument

March 6, 2019

The landscape genre encompasses a range of approaches along the continuum from representation to abstraction. For over half a century, Richard Mayhew has been actively exploring that terrain in his vibrant studies of light and color. I am proud to welcome Mayhew as a gallery artist at ZONE: CONTEMPORARY ART. “Monuments” is a rare solo exhibition, curated to present highlights from the full career of one of our greatest living painters. In the course of preparing “Monuments,” I was struck by how this thoroughly contemporary artist rethinks the long tradition of transfigured topography, a tradition that includes the Romanticism of J.M.W. Turner, the optical experiments of Claude Monet and the non-figurative modernism of Mark Rothko.

Born in New York, in 1924, Mayhew is descended from both African American and Native American stock. The interplay of water, land and sky around his Long Island home instilled a life-long passion for luminosity. His biography encapsulates the exciting course of mid-twentieth-century American art: he studied under Max Beckman, Edwin Dickman and Ruben Tam, and he knew Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, and Franz Klein. In 1963, he became a co-founder, along with Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis, of the Spiral Group, an association of black artists. He has influenced a new generation through teaching stints at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the Art Students League, and Pennsylvania State University. In 1991, Mayhew moved to Soquel, California. The ZONE exhibition is a prelude to an upcoming celebration of Mayhew’s career, each focusing on a different period, at three California museums: the de Saisset Museum, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), and the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz.

The exhibition reveals an artist with a unique perspective on two of the great movements in American art history: the pantheistic Hudson River School and the Abstract Expressionists, with their shamanistic paint-handling. Mayhew’s ecstatic color fields are grounded in recognizable elements, such as the statuesque trees that are a recurring motif in “Monuments,” resonant with the emblematic power of the druidic World Tree. A master of atmospheric perspective, he deftly balances a vestigial sense of spatial recession with a dynamic engagement with the two-dimensional surface, layering paint for incandescent effects. Throughout a long and still-vital career, Mayhew has stayed true to the painter’s mission, using color and form to tap into primordial creation. A jazz musician, as well as a long-term professor in the visual arts, he grasps the underlying importance of formal rhythm and harmony. His improvisations on color run the gamut from tonalist to psychedelic, but always illuminate the profound connections between nature and art.

Richard Mayhew has received numerous awards and honors from many national institutions and foundations, including the National Academy of Design, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and Pennsylvania State University. His selected permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Museum of American Art, the Newark Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Jennifer Baahng

Director

June 18 – August 15, 2009

Opening reception:

Thursday June 18th, 2009

6-8pm

Review by American Arts Quarterly, Summer 2009

The de Saisset Museum Guest Curator Sheryl Nonnenberg

“The de Saisset Museum, University of Santa Clara will present The Art of Richard Mayhew: Journey’s End, September 26 to December 4, 2009. The exhibition is part of a three museum retrospective that will examine the forty year career of Richard Mayhew, one of America’s greatest living landscape painters. The exhibition at the de Saisset will focus on Mayhew’s work from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. During this period, Mayhew would travel by car across the country, gathering ideas for his abstract landscapes.

These cross country sojourns (sometimes driving through the Southwest, other times taking a northern route into Canada) would result in a profound change in his painting style. No longer abstract, now his work centered on specific landmarks; trees, hills, lakes rendered in a more realistic motif. This is not to imply that the artist was working en plein aire; Mayhew never used sketches or photographs. Rather, he would rely on his memory to create a landscape that would be an amalgam of actual sites he had visited. And, as always, Mayhew strove to paint the “essence of nature, always seeking the unique spiritual mood of the land.”

The results are composite impressions, utilizing Mayhew’s signature vibrant colors, that have a universal appeal. Perhaps it is because, as Mayhew explains, “I want the essence of the inner soul to be on the canvas.” A critic for ArtNews commented on Mayhew’s “controlled mastery of the brush while depicting these imagined places.” For Richard Mayhew, these “imagined places” are an endless source of inspiration; for those of us who view his work, an endless source of pleasure.”

Sheryl Nonnenberg

Guest Curator

The de Saisset Museum

University of Santa Clara

The Museum of Art & History at the McPherson Center Curator Susan Hillhouse

“In this three-museum celebratory retrospective exhibition, The Art of Richard Mayhew, the Museum of Art & History will highlight the years from 2000 to 2009. Our exhibition, The Art of Richard Mayhew: After the Rain, focuses on lush landscapes replenished and refreshed by gentle storms.

The artist has no need or inclination to record what he sees in a photographically inspired style. Rather, he relies upon improvisational brushwork, momentary intuition and spontaneous judgment to produce work whose saturated color applied with broken brushwork evoke the smell of after-the-rain air.

Nature, a constant source of awe and delight for Mayhew, is honored in paintings that reclaim memories of landscapes visited from his early childhood to present. We see Richard Mayhew as a Transcendentalist in the welcome rain; he is a Walt Whitman reminding us Happiness not in another place, but this place, not for another hour, but this hour. He is a Shinnecock, Cherokee Indian and African American whose spirituality is manifest in his life’s work. But, most of all, he is thoroughly Richard Mayhew, an artist who shares his visual, emotional, and mental connections to the land. His reflective paintings are tangible translations of a shimmering act of love.”

Susan Hillhouse

Curator of Exhibitions and Collections

The Museum of Art & History at the McPherson Center

Santa Cruz, CA

Bridget R. Cooks, Ph. D., Dept. of Art History, Univ. of California, Irvnine

“The exhibition of Mayhew’s work at MoAD will be the first part of a three-part chronological retrospective of the artist’s career. This exhibition will present an overview of paintings and works on paper beginning with the late 1950s through Mayhew’s recent compositions. The selections for this five-decade retrospective show the depth of Mayhew’s vision that combines his unique style, philosophy for painting, and synthesis of artistic and social influences which span the trajectory of his full artistic career.

Mayhew made his first solo exhibition debut in 1957 at New York’s renowned Morris Gallery. His unique style of presenting the natural milieu was well received by critics who noted “the abstract romanticism of feeling of his thoughtful work, suggesting, if anything, the woods beyond the world or some such concept.” The captivating quality of his work, so remarkable in his early New York reviews, remains relevant in the vivid canvases of his contemporary work.

Mayhew infuses his abstract Barbizon-style paintings with bright, often psychedelic, colors creating a mysterious world of monumental trees in open meadows, dense bushes, and narrow creeks cradled in saturated colored skies. He masterfully follows and breaks the rules of color theory to entice viewers into moody fantasy environments. His signature fiery vistas and cool misty field evoke an emotional engagement from his viewers that has kept him at the forefront of landscape painting for over forty years.”

Bridget R. Cooks, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

University of California, Irvine

Department of Art History

African American Studies

Visual Studies Curator

Richard Mayhew bio

EDUCATION

Academia; Florence, Italy

Art Students League, New York, NY

Brooklyn Museum Art School; Brooklyn, NY

Columbia University; New York, NY

Studied with Max Beckman, Edwin Dickenson, Hans Hoffman, and Ruben Tam

POSITIONS

Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University, PA

Academician, National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Former Advisory Board Member, Rockland Center for the Arts, Rockland, NY

Former Council Member, National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Founding Director, Creative Center for the Arts and Sciences, CA

Former Member, Macdowell Colony Corporation, Peterborough, NH

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA

Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY

Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY

Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN

Museum of African Art, Washington DC

National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC

Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Transamerica Corporation, San Francisco, CA

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

AWARDS AND HONORS

Received numerous awards and honors from many National Institutions and Foundations, including the National Academy of Design, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and Pennsylvania State University.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2009 de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, CA

Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA

Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA

ZONE: CONTEMPORARY ART New York, NY

Avram Gallery, Stony Brook Southampton, SUNY, NY

Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia

2008 Avram Gallery, Stony Brook Southampton, SUNY, NY

Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia

G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

2007 G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

Sherry Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

ACA Gallery, New York, NY

2006 Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA

G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

2005 ACA Gallery, New York, NY

G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

2003 Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA

G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

2002 G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, CA

ACA Gallery, New York, NY

2001 Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1999 Sherry Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1998 ACA Gallery, New York, NY

1997 G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago, IL

Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1995 Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1994 Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Alitash Kebede Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Sherry Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

1993 Bomani Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Alitash Kebede Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA

1991 Sherry Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

1989 Sherry Washington Gallery, Detroit, MI

Isobel Neal Gallery, Chicago, IL

1987 Midtown Galleries, New York, NY

University of Maryland, Princess Anne, MD

1986 Grand Central Galleries, New York, NY

Hampton University, Hampton, VA

1985 Young Gallery, San Jose, CA

1984 Kingsborough College, Kingsborough, NY

1983 Young Gallery, San Jose, CA

The Pennsylvania State University Art Museum, University Park, PA

1982 Midtown Galleries, New York, NY

1981 St. Mary’s College, MD

Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

1980 San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

National Academy Museum New York NY (2009)

Parish Gallery, Washington DC

Midtown Payson Gallery

Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY

Midtown Payson Gallery

Wilmer Jennings Gallery, New York, NY

Gallery 30, Burlingame, CA

Midtown Payson Gallery

Albright-Knox Members Gallery

“Rediscovering America: The Persistent Landscape,” Wilson Art Center, Rochester, NY

National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Hobe Sound Galleries, Hobe Sound, FL

Bergen Museum of Art And Science, Paramus, NJ

Bucknell University, Center Gallery, Lewisberg, PA

“Black American Artists.” Fine Art Museum of Long Island, Hempstead, NY

Fine Arts Museum

Kenkelebra Gallery, New York, NY

The Equitable Gallery, New York, NY

Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, MD

National Academy of Design, New York, NY

San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

National Academy of Design, New York, NY

Kalamazoo Art Institute, Kalamazoo, MI

Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ

Art Lease and Sales Gallery, NJ State Museum, Trenton, NJ

Collector’s Gallery, Columbus Gallery of Fine Art, Columbus, OH

Audubon Artists Annual, New York, NY

Butler Institute of American Art

New York Cultural Center, New York, NY

Squibb Gallery, Princeton, NJ

YM-YMHA, Union, NJ

Temple Emith, Teaneck, NJ

Storefront Museum, Jamaica, NJ

Lobby Gallery, Chicago, IL

Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN

Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensburo, NC

Lobby Gallery, Chicago, IL

Spellman College, Atlanta, GA

Oklahoma Museum of Art at Red Ridge, Oklahoma City, OK

Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, New York, NY

Great Hall, City College, New York, NY

American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

Art in Embassies Program, US Embassy, Rangoon, Burma

Art Gallery, SUNY, Albany, NY

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Butler Institute, Youngstown, OH

Carlton College, Northfield MN

Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA

Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL

Civic Fine Arts Center, Sioux Falls, SD

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO

Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX

Crysler Museum, VA

Daning Gallery, New York, NY

Edmonton Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

Equitable Life Insurance Gallery, NY

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

Flint Institute of Art, Flint, MI

Florissant Valley College, St. Louis, MO

Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA

Gallery of Modern Art, New York, NY

Grand Central Galleries, New York, NY

Greenville Co. Museum, Greenville, SC

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL

Kresge Art Center, E. Lansing, MI

Mankato State College, Mankato, MN

Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY

Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI

Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, Norfolk, VA

Paul Sargent Gallery, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

Pennsylvania State University, PA

Queens Museum, Queens, NY

San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA

State University of New York, Westbury, NY

The Young Gallery, San Jose, CA

Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN

UCLA Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

University of Illinois Biennial, IL

University of Maryland, MD

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Richard Mayhew

JACKIE MATISSE

March 5, 2019

Heads and Tails: Hommage to Merce

I am proud to present Jackie Matisse’s Heads and Tails: Hommage to Merce, her second solo show at ZONE: CONTEMPORARY ART. The exhibition encompasses a wide range of her art–her signature kites, assemblages, memory bottles, and works on paper–and features a unique re-imagining of her theater design for the late choreographer Merce Cunningham. Jackie Matisse’s work is an exploration of movement. Her hand-painted, kinetic mobiles may be anchored to “points in space,” to borrow a phrase from Merce, but they defy gravity, flying on ambient currents of air. The principle of fluidity, of metamorphosis, is a touchstone of a particular strain of modernism. Merce’s collaborators– John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol, among others-retained creative autonomy: music, visual elements, and choreography came together only with their first performance. The improvisational process continued when the different work were recombined in Events and Happenings.

In honor of this intuitive and open-ended ethos, Jackie Matisse has reinstalled her décor for Merce (Events, Joyce Theater, 2004) in the main gallery. Usually, Jackie exhibits the eccentrically shaped, sometimes sculptural heads and banner-like tails of her kites separately. ZONE is offering a rare opportunity to see the richly colored 26-feet-high kites, as the mysterious, totemic figures whose fluttering movements interacted with the human performers. Gallery visitors can use artist-painted fans to stir up the air currents and bring the tableau to life. They will experience the art in a new way: not as a stage picture from the audience’s perspective, but moving through the floating heads and tails, like dancers. The ZONE installation becomes an Event, in which the décor from a repertory piece is adapted to a particular space and occasion. Jackie also flies her kites in a form of performance art that celebrates the chance operations of nature, using what she calls “the canvas of the sky” to create “Art Volant” (flying art). Jackie recalls “listening to and watching Merce trying out new ideas and rhythms” and experiencing his performances as a dancer: “like an explosion of legs, arms, chest, head, flying over the stage, advancing then retreating.” This rhythm, the tension of coil and release, governs the dynamism of dancers and kite-flyers.

Capturing the ephemeral is part of an important modernist tradition, a tradition that Jackie Matisse knows intimately. Growing up in Paris and New York among artists, she assisted her stepfather, Marcel Duchamp, in assembling his portable museum, the Boite-en-Valise, and has worked with artists from many disciplines throughout her career. Jean Tinguely was another mentor, and the influence of Tinguely’s motorized contraptions can be seen in Jackie’s low-tech clockworks to mechanically operate her kites in the indoor spaces. Continuing the magpie-collecting habits of the Surrealists, the Fluxus artists and John Cage, she finds unexpected resonance in objets trouvés. She uses broken ceramic shards as both stencils for flat shapes and assemblage pieces. The most haunting of these works are her memory bottles, temporal reliquaries in which she suspends tiny, personally significant objects and fragments, literally capturing time in a bottle. Often, she uses single strands of hair from friends and family to string these fetishes, which have the evocative power of Voodoo spirit flasks. Like kite strings, such threads simultaneously tether us to the earth, the past and our physical beings while allowing our imaginations to soar.

Jennifer Baahng

September 24 – November 20, 2009

Opening reception:

Thursday September 24th, 2009

6-8pm

Review by Charles Ruas

The elegiac freedom and sweep of Jackie Matisse’s work is about movement and a floating lightness, which is particularly poignant as a tribute to the life of Merce Cunningham.

Evanescent as dance, using the most ephemeral materials, Jackie Matisse has reversed the artist’s painterly color exploration by breaking down the prismatic color field, to send her canvas aloft into the sky to be viewed against light. Using the kite as her medium, her work takes its place within the binary poles of folk craft and the mythic and soars into the experimental.

“Heads and Tails” refers to the two parts of the kite. If the head, the kite itself, functions as a canvas and color field, it is the focus of her manipulation of sunlight in all its transformative possibilities: from transparency and shading to total occlusion. On the other hand, the tails of the kites, serving both as rudders and anchors, in Jackie Matisse’s hands are transformed into complex mobiles. In “Vacuovelodrome d’Alfred Jarry” (2003), four tails of white sailcloth with shadows and moons come together in a pas de deux and form an exacting and surprising dance. Whereas the grey fiber kites “Poux du Ciel” (2004), made in multiples for Merce’s performance, evoke a different type of movement, with bicycle tire prints running over and through the painted surfaces and giving a visual clue to speed and distance covered. Wind driven, the kite’s flying line connects the human hand with the elements; her work joins the physical and spiritual. In the Middle East and Asia, the kite takes the form of both real and mythic creatures—insects, birds, fish, reptiles, as well as dragons and angels—linking them to the forces of the elements with all their cosmic implications.

Jackie Matisse, like the Conceptualists and Flexus artists, turned away from making art as a commercial commodity. In 1970 she became associated with an international group of visual artists who used kites and related airborne objects in their work and later proclaimed the Art Volant Manifesto emphasizing the use of simple unorthodox material with works that were immediate, accidental and transitory. They viewed kiting as participatory, kinetic performance art. As seen in “9 jours de trottoirs” (1980), the collection of haphazard detritus taken from the sidewalk over nine days is transformed by the artist into the materials of tails and exhibited along with two collage boxes. These works are in contrast to the time element implied by her “New York bottles” (1999-2005), which use found objects representing a person, place, or event and are tied by a single hair, immersed in liquid, and sealed. In these works her economical use of the humblest materials—feathers, newspaper, string, and orange peels—come together to somehow form an almost alchemical kind of visual poetry.

She constantly pushed her work into other elements, as when she submerged her kites. This work is the subject of the 1984 video “Sea Tails” and the 1985 video “Tailing a Dream” by Molly Davies, with a score by David Tudor, in which the underwater motion of kites made of sailcloth alternates with their airborne counterparts. But perhaps one of Jackie Matisse’s most extraordinary experiments was exploring the physical properties of flying kites in virtual reality, with audience participation. In collaboration with David Pape, Jackie Matisse created “Kites Flying In and Out of Space” (2005), a flat screen, interactive, stereoscopic installation that pushed her work into supercomputing and virtual reality. Among all its aesthetic properties, the kite in perpetual random motion is always an object of chance, which particularly interested Jackie Matisse and its connection to the work of John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Chance, a subject of preoccupation ever since the poet Mallarmé’s illuminating: “A throw of the dice will not abolish Fate.” In memory of Merce she presents a group of painted mobiles in shades of grey, midnight blue, brown, and dark burgundy; three mobiles of illuminated blue broken moons offer a celebration of his life.

Her affinity with and curiosity about the intervention of chance and randomness is a bond she shared with Merce Cunningham, so eloquently presented in this exhibition. Jackie Matisse has not only inherited a master’s sense of color and form, but also the ability to transform her material and ideas into a completely personal world view. A world supported by wind and light, and informed with the illumination of poetry.

Charles Ruas, 2009

JACKIE MATISSE

Heads and Tails: Hommage to Merce

September 24 - November 20, 2009

JACKIE MATISSE: New Art Volant

May 26 - June 24, 2005

“Airborne Abstraction”, ART IN AMERICA reviews Jackie Matisse’s exhibition

By Jill Johnston, Vol. December 2005

“Jackie Matisse” participated Virtuality Conference in Turin, Italy

November 3 - 6, 2005

SCULPTURE MAGAZINE review on Jackie Matisse

"Jackie Matisse: Collaborations in Art and Science", November 2006

The Village Voice reviews “Jackie Matisse: New Art Volant”

"Air Born", June 15-21, 2005

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Jackie Matisse

SHELTER SERRA: House On Fire

March 5, 2019

Baahng Gallery is pleased to announce the representation of artist Shelter Serra. The inaugural solo exhibition at the gallery HOUSE ON FIRE is on view from October 27 through December 27, 2016. The Artist Reception will be held on Tuesday, 6-8 pm, November 15, 2016.

HOUSE ON FIRE showcases a series of new paintings and small survey of sculptures that represent a cross-section of contemporary American life: high fashion, luxury items, media and press, territory issues, surveillance, nostalgic classic Americana. After the financial collapse of 2008, the version of the American Dream that we have come to know is now a relic. In the headline painting of this exhibition, the fire that is overtaking the house is marking the end of the old as well as clearing the way for a new beginning. Although the opportunity to start anew is comforting, the viewer is also forced to reflect on where the cultural aspirations of the American Dream should now lay. Shelter Serra’s works exhibited in this show invite viewers to give the meaning of the American Dream a much-needed update.

Born in 1972 in Bolinas, California, Shelter Serra completed a BA in Studio Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MFA in Painting & Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries and museums including Mead Carney Gallery, Marlborough Gallery, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, Renwick Gallery, Bolinas Museum, and Maryland Institute of Art. He currently works and lives in New York.

October 27 – December 27, 2016

Opening reception:

Tuesday November 15th, 2016

6-8pm

SHELTER SERRA: House On Fire

October 27 - December 27, 2016

SHELTER SERRA

“SHELTER SERRA SETS THE HOUSE ON FIRE”, by Ashley W. Simpson

"THE ARTIST’S FIRST SOLO SHOW DISSECTS THE AMERICAN DREAM", FASHION UNFILTERED

November 15, 2016

“SHELTER SERRA: EMPTY THE AMERICAN DREAM”, Frontrunner Magazine

by Shana Beth Mason

November 3, 2016

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Shelter Serra

NOBUO SEKINE AND ZHANG HONGTU: TWO ROCKS

March 4, 2019

Jennifer Baahng Gallery is pleased to present TWO ROCKS, an exhibition for artists Nobuo Sekine and Zhang Hongtu. The exhibition will showcase a selection of their paintings, sculptures, and multi-media installations, from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The exhibition will run from September 20th through October 21, 2017.

TWO ROCKS showcases the work of modern sages, Nobuo Sekine and Zhang Hongtu, from the 1980’s and 1990’s, pivotal years in their contributions to art.

September 20 – October 21, 2017

Opening reception:

Wednesday, September 20th, 2017

6-8pm

Artists in the exhibition

Nobuo Sekine

Zhang Hongtu

Biography

Zhang Hongtu

Concurrently, in the late 1980’s, Zhang, a forerunner of Political Pop Art, immigrated to New York where he would discover Pop Art against the geopolitical backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Zhang is known for using various painting styles and media to produce artistic critiques of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, including through his appropriating images of Mao Zedong. His newer works have branched into environmental concerns, and include his classical Chinese landscape paintings, which, traditionally painted in black-and-white, are added with sensuous, toxic colors.

Born in 1943 in Pingliang, China, Zhang Hongtu is the recipient of awards, including from the Pollock Krasner Foundation in 1991 and the National Endowment for Arts in 1995. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at Bronx Museum, Kaohsiung Museum in Taiwan, Museu Picasso in Spain, Queens Museum, The Deichtorhallen in Germany, Israel Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guggenheim Museum in New York will showcase Zhang Hongtu’s Vitrine, 1986-1995 in the upcoming exhibition “Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World.” TWO ROCKS will feature paintings, sculptures, and multi-media installations by Zhang, including Self-Portrait in the Style of the Old Masters, The Red Door, and Re-Make of Ma Yuan’s Water Album (780 Years Later).

Nobuo Sekine

Sekine is a key founder of Mono-ha, a group of artists that gained prominence in Tokyo in the late 1960’s for their rejection of the traditional ideas of representation. Primarily known as a sculptor, Sekine incorporates natural and industrial materials in his work, and his work explores the properties and interdependency of these materials with their surrounding space. In the late 1980’s, he returned to his original training as a painter, and began creating Phase Conception – a series of “paintings” of phases. The phases are made out of thick Japanese handmade paper, cut out, torn, pasted back onto the remaining surface, and coated with either gold leaf or black lead. They are based on a topological geometry concept as applied to space, which is that the continuous transformation of form does not affect the sum total of the form’s mass.

Born 1942 in Saitama prefecture, Japan.

Graduated in 1968 with a M.F.A. in Painting, studying under artist Yoshishige Saito.

From 1968 into the 1970s, Sekine worked internationally as a central figure of “Mono-ha” (translated literally as “School of Things”), a movement considered instrumental in the formation of postwar Japanese art. Phase—Mother Earth, an earthwork first constructed in Suma Rikyu Park, Kobe, in 1968, is widely recognized as marking the beginning of Mono-ha, and as one of the most iconic works of this period in Japan.

In 1970, Sekine represented Japan in the Venice Biennale with Phase of Nothingness, consisting of a large natural stone supported by a mirrored stainless steel column. The sculpture is now in the permanent collection of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. Sekine remained in Europe after the Biennale, exhibiting in Italy, Switzerland, and Denmark. Informed by his observations on art and architecture, urban and public space in Europe, Sekine returned to Japan to establish Environmental Art Studios, a public art agency, in 1973.

From 1978 to 1979, Sekine returned to Europe for the traveling exhibition of his work Phase of Nothingness—Black. The solo exhibition toured from the Künsthalle Dusseldorf, Germany, to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; and the Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway.

In 1993, Sekine and Phase—Mother Earth were cited by 30 participating critics, curators, and journalists in the survey “Sengo bijutsu besuto ten” (Postwar art best ten), featured in the prominent art magazine Bijutsu Shinchō.

In 2001, Sekine was included in the exhibit Century City at the Tate Modern, London, for his critical role in the burgeoning Tokyo art scene between 1969 and 1973. He also participated in the Gwangju Biennale, Korea, the same year.

Selected exhibitions of Sekine and Mono-ha include Reconsidering Mono-ha, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2005; What is Mono-Ha? Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, 2007; Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2012; Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, 2013; Prima Materia, Punta Della Dogana, Venice, 2013; Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s,The Rachofsky Warehouse, Dallas, Texas, 2013.

Sekine is currently Visiting Professor at Tama Art University and Kobe Design University.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2014 Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA

2011 Re-creations 1970/2011, Kamakura Gallery, Kamakura, Japan Monogatari, Shanghai Sculpture Space, Shanghai,China

2010 BE-UP-ART, Tokyo, Japan
2009 Center Gallery, Yokohama, Japan

Kawagoe Gallery, Kawagoe, Japan

2008 Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan Gallery Art Composition, Tokyo, Japan

PYO Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2007 Center Gallery, Yokohama, Japan Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan

Shina Gallery, Kyoto, Japan

2006 Saint Paul Gallery, Maebashi, Japan Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan

2005 Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan
MANIF 11! ’05 SEOUL, Seoul Art Center, Seoul, Korea

2004 Movement, Feeling, Environment, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Beijing,China Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan

Phase of Nothingness – Black from ’78-’79 solo exhibition in Europe, Kamakura Gallery, Kamakura, Japan

2003 Kawagoe City Art Museum, Saitama, Japan

2001 Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan
1999 Museum Shokyodo, Aichi, Japan
1998 Saint Paul Gallery, Maebashi, Japan

1997 Kawagoe Gallery, Kawagoe, Japan Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan

1996 Archaeology of Phase – Mother Earth, Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya, Japan

1995 Gallery Art Point, Tokyo, Japan Galleri Akern, Kongsberg, Norway

1994 Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan

1993 Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan

1992 Museum Shokyodo, Aichi, Japan
Nobuo Sekine, Soko Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1991 Kawagoe Gallery, Kawagoe, Japan
Tenmaya Department Store, Okayama, Japan

Anshindo Gallery, Shizuoka, Japan Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan

1990 Tenjuen, Niigata, Japan
Soko Museum, Niigata, Japan Atelier Gallery, Niigata, Japan

Sogo Department Store, Hiroshima, Japan
Seibu Department Store – Studio 5, Tokyo,Japan Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo, Japan

1989 Kodosha, Ichinoseki, Japan Gallery Lamia, Tokyo, Japan

Chikugo Gallery, Kurume, Japan
Mitsui Gallery, Matsudo, Japan
Gallery TAK, Yokohama, Japan
Susono Art House, Susono, Japan
Kozaido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Kobundo Gallery, Obihiro, Japan Gojuichiban-kan Gallery, Aomori, Japan Gallery Picasso, Maebashi, Japan Katsuyama Isozaki Hall, Fukui, Japan Stempfli Gallery, New York, New York Umeda Modern Art Museum, Osaka, Japan

1988 Gallery M, Obama, Japan
Art Dune, Hamamatsu, Japan

Kozaido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Nishida Gallery, Nara, Japan
Soh Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Anshindo Gallery, Shizuoka, Japan Gallery Kura, Kitakyushu, Japan We Gallery, Omiya, Japan

1987 Ginza Jiyugaoka Gallery, Tokyo Gallery Te, Tokyo, Japan

Kawagoe Gallery, Kawagoe, Japan Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1985 Akiyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1983 Sekine and Environment Art Studio, Stripe House Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1982 Sekine’s Prints and Sculptures: Cross Country 7500Km, Keneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1981 Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan

1980 Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1978 Nobuo Sekine: Skulptor 1975-1978, Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany; traveled to Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebæk Denmark; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway

1977 Kaneko Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan

Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1976 Gallery Dori, Tokyo, Japan

1975 Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan

1973 Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1971 Gallery Krebs, Bern, Switzerland Gallery Birch, Copenhagen, Denmark

1970 Galleria La Bertesca, Genova, Italy Genoa Gallery Modulo, Milan, Italy

1969 Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Selected Group Exhibitions

2014 Group “Genshoku” and Ishiko Junzo 1966-1971, Shizuoka PrefecturalMuseum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan

Mono-ha, Tabloid Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Mono-ha by Anzai: Photographs 1970-1976, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo,Japan Other Primary Structures (Others 2: 1967 – 1970), Jewish Museum,
New York, NY
Mono-ha Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art, Karuizawa, Japan
The Hara Museum Collection at 35, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan

2013 Prima Materia, Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy
Tricks and Vision to Mono-ha, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Japan Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, The Warehouse, Dallas, TX

2012 Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; traveled to Haus der Kunst, Munich

Tokyo 1955-1970, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, California The ‘70s in Japan: 1968-1982, Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan; traveled to Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
The Artists of Mono-ha and Its Era, Rakusui-tei Museum of Art, Toyama,Japan

2011 Gallery’s Collection Exhibition: Mono-ha, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo,Japan

2010 Masan Munsin International Sculpture Symposium, Munsin Art Museum, Masan, Korea

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP 60th Anniversary Exhibition, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Japan
Yanpyon Environment Festival, Korea
Printing Exhibition of Shanghai World Expo 2010, Shanghai, China

Micro Salon 60, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Japan

2009 Drawing Story I 1960–1990, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Japan

2008 Tamagawa Art Line Project, Tokyo, Japan
Art Scene Revived, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Japan

2007 What is Mono-ha?, Beijing Tokyo Art Project, Beijing,China
Nobuo Sekine & Mitsukuni Takimoto, Yokohama Portside Gallery, Yokohama, Japan

2006 Public Art, Gallery NOVITA, Aomori, Japan
Memorial for Yoshiaki Tono, Gallery TOM, Tokyo, Japan

Mono-ha: Lee Ufan, Kishio Suga, Nobuo Sekine – from the 1970’s, Soh Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2005 Reconsidering Mono-ha, National Museum of Art, Osaka,Japan

2004 Kim Tschang-Yeul, Sekine Nobuo & Susumu Sakaguchi, Gallery Bijutsu Sekai, Tokyo, Japan

The New Tokyo Gallery Exhibition, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo,Japan

2003 The 20th Anniversary of Gallery Q, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan

2002 Sculpture Project, Busan Biennale, Busan, Korea
Memorial for Yoshishige Saito, Kawamura Gakuen Art Hall, Tokyo, Japan

2001 Century, Tate Modern Art Gallery, London, UK Mono-ha, Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Mono-ha, Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery, Cambridge, UK
Retrospective Exhibition for Nagaoka Museum Prize 1964-68, The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Niigata, Japan

2000 Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea
Modern Art of Japan: Monet de Paris, French National Mint Bureau, Paris, France

1998 Lumieves – Light – Rediscovery of Stained Glass, TN Probe, Tokyo, Japan 1997 Modern Art from a Collector’s View Point: Yamamura Collection, Hyogo

Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe, Japan Street Museum, Kawagoe, Japan

1996 Inside and the Outside of Art, Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 1970-Material and Perception – Mono-ha and Artists Who Ask Root, Saint Ratienu Museum, France

1995 Archeology of Phase – Mother Earth, Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya, Japan

Japanese Culture: The Fifty Postwar Years, Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; traveled to Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan; Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe, Japan

46th Venice Biennale: ASIANA Contemporary Art from The Far East, Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, Venice, Italy
Matter and Perception 1970: Mono-ha and the Search for Fundamentals, Museum of Fine Arts Gifu, Gifu, Japan; traveled to Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan; Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu, Japan; Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan; Museum of Modern Art Sain-Étienne, Saint-Étienne, France

1994 Landscape of Stone, Dockyard Garden, The Landmark Tower Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan

Mono-ha, Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Different Natures, La Virreina, Barcelona, Spain
Memorial for Yaeko Fujita: Artists and Sakura Gallery, Sakura Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama; traveled to Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
ASIANA Contemporary Art from the Far East, Parazzo, Italy

1993 Imura Art Gallery, Kyoto, Japan Konishi Gallery, Kyoto, Japan

Oomitsu Collection, Niigata City Art Museum, Niigata, Japan
Differentes Natures, Visions de l’Art Contemporain, Galerie Art 4 et Galerie de l’Esplanade, Paris, France
Exposition Différentes Natures, Galerie Art La Defense, Paris, France

1992 Avantguardie Giapponesi degli anni 70, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; traveled to Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1991 Gallery Gen-Group Show, Tokyo, Japan
70’s-80’s Contemporary Art: Mono-ha, Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1990 Yokohama Business Park, Yokohama, Japan

1989 Japanese Open-Air Sculptures, Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium

1988 Mono-ha: La Scuola delle cose, Museum Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, Rome Italy

Seen by Hands, Seibu Department Store, Yurakucho, Tokyo,Japan

1987 Art in Japan since 1969: Mono-ha and Post Mono-ha, Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan

Nobuo Sekine and Koji Enokura Recent Print Works, Naruse Murata Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Gallery Group Exhibition, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo,Japan

1986 Mono-ha, Kamakura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Lee Ufan, Nobuo Sekine, Kishio Suga: Methods of the 1970s, Soh Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Le Japon des Avant-Gardes, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1984 Human Documents ’84/’85-3, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Art of Present Time. Wood and Paper-Dialogue with Nature, Gifu Prefectural Museum, Gifu, Japan
Development of Contemporary Sculpture, Gallery Seiho, Tokyo,Japan Sculpture Japonaise Contemporaine, Galerie Jullien-Cornic, Paris, France

1983 Figure of Wood and Esprit, Saitama Prefectural Museum, Tokyo,Japan

1981 Turning Point of Contemporary Art of 1960’s, National Museum of Modern
Art, Tokyo, Japan; traveled to the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan Modern Japanese Sculpture, Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa, Japan

Japanese Contemporary Art, The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, Seoul, Korea
The 1960’s: A Decade of Change in Contemporary Japanese Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan

1980 History of Contemporary Sculpture, Kanagawa Prefectural Hall Gallery, Kanagawa, Japan

1977 Japan Art-Festival, Tokyo Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan Voices in the Modern Age

Tokyo Gallery Exhibition, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1976 10th International Biennale Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo, The National Museumof Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan

1975 Contemporary Art Exhibition from 1950 to 1975, Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1974 Two-Man Show with Kuniichi Sima, Gallery Coco, Kyoto, Japan 11th Tokyo Biennale, Tokyo, Japan

Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition of 20 Artists, Tokyo Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Art Exhibition, Germany
Contemporary Sculpture Symposium, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Japan

1973 8th Japan Art-Festival, Tokyo, Japan
11th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1971 10th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan ArtMuseum, Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo Gallery 1971, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1970 Art Exhibition of World EXPO 1970, Suita, Osaka, Japan 35th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

Human Documents ’70-3, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1969 6th Paris Biennale, Paris, France
9th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1st International Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Hakone Open-Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
9 Visual Points, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Tricks & Vision: Stolen Eyes, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Trend of Japanese Contemporary Art, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Japanese Artist Drawing, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1968 OOXPLAN, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
8th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1st Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Suma Palace Park, Kobe, Japan 5th Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagoya, Japan

1967 Two-Man Show, Tsubaki Kindai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 11th Shell Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan

OOOPLAN, Muramatsu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Universiad, Tokyo, Japan

Bibliography

Catalogues and Monographs

2013 Atkins, Robert. Artspeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords, 1945 to the Present. New York: Abbeville Press, 2013.

2012 Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012.

Mono-ha Artists and the Era. Toyama: Rakusui-tei Museum of Art, 2012. Yoshitake, Mika. Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha. Los Angeles: Blum & Poe, 2012.

2011 Monogatari: Nobuo Sekine Arts Exhibition 1970-2011. Shanghai:Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2011.

2008 Sekine Nobuo. China: Pyo Gallery, 2008.
2007 What is Mono-ha? Texts by Huang Du, Charles Merewether, Yusuke Nakahara,

Yukihito Tabata, and Hozu Yamamoto. Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery + BTAP,2007. 2006 Sekine, Nobuo. Fukei no yubiwa. Tokyo: Tosho Shinbun,2006.

2004 Beijing Tokyo Art Projects. Movement, Feeling, Environment: Nobuo Sekine, Environment Art Studio. Beijing: Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, 2004.

2003 Sekine, Nobuo. Concerning with “Environment Art” Sekine. Kawagoe, Japan: Kawagoe Shiritsu Bijutsukan, 2003.

2001 Mono-ha – School of Things. Texts by Tatehata Akira, Simon Groom, Lee Ufan, Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 2001.

1996 Isō-Daichi no kōkogaku (Archaeology of Phase-Mother Earth). Nishinomiya: Ōtani Memorial Art Museum, 1996.

Sekine, Nobuo, Masahiro Shino. “Iso, daichi” no kokogaku. Nishinomiya, Japan: Otani Memorial Museum of Art, 1996.

1995 Kamakura Gallery. Mono-ha 1994. Tokyo: Kamakura Gallery, 1995.
1994 Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. New

York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994.

1992 Sekine, Nobuo. Sekine: A Message from Environment Art Studio. Tokyo:Process Architecture, 1992.

1989 Sekine, Nobuo, and Yoshifumi Hayashi. Phase Conception II.Tokyo: Environment Art Studio; Niigata, Japan: Loft Museum Ten,1989.

1987 Sekine, Nobuo. Sculpture of Scenery: Works of Nobuo Sekine + Environment Art Studio. Tokyo: Process Architecture, 1987.

1986 Mono-ha. Text by Toshiaki Minemura. Tokyo: Kamakura Gallery, 1986.
1985 Sekine, Nobuo. Half-Autobiography: Art and Urban and Pictoral Fiction.Tokyo:

PARCO Shuppan, 1985.

1983 Sekine, Nobuo, and Environment Art Studio. From Landscape to Open Space. Tokyo: Shotenkenchiku-Sha, 1983.

1978 Nobuo Sekine: Skulptur 1975-1978. Exh. cat. Humlebaek, Denmark: Louisiana Museum, 1978.

Sekine Nobuo 68-78. Cat. raisonné. Text by Sekine Nobuo. Tokyo:Yuria pemuperu kōbō, 1978.
Sekine Nobuo: 1968-78. Tokyo: Julia Pempel Atelier, 1978.

1977 Sekine Nobuo. Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery and Kaneko Art Gallery; and Nagoya: Sakura Gallery, 1977.

1969 Sekine Nobuo. Text by Nakahara Yūsuke. Tokyo: Tokyo Gallery, 1969.

Articles and Reviews
2014 Herriman, Kat. “The Simple Complex.” Wmagazine.com, January 16, 2014.

2013 Barrilà, Silvia Anna. “Giapponesi graditi all’America.” Il Sole 24 Ore, no. 581 (October 2013): 20-21.

Miyamura, Noriko, ed. Enjoy! Contemporary Art! Tokyo: Yosensha, 2013.
Ruiz, Cristina. “The Lost Decades: Why the Past Is Back to Stay.” ArtNewspaper (Art Basel ed.), June 14-16, 2013.
Cembalest, Robin. “New Perspectives on Art.” Vogue (Japan), no. 162 (February 2013): 280-81.
Russell, Heather. “Nobuo Sekine and the Japanese Mono-haMovement.” Artnet.com, March 13, 2013.
Morikawa, Manami. “Special Report: ‘Tokyo 1950-1975: A New Avant-Garde’ Exhibition.” Bijutsu Techō 65, no. 982 (April 2013): 98-112.

2012 Akel, Joseph. “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha, GladstoneGallery.” Modern Painters 24, no. 8 (October 2012): 92.

Balestin, Juliana. “Group Exhibitions ‘Requiem for the Sun: The Art ofMono-ha’ at Gladstone Gallery, New York.” Purple.fr, July 22, 2012.
Berardini, Andrew. “Mono-ha, the Japanese ‘School of Things’ at Blum & Poe.” LA Weekly, March 8, 2012.

Bryan-Wilson, Julia. “Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974.” Artforum 51, no. 3 (November 2012): 269-70.
Cembalest, Robin. “New Perspectives on Art.” Vogue (Japan), no. 162 (February 2013): 280-81.

Chang, Ian. “Requiem for the Sun.” Frieze, no. 148 (June-August 2012): 206. Chong, Doryun. Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012.
Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter. “Mono-ha Revisited.” KCRW.com, February 23, 2012, http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/at/at120223mono-ha_revisited.

Favell, Adrian. “Mono-ha in LA.” ARTiT.com (blog), February 27, 2012, http://www.art-it.asia/u/rhqiun/zMnqaA0XIdfS8NHW5v2x/.
Ferguson, Russell. “Best of 2012.” Artforum 51, no. 4 (December 2012): 218. From Postwar to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989 : Primary Documents. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2012.

Haber, John. “Zen and the Art of Minimalism.” Haberarts.com, August 3, 2012, http://www.haberarts.com/monoha.htm.
Halperin, Julia. “Blum & Poe’s Survey Touches Off Mono-ha Mania – And It’s Coming to New York.” Artinfo.com, April 23, 2012, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/800839/blum-poes-survey-touches-off-mono- ha-mania-%E2%80%94%C2%A0and-its-coming-to-new-york.

Halperin, Julia. “One-Line Reviews: Our Staff’s Pithy Takes on the Mono-ha Retrospective, Summer’s First Group Shows, and More.” Artinfo.com, June 29, 2012, http://www.artinfo.com/photo-galleries/one-line-reviews-our-staffs-pithy- takes-on-the-mono-ha-retrospective-summers-first-group-shows-and-more#one- line-reviews-our-staffs-pithy-takes-on-the-mono-ha-retrospective-summers-first- group-shows-and-more/?image=2&_suid=135542772166208163063190438622. Hiro, Rika. “Exhibition Report – Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha inLA.” Bijutsu techō, no. 6 (June 2012): 212-19.

Hiro, Rika. “‘Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha’ in Los Angeles: Encounters with Objects, Mono-ha, and the World.” Bijutsu Techō (English Supplement), no. 2 (Spring 2012): 3-5.
Johnson, Caitlin. “Mono-ha at Blum & Poe.” Los Angeles I’m Yours, April 9, 2012, http://www.laimyours.com/13859/mono-ha-at-blum-poe/.

Kee, Joan. “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha.” Artforum 50, no. 9 (May 2012): 316.

Knight, Christopher. “Worldly, Refined.” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2012. Momen, Motin. “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha.”StyleZeitgeist.com (blog), July 2012, http://www.sz-mag.com/news/2012/07/mono-ha/.
Myers, Holly. “Simple, Elegant Design.” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2012. Raffel, Amy. “Gladstone Gallery, Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha.” Workspacesllc.com (blog), July 26, 2012, http://www.workspacesllc.com/blog/gladstone-gallery-requiem-for-the-sun-the- art-of-mono-ha-until-august-3/.

Rawlings, Ashley. “Turning the World Inside Out: A Major Survey of Mono-ha in Los Angeles.” Art in Australia 49, no.4 (Winter 2012): 580-83.
Ritter, Gabriel. “Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha.” ArtAsiaPacific, no.79 (July-August 2012): 120.

Schad, Ed. “Requiem for the Sun.” ArtReview, no. 59 (May 2012): 122-23. Yau, John. “Nobuo Sekine and Charles Ray and Their Sculptures Filledwith Liquid.” Hyperallergic.com, July 29, 2012.

2011 Wallis, Stephen. “Mono-ha Moment.” Art in America 99, no. 11 (December2011): 65-66.

2007 Minemura, Toshiaki. “Difference in the Development of ‘Mono’: On a Visit tothe What is Mono-ha? Exhibition in Beijing.” Mainichi Shimbun (evening edition),
June 21, 2007.
Rawlings, Ashley. “An Introduction to Mono-ha.” TokyoArtBeat.com, September 8, 2007, http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2007/09/an-introduction-to- mono-ha.html.

2004 Nakano, Minoru. “Zen’ei geijutsu no jidai (4) monoha: sozai wo chokushi,
hihyōsei tsuyoku ‘bungē hyakuwa’” (Era of the Avant Garde (4) Monoha:Gazing at material, hard criticality ‘100 literary stories’). Nihon keizai shinbun, December 26, 2004.
Ōtagaki Minoru. “Art shin ko ima kyouto no jikū ni asobu 3 sekine nobuo ‘isō daichi’ to ginkakuji to kogetsudai, jyō” (Art new, old and now playing in Kyoto space-time: Sekine Nobuo and Ginkakuji, Kogetsudai, vol. 1). Kyoto shinbun,
July 3, 2004.
Ōtagaki, Minoru. “Art shin ko ima kyouto no jikū ni asobu 3 sekine nobuo ‘isō daichi’ to ginkakuji kogetsudai, jyō” (Art new old and now playing in Kyoto space- time: Sekine Nobuo and Ginkakuji, Kogetsudai, vol. 1). Kyoto shinbun, July 10, 2004.
Sugawara, Norio. “Kinyō koramu nankai? Na gendai bijutsu, mijika ni kanjiru kokoromi” (Friday column impenetrable? Contemporary art attempts at familiarity). Yomiuri shinbun (evening ed.), January 16, 2004.
Sumi, Akihiko. “Tokushū nihonn kingendai bijutsushi 1905-2005: Lee Ufanjidai
to kokkyō wo koeta ‘deai’ wo motomete” (Japanese modern art history 1905- 2005: Lee Ufan seeking encounters beyond history and borders). Bijutsu Techō, July, 22-31, 2004.
Sumi, Wakio. “’Isō Daichi’ sai-sēisaku 2003 shimatsuki” (Revisiting ‘Phase
Mother Earth’ document 2003). National Museum of Art, Osaka, no. 138 (March 2004): 3.

2002 “Cover Hero: Environmental Artist 20 Sekine Nobuo.” Bien, no. 20 (2002):4-9. Mita, Haruo. “Bijutsu Sekine Nobuo ten toshi kūkan to kakawaruniwa” (In orderto engage with urban space). Mainichi Shinbun, April 21, 2002.

Sasaki, Hiroko, Sekine Nobuo, Hamada Gōshi. “Talk Sairoku Sasaki HirokoX Sekine Nobuo uchinaru iro uchinaru katachi kaiga to chōkoku wo meguru orijinarityi no yukue” (Re-recording Talk Sasaki Hiroko X Sekine Nobuointernal color internal form the future of originality in painting and sculpture). Bijutsu Techō (December 2002): 151-153.

Sawaragi, Noi. “Tokubetsu teisai sensō to banpaku kanketsuron zenpen mō hitotsu no sensō bijutsu sokoniwa itsumo ga atta” (Special article thewar and the world’s fair conclusion part one the other wartime art there were always ‘rocks’ there). Bijutsu Techō (August 2002): 147-159.

Tsuchiya, Seiichi. “Dai 12 kai gēijutsu hyōron boshū nyūsensaku happyo

nakushita monono arika wo megutte Saito Yoshishige, 1973, saisēsaku” (12th art criticism competition selection honorable mention on the whereabouts ofthings lost Saito Yoshishige reproduction). Bijutsu Techō (May 2002):152-159.

2001 Cowan, Amber. “The Five Best Shows Nationwide: Mono-ha: School ofThings.” Times (London), February 6, 2001.

Kumagaya, Isako. “Enokura Kōji ‘kabe’ sakuhin wo chūshin ni” (Centering around Enokura Koji’s ‘wall’ piece). Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Bulletin, no. 6 (2001): 23-28.
Reed, Robert. “How Mono-ha shocked the world.” Daily Yomiuri, April 19, 2001. Safe, Emma. “Mono-ha – School of Things.” Art Monthly, no 248 (July-August 2001): 34-35.
Sekine, Nobuo. “Saito Yoshishige wo otono nai hakushu de okutta” (Wegave Saito Yoshishige a silent round of applause.” Aida (October 2001): 6.
“Zenēi bijutsu no nihon Matsuri no zenya” (The avant garde’s Japan the evening before the festival). Bijutsu Techō (October 2001): 93.

1999 Reed, Robert. “Terror in the Bronze.” Winds (January 1999):30-32.

1997 Chiba, Shigeo. “Tsuitō Yoshida Katsuro mirukoto no hirogari” (Inmemoriam Yoshida Katsuro the expanse of looking). Hanga gējutsu, no. 106 (1997): 98-103. Sawaragi, Noi. “Rensai nihon gendai bijutsu dai 7kai ‘monoha’ towa nanika” (Series Japanese contemporary art part 7 what is ‘monoha’). Bijutsu Techō (January 1997): 163-183.

Suzuki Kenshi. “Ki ga ringo kara ochiru kokuritsu kokusai bijutsukan ‘jūryoku sengo bijutsu no zahyōjin’ ten” (The tree falls from the apple: National Museum of Art, Osaka exhibition “Gravity coordinates of post-war art”). Bijutsu Techō (January 1997): 188-193.
Tani Arata, Mita Haruo, Sugawara Norio, and Takashima Naoyuki. “Nihon-teki hyōgen kūkan to insutarēshon” (Japanese spatial expression and installation). Bijutsu Techō (November 1997): 80-96.

1996 Hyōgyoku, Masahiko. “Gendai bijutsushi no ‘jiken’ ou ‘bijutsu no kōkogaku’ten” (An “incident” in contemporary art). Nihon keizai shinbun, July 10, 1996.
Shiraki, Midori. “Tenhyō Bijutsu no kōkogaku—zenēi bijutsu no nijikensaikenshō” (The archeology of art—re-evaluating two incidents in the avant garde). Nihon Keizai Shinbun (Osaka ed.), July 5, 1996.

Sugawara, Norio. “Torendo in bijutsu aitsugu ‘sengo’ kikaku kenshō womeguru taishō-teki shuhō” (Trends in art: a string of ‘post war’ shows contrast methodology in their examination). Yomiuri shinbun, July 10, 1996.
Tanaka, Sanzōu. “Mono no ninshiki saguru sugata ‘Enokura Koji isaku’ ten to ‘bijutsu no kōkogaku’ ten (bijutsu)” (The state of searching for theunderstanding

of things exhibits ‘posthumous works by Enokura Koji’ and the ‘archeology of art’). Asahi Shinbun, June 27, 1996.

1995 “Biji-shūi 1970nen Bushitsu to chikaku monoha to kongen wo tou sakka tachi” (Gleaning/re-examining good things 1970 Material and perception mono-ha, artists who interrogate origin). Bijutsu Techō (March 1995): 148.
Hyōgyoku Masahiko. “Bijutsu no ashimoto wo tou tamemi, ‘1970nen—bushitsu to chikaku’ ten” (Questioning the foundation of material, exhibition “1970—material and perception”). Nihon keizai shinbun, Novermber 9, 1995.

Jacob, Mike. “The Hole and its Parts: Sculptor pursues ‘Special MentalState’” Daily Yomiuri, January 1995.
Koshimizu, Susumu. “Tokubetsu kiji shōgen monoha ga kataru monoha nokoto Yami no naka e kieteiku mae no yabu no naka e.” Bijutsu Techō (May1995). Lee, Ufan. “Tokubetsu kiji shōgen monoha ga kataru monoha kigen matawa monoha no koto” (Mono-ha talks mono-ha the origin, or about mono-ha). Bijutsu Techō (May 1995): 255-258.

Ōi, Kenji. “Exhibition Review” Bijutsu Techō (August 1995): 173.
Sekine Nobuo. “Tokubetsu kiji shōgen monoha ga kataru monoha no koto seishun to dōgigo no monoha to genzai (ima)” (The youth and synonym of mono- ha and the present (now)) Bijutsu Techō (May 1995): 261-263.
Yoshida, Katsuro. “Tokubetsu kiji shōgen monoha ga kataru monoha no koto chottoshita chigai ga zōfuku sarete” (Mono-ha talks mono-ha: little differences that multiply). Bijutsu Techō (May 1995): 258-260.

1993 Minemura, Toshiaki, and Sumi Akihiko. “Monoha no keisei wo meguttezenpen” (On the formation of mono-ha). Bijutsu Techō (July 1993): 182-205.
Minemura Toshiaki, and Sumi Akihiko. “Monoha no keisei wo meguttekōhen” (On the formation of mono-ha). Bijutsu Techō (August 1993): 170-181.

1990 Sekine, Nobuo. “Rensai essei watashino katachi katachi narazaru katachi” (My form: Form that is not form). Hanga gēijutsu, no 69 (1990): 145.

1989 Haruo, Sanada. “The Japanese Contemporary Exhibition in Belgium.” Mainichi Daily News, Aug 24, 1989.

Yonekura Mamoru. “Suzuki Minoru chōkoku ten to sekine nobuo shinsakuten” (Sculptures by Sumi Akihiko and new works by Sekine Nobuo). Asahi Shinbun, June 9, 1989.

1987 Akita, Yuri. “Exhibition Monoha to posuto monoha no tennkai ‘nihon bijutsu’wo meguru futatsu no ‘chikara’ 1969nen ikō no nihon no bijutsu” (Exhibition: The evolution of Monoha and post-Mono-ha, two forces in Japanese art: Japanese art after 1969). Bijutsu Techō (September 1987): 189.

Fujita, Yaeko. “Kikikaki, garōjin, sakura no obachan (10).” Bijutsu Techō (January 1987): 98-99.
Inui, Yoshiaki, Sakai Tadayasu, Tōno Hōmei, and Yonekura Mamoru. “Zadankai bijutsu kihyō ’87aki “‘mono-ha to posuto mono-ha no tennkai’ ten hoka” (Round table talk, seasonal review, Fall ’87 “the evolution of Mono-ha and post-Mono-ha” et al.). Mizue (Fall 1987): 86-101.

Lee, Ufan. “Tokubetsu kikō mono-ha ni tsuite.” (Special article onMonoha). Mizue (Fall 1987): 102-105.
Lee, Ufan, Takubo Kyōji, Okazaki Kanjirō, Minemura Toshiaki Kanjirō, Minemura Toshiaki, and Chiba Shigeo. “Sairoku shinpojiumu kimihananiwoshitekitaka gekironn 70~80nendai no genndai bijutsu” (Re-recording Symposium: whathave

you been doing? Heated discussion on contemporary art from the 70s and 80s). no. 1, 2, 3, 4, Seibu geijutsukan geppō, myūjiamu repōto, vol. 8, 9, 10,11.
Millet, Catherine. “Tokushū Ponpidū no ‘zenēi geijutsu no nihon 1910-1970’ten, watashitachi no yumemita radikalizumu kikan fukanō na jiten to shite” (“Japon des avant-gardes, 1910-1970” at the Pompidou, the radicalism we dreamed of as the point of no return). Bijutsu Techō, (April 1987): 144-151.

Minemura, Toshiaki. “Wadai Pari, ponpidū centā ‘zenēi geijutsu no nihon1910- 1970’ ten no shinsō geijutsu no kihon wo machigaetewa imasenka” (The truth behind “Japon des avant-gardes, 1910-1970” at the Pompidou Center, Paris. Could you be misunderstanding the basis of art?) Art, no. 119 (1987): 70-72. Shiraga, Kazuo and Chiba Shigeo. “Shiraga Kazuo ga kataru” (Shiraga Kazuo speaks). Geijutsu hyōron (August 1987): 5-20.

1978 “Nobuo Sekine.” Louisiana Revy, 19, no. 1 (August 1978): 18-23.(translated sections of the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf catalog).

1975 Yasui, Shūzō. “Sekine Nobuo shōron. Kono <isō> no shitsuyō natankyūsha” (Short essay on Sekine Nobuo. A tenacious investigator of this “phase”). Hanga geijutsu (Print arts), no. 11 (1975): 142-48.

1973 Yasui, Shūzō. “Sekine Nobuo e no tegami” (A letter to Sekine Nobuo). Kindai kenchiku, June 1973.

Minemura, Toshiaki. “Geijutsu jānaru: Sekine Nobuo koten” (Art journal:Sekine Nobuo solo exhibition). Obararyū sōka, June 1973.

1972 Haryu, Ichiro. “Dialogue number 31: Sekine, Nobuo, Interviewer Haryu, Ichiro.” Mizue 9-10, no. 812 (1972): 84-101.

1971 Ufan, Lee. “Chokusetsu genshō no chihei ni (Sekine Nobuo ron)” (From the horizon of a direct phenomenon [On Sekine Nobuo]). Pts. 1 and 2. SD, no. 74 (December 1970); no. 75 (January 1971).

1970 Ōkubo, Takaki. “Sekine Nobuo no kūsō” (Sekine Nobuo’s phase ofnothingness). Kai, March 1970.

1969 Ōkubo, Takaki. “Sonzai to mu o koete-Sekine Nobuo ron” (Beyond beingand nothingness – On Sekine Nobuo). Sansai, June 1969, 51-53.

1968 Yūsuke, Nakahara. “ no episode” (The episode of the“dirt sculpture”). Geijutsu shinchō, December 1968, 43.

Public Collections

Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone, Japan
Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum, Hiroshima, Japan
Kanai Museum, Hokkaido, Japan
Kawagoe City Art Museum, Saitama, Japan
Louisiana Museum, Denmark
Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagaoka, Japan
National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, Amsterdam, Holland

Prefectural Museum, Gunma, Japan
Prefectural Museum, Omiya, Saitama, Japan Prefectural Museum, Tochigi, Japan
Riijksmuseum Kroller, Otterlo, Holland
Seibu Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Sonji Henie-Nils Onstad Culture Center, Oslo, Norway Takamatsu Museum of Art, Kagawa, Japan
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota, Japan Yokohama Business Park, Yokohama, Japan

Awards

1969 Concour Prize, 1st International Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition,Hakone, Japan

Prize Group Work, 6th Paris Biennale, Paris, France

1968 Concour Prize, 8th Contemporary Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
Asahi Newspaper Prize, Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition, Suma Palace Park, Kobe, Japan
First Prize, 5th Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagaoka, Japan

1967 Commendatory Prize, 11th Shell Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan

JANET TAYLOR PICKETT, ZHANG HONGTU, PINK and THE CORPSES 

Oct 5 – 31, 2023

Zhang Hongtu at Museo Picasso Málaga

October 3, 2023 - March 31, 2024

PICASSO, WELCOME TO AMERICA

June 15 – Sept 27, 2023

Zhang Hongtu participates Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions at the Asia Society Texas, February 10 - July 2, 2023

Zhang Hongtu is featured at the Asia Society in Texas

February 10 - July 2, 2023

PITCHES & SCRIPTS

Group Exhibition

January 20 - March 11, 2023

(DE)CONSTRUCTING IDEOLOGY: THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND BEYOND November 13, 2022 to March 12, 2023

Zhang Hongtu lectures and exhibits at the Wende Museum

November 13, 2022 - March 12, 2023

TANGO

Summer Exhibition

July 13 - August 17, 2022

VAN GOGH / BODHIDHARMA

Zhang Hongtu

March 25 - April 27, 2022

Zhang Hongtu’s “Mai Dang Lao” from the Brooklyn Museum Collection is featured on PBS NYC – ARTS

February 17, 2022

LOVE DIFFERENCE

Eric Brown, Janet Taylor Pickett, Zhang Hongtu

May 15 - June 15, 2021

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Nobuo Sekine Zhang Hongtu

PERFORMATIVE

February 13, 2019

Baahng Gallery is pleased to announce Performative, a group exhibition, featuring works by Brian Dailey, Miryana Todorova and Rae BK. Performative elements are essential to their works; this exhibition is a cross section of their oeuvre showcasing selected paintings, sculptures, and a media work.

Washington D.C. based artist Brian Dailey presents a single channel video, Jikai, shown on multiple synchronized monitors as a featured video in the Times Square Midnight Moment series, making an allusion to Shakespeare’s line in The Merchant of Venice. The moth in Jikai is a metaphor for political systems and its fluttering around a light bulb is a meditation on political disintegration.

Lives and works between Sofia and New York, Miryana Todorova questions politics of public space and how people occupy it. On view includes works from series of Foreign Body and Movables. Temporary structures in transit set up new ways of perception and geometry. With shifting grounds and no solidity, the work continuously involves every layer becomes a reaction to the transformation of a physical and spatial encounter: Negotiation becomes the infrastructure, no arrangement is accidental and no order is fixed, resulting a hybrid structure shaped by vulnerability.

Brooklyn artist, painter and sculptor, RAE -BK, showcases an assemblage made up of smashed-up bits and found objects welded together as mangled sculpture. His works are feats of random engineering combining things like metal grates, goggles, and chipped-off box fan blades, seemingly emotive human figures. RAE as a street artist creates lively and chaotic frescoes that manage to blend into urban environment eventuating fantastical and anarchical installations.

A group exhibition

July 17 – August 15, 2018

Artists in the exhibition

Brian Dailey

Miryana Todorova

Rae-BK

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Brian Dailey Miryana Todorova Rae-BK

NAOMI SAVAGE

April 28, 2020

Unexplored Limits

April – June, 2020

Naomi Savage was a highly innovative photographer, who regarded the darkroom as a laboratory where she could invent new and exciting techniques that began with photography but expanded the capability of the medium to new and previously unexplored limits. She was the niece of Man Ray and studied with him for a brief period in Hollywood, California. It was he who taught her that photography had no boundaries. “The darkroom,” he told her, “was a place to make fearless tries at whatever images came to mind.” She followed that advice throughout her career, being the first to display metal-plate photoengravings (customarily used as a means by which to make prints) as finished works of art, thereby causing the very medium of photography to be redefined. She first showed her work in the 1950s and 1960s in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was represented in the 1970s to mid-1980s by the prestigious gallery of Lee Witkin in New York City. Her work can be found in some of the most distinguished museums and art institutions in the United States: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Princeton University Art Museum, The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, etc. When digital photography emerged in the 1990s, Savage embraced it completely, considering it as a new and revolutionary means by which to engage in an even greater diversity of experimentation. The influence of Man Ray appears throughout her work, both formally, thematically and conceptually, as she fully embraced his position that art follows no rules and is without limitation, thereby, in the case of Naomi Savage, resulting in a range of work that stretched the limits of photography.

Due to the ongoing situation with COVID-19, Baahng Gallery is postponing upcoming exhibitions and programs. In the meantime, we will be providing series of online exhibitions and announcements. For information about the exhibitions or the works, please contact us at inquiries@baahng.com

Biography

Naomi Savage, photographer, born June 25, 1927 and died at her home in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 22, 2005. While still in high school, she took a class in photography at the New School for Social Research with Berenice Abbott. Some twenty years earlier, Abbott had studied photography in Paris with Man Ray, who was Naomi Savage’s uncle. In 1946, Savage enrolled in Bennington College, where she studied art and music, but before graduating, left to be an apprentice for Man Ray in Hollywood. He taught her that photography was above all a creative process, one of many tools that could be used for the purpose of visual expression. When she returned to New York in 1948, she combined her love of music with her skill in photography by taking portraits of the best known composers of day: Aaron Copland, John Cage, Virgil Thomson, etc. (over 30 in all). Throughout her career, she experimented with the medium of photography, continuously inventing new and highly original techniques. Perhaps her best known work is a series of metal photo engravings (1972) dominating the walls of the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas. In her later years, she became attracted to the enormous potential of digital imagery, experimenting with various methods to manipulate and enhance color, even using new and unconventional materials for laser printing. She exhibited widely, most recently at the Montclair Art Museum, and her photographs are included in major institutional collections throughout the United States……………..provided by Francis M. Naumann.

Francis M. Naumann is an art historian, who specializes in art of the Dada and Surrealist period. He has written extensively on the art of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. His New York Dada 1915-23 (1994) is considered the definitive history of the movement, and his “Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York” (1996) is the most comprehensive exhibition on the subject ever assembled. His doctoral dissertation was on Man Ray’s early years in New York, later published as Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray (2003). Throughout his years of his research on Man Ray, he met Naomi Savage and, over the years, they became good friends.

NAOMI SAVAGE

Unexplored Limits

April - June, 2020

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Naomi Savage

MAN RAY

April 20, 2020

April – June, 2020

A l’Heure de l’observatoire—les amoureux, 1970 depicts Man Ray’s most famous painting, A l’Heure de l’observatoire—les amoureux, 1932-34: a pair of enormous female lips detached from a visage and floating mysteriously over the city of Paris. They were the lips of Lee Miller, Man Ray’s lover who left him just before he embarked upon the painting of this picture and, thus, historians have understood it to serve as his memorial to her or his personal purgative of loss. Whatever its motive, with this one image Man Ray has succeeded in capturing the essence of Surrealism: an image displaced from its natural environment and placed within a magical setting, while at the same time evoking the depiction of a dream.

Biography

Painter, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, draftsman…Man Ray has never limited himself to a single medium of artistic expression, tirelessly seeking new possibilities of creation or diversion of existing techniques. Considering art essentially as a game, he refused to attach himself to a determined style. Man Ray was born in 1980 in Philadelphia. In 1913, he discovered at the exhibition The Armory Show in New York European artists like Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia. With Marcel Duchamp he created and experimented with optical devices to study motion. He participated in the Dada movement in New york until 1921, when he left for France. As he arrived in Paris, Marcel Duchamp introduced him to the Parisian artistic scene. It was the beginning of an intense period of creation: photographs (fashion, portraits, art), exhibitions, films…In the interwar period Paris, Man Ray frequents all the greatest actors of creation, Dadaists, Surrealists, writers, filmmakers, fashion designers…In 1940, Man Ray had to leave France for the United States, where he realized major works like the Shakespearian paintings, etc. Man Ray returned to Paris in 1951, moved to rue Ferou where he painted, drew, wrote his memoirs and continued to use photographic processes. Thus begins the edition of his objects “Objects of my affection” first with Marcel Zerbib, then with Arturo Schwarz. Man Ray died on November 18, 1976 in Paris. He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

…………………………………………. excerpt from Man Ray International Association

Mathematical Object (Anthony) is one of some twenty photographs taken by Man Ray in 1934-35 of mathematical models located in the Institut Poincaré in Paris. Twelve of the photographs were featured in a 1936 issue of the journal Cahiers d’Art devoted to the “object” and four were exhibited in MoMA’s exhibition the same year, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism. The models were drawn to his attention by Max Ernst, who had discovered them and thought them exceptionally provocative, surreal shapes. The models were used to render complex mathematical formulae into three-dimensional form, but it was not their origin in mathematics that attracted the interests of Man Ray. “The formulas accompanying them meant nothing to me,” he later explained, “the forms themselves were as varied and authentic as any in nature” (Self-Portrait, 1963, p. 368). While living in Hollywood, California, in the 1940s, Man Ray used the photographs he had taken in the Institut Poincaré as the basis of a series of pictures that he grouped under the title “The Shakespearean Equations,” which, in true Dada and Surrealist fashion, had as little to do with Shakespeare as they did with equations. Man Ray retrieved the photographs he had printed in the 1930s on a trip back to Paris in 1947, and this example is believed to be among them. This particular print is often titled Antony, as we know that it was used as the basis for the figure of Anthony in his painting Antony and Cleopatra, 1948.

MAN RAY

A l’Heure de l’observatoire—les amoureux

April - June, 2020

MAN RAY

April - June 2020

Categories: exhibitions

Tags: Man Ray

SOPHIE MATISSE

April 1, 2020

Be Back In 5

April – June, 2020

……………..In the persuasive likenesses of well-known paintings, but all rendered without any living thing in them; The Mona Lisa without Mona; Velazquez’ Las Meninas as a vast empty room, Sophie produced some 20 paintings in all. Completely denuded of their human inhabitants by Jan Vermeer, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, including by Gustave Courbet, Paul Gauguin, Edward Hopper, Charles Willson Peale, — most notably — her great- grandfathers, Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse……………………..