Leroy Lamis, 84, died Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010, in Austin, Texas. Mr. Lamis was a sculptor and long-time professor of art at Indiana State University. His Plexiglas sculptures, known for their geometric elegance, were exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and are in the collections of leading museums and private collectors.

Mr. Lamis was born in Eddyville, Iowa, and moved to Los Angeles during the depression. As a teenager, he worked at MGM studios in Culver City. He attended New Mexico Highlands University and received a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York. He married Esther Sackler in 1954, taught at Cornell College in Iowa, then moved to Terre Haute, Ind., in 1961, where he taught studio art and art history at Indiana State University until his retirement in 1988. In 1970, he was Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College. He was a fixture in the Wabash Valley art community and had exhibits at the Swope Art Museum, Indiana State University, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Lamis journeyed to New York City with his modern cubist sculptures in tow. He found immediate success with art collectors in New York, being invited to join the Contemporaries Gallery. In 1964, his sculptures were featured in the Whitney Museum Annual exhibit, and in 1965, Lamis’ pieces were selected to participate in one of the most important modern art exhibits of the era, The Responsive Eye at The Museum of Modern Art.

From 1965 to 1971 his sculptures were shown and sold by Staempfli Gallery in New York City, where he had three one-man shows. From 1968 to 1969, his one-man show toured throughout the country including exhibits at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, John Herron Museum, Indianapolis, Des Moines Art Center, La Jolla Museum of Art, and Tacoma Museum of Art. In total, his artworks were featured in over 100 individual and group exhibits around the world.

His works are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Joseph H. Hirshhorn Collection, Washington, the Albright-Knox Museum, and The Brooklyn Museum, and in the private collections of Seymour Knox, Howard Lipman, SI Newhouse Jr., Roy R. Newberger, Denise Rene, and Robert Sarnoff among other collectors.

(Source: TribStar.com, August 22, 2010)

Noel Ivanoff, Cut block (crate) painting 1
Acrylic paint on polystyrene form
mounted within a crate construction
795 x 345 x 435mm

August 14 – September 4, 2010

Noel Ivanoff’s formalistic painting practice has been marked by a sheer determination to innovate new possibilities in the language of painting’s surfaces and supports. His explorations into painting as sculptural constructions were first seen in the crate-like works in his exhibition Fabrication (Vavasour-Godkin Gallery, 2007) and the floor box paintings in Landing (Enjoy Public Art Gallery,
2008), and have now culminated in Skin Cradles (Two Rooms, 2010). They have an assertively quirky and animated three-dimensional presence, which Ivanoff achieves through confounding the conventions of cradling. The functions of strengthening, straightening, holding and protecting are shifted. The stretchers and crates remain holding devices, but the cradle becomes a system within
which the painted panels can be shaped under tension or the skins of paint are asked to conform to the elliptical hollows of polystyrene blocks.

With the Convex (stretcher) works Ivanoff first paints the panels vertically, using the process he formulated for his Digit paintings in 2009. He activates the paint by drawing his finger across the entire surface to create vertical parallel lines, while piling paint on both sides of the mark. With his purposely made set-squares, he controls this process so an overall consistency of finish is achieved
across the painting. The upright panels are then mounted into horizontal positions on their own stretcher constructions and bent into convex curves, forcing a spring-like state, so that the paintings present themselves under tension. An integral relationship occurs between the ploughed paint
application, the curvature of the panel, and the three-dimensional qualities emanating from the stretcher and wall.

These paintings have a multifaceted presence. The panels appear light, soft, rubber or plastic-like, ‘shifty’ and atmospheric in one moment, or heavy, solid, sharp and metallic, the next. After a longer look, you can feel somewhat uncomfortable, as you imagine the works springing forth, flying out at you or crashing straight down onto the floor, taking their ‘frail’ stretcher with them. The viewer is coaxed into an encounter around these works through the shifting sensations of weight, colour and material, creating the opportunity to reflect on the totality of these works and the space that contains them.

The Cut block (crate) paintings are wall works articulated by polystyrene blocks mounted within partial crate constructions. Several of the crate-panels are reformed to mount the blocks to the wall by acting as a shelf. Each cut to order form has an elliptical hole in its centre, which extends through the entire block to subtly intimate a cargo of fragile industrial forms or artworks. A painted area of flat orange covers 50% of these contrived expanses, with each work employing a different means of dividing these areas into half painted and unpainted surfaces. Quiet and intensely animated, the porous surfaces of the polystyrene seem to swallow immediate space, becoming wormholes to suck in the unwary. Drawn into viewing the insides of the painted holes from multiple angles, the viewer can revel in the magnetic pull into the elliptical volume and the seductive quality of orange surface after-glow and variations of white.

The freestanding Concave (crate) pieces consist of white painted panels mounted within partial crate constructions, bowed under tension to create an elliptical, concave curve that fits into the confines of each crate. These panels are pushed to great levels of tension by the balanced energy which presses them against their cradling supports. Sufficient opposing force counters the weight of the ‘roof’ above with a tension so palpable and intense that in any given moment these panels could burst out of their cramped quarters in a dramatic, Houdini escape.

These Concave (crate) works and the Cut block (crate) pieces suggest functional containers as well as a set of self-contained, painterly and sculptural elements. It is as if these works are their own packaging, storage, transport and display system, designed to be safely crated, moved and installed in an exhibition venue without any need of additional materials. This could suggest agency for each
audience by being reconstituted in relation to the physical characteristics of each environment and the tastes and interests of those installing the works. Ivanoff asserts that “While acknowledging their utilitarian context, they refer to the utopian optimism of modernist abstraction, but reconsider this language, a century on, as an echo that is somewhat airless, yet still serving a valid function in today’s visual culture.’’

Good point, and I believe that Ivanoff’s works do not echo some postmodern pastiche, they rise above the empty signifiers of postmodernism and are more about being enriched by, than simply referencing the history of art and utilitarian design. The works in Skin Cradles are a relevant contribution to the formalistic art of today, because they are anchored as self-sustaining objects, rich in their own materiality and physicality, not just stacked full of empty references. Berlin-based writer Diedrich Diederichsen praised the Formalism: Modern Art Today exhibition (Hamburger Kunstverein, 2005) for its alternatives to a “world choked with referentiality.” 2 I would like to believe that any of Ivanoff’s works for Skin Cradles would have sat nicely in that company. While certainly showing itself
to be aesthetically precise, Ivanoff’s formalism is guided by intuition, chance and play, which allows his works to come across as hopeful and, if not utopian, then as micro-utopian. By micro-utopian, of course Ivanoff’s works may be theorised via relational aesthetics, but in my opinion, it is the maverick, iconoclastic Richard Artschwager – whose practice has combined painting and sculpture to
create “categorical confusion” by conflating Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art – who is more relevant to the appreciation of Ivanoff’s goals. “Nothing is ever just one thing with Artschwager,” 4 and the same can be said of Noel Ivanoff’s work, in which the potentially austere tone of formalism has been reinvested with a finely calibrated sense of humour, vulnerability and the artist’s touch.

–Erich Ranfft, 2010

Film still with Julian Dashper

Starting August 26, 2010, on YouTube, you can view the film My Space, by Simone Horrocks & Richard Flynn with Julian Dashper.

Early in 2008, Dashper approached film makers Simone Horrocks and Richard Flynn, with the idea of collaborating on a film project. It was important to Dashper that we remain open to where the filming might take us, but together we agreed that the film in some way would be : ‘A meditation on the meaning of success and failure in an artist’s life’.

We filmed with Dashper between June and October 2008, as he travelled between Auckland, Sydney and Chicago. It was Dashper’s wish that my space would premiere on YouTube.

Installation view

May 29 – September 5, 2010

Red Blue Motion Totem is the meaningful name of Malene Landgreen’s current exhibition at Esbjerg Kunstmuseum in her home country Denmark. The installation was realised on the occasion and celebration of the 100th birthday of Danish painter Richard Mortensen. With her giant wall-paintings combined with mirrored columns Malene Landgreen pays tribute to the expressive work of the jubilee and created an optical illusion which dissolves the central perspective and splits the space into striking colour fields – one could call it ’3d-cubism’.

Pierre Juillerat, B_76.5215, 2009-2010
Lacquer and acrylic dispersion on canvas
220 x 170 cm

September 2 – October 3, 2010

The solo exhibition alpha floor of Swiss painter Pierre Juillerat is a consistent continuation of the New Concrete and Constructive Art program by dr. julius | ap. Juillerat‘s work expands the range of the artists represented by dr. julius | ap with a strictly geometric painting position.

In most cases, Juillerat‘s paintings show stripe and line structures that are set on various image carriers with very high precision, always using his own and intuitively chosen specific set of colours. Due to the orientation to vanishing points lying far outside the image area, these structures often appear like detail views of larger, wider spatial contexts. Shifting these points may breake geometric laws, and the perspective effect even increases the impression of vast space.

Pierre Juillerat, born 1967 in Bern, has completed a degree in architecture ETH Zurich, pursued by a long career as an airline pilot. In parallel, he independently developed his geometric painting style, which combines impetus from both fields. The opposite of the firmly structured, geometrically planned and bright dynamic clarity in his work is evident.

Pierre Schwerzmann, painter and teacher of design, notes on this: “The human perception of the automated movement, as in instrument flight, the hostile environment of high altitudes, which provides colours with their icy cold temperature and causes the alloy of the materials, shape the work of Pierre Juillerat. The aluminum sheets designed for speed are taken from a decontextualisation of aviation; they are a contrast to the slowness of the act of painting. It is a serial production technology, which faces the primitive and unique action of the painter. His paintings attempt to exist outside their own borders. Colours flowing over the edges are transitional areas. Non-Existing and emptiness are just as decisive as the visible portions of the work. What we have here in front of us is a unique and specific vision of the void and the tension that comes from an apparent calm.”

The renowned art historian Matthias Bleyl, professor at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee, writes about these works: “The constructive potential that the seemingly perspective painting by Pierre Juillerat contains, predestinates it for an expansion into real space, for which approaches in the draft stage already exist. His way of working, which also includes various rigid image carriers, like aluminum sheets or plexiglass panels, is well-suited for the production of three-dimensional, but at the same time picturesque objects. This step would be, given the recent development of his paintwork, very consistent, and probably it is just a matter of time before it is realized. Meanwhile, however, only the pictures remain with their seemingly complex nesting and broken spaces, which still reveal themselves as pure surface paintings.”

Works by Ahn Hyun-Ju, Eric Knoote, Wilma Vissers

September 4-25, 2010

Work by Richard Roth

June 27 – September 10, 2010

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromosaturation, 1965-2010
Installation view

May 22 – October 16, 2010

Luce e Movimento (Light and Movement)
curated by Grzegorz Musial and Franck Marlot

Artists:
Martha Boto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Werner Graeff, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Julio Le Parc, Jozef Robakowski, Nicolas Schöffer, Jesus Rafael Soto, Gregorio Vardanega

With the newly organized space of Palazzo Donà, the Foundation presents objects and sculptures, as well as installations and films in which light and movement become essential elements of the composition. The exhibition, prepared in collaboration with Galerie Denise René, includes works by masters of kinetic art, shows the Avant-garde origins of the movement and its influence on the art of today. The viewer is a participant in the project. His presence triggers movement and the play of light enriching the work of art with the dimension of time. This constant change confers ineffable quality to the work of art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in Italian and French with a complete photographic documentation, essays by Grzegorz Musial, Arnauld Pierre’a, Denise René, Andrzej Turowski, and biographical notes of the participating artists.

Richard Serra, Back to Black, 1981
1-color lithograph on Arches Cover paper
133.3 x 157.5 cm
Signed and numbered 19/20

August 26 – October 1, 2010

Melanie Crader, It all started when
I tried to paint a portrait (purse), 2010
From the series The Eula Project
Acrylic and silver leaf on panel
10 x 8 inches

September 2 – October 7, 2010

The O’Kane Gallery on the campus of UH-Downtown begins the fall season with Houston artist Melanie Crader’s solo exhibition, The Eula Project. Crader’s installation physically transforms the gallery into a facsimile of a domestic residence that begins the intersection of the present and a life lived decades ago. Upon the discovery of a box containing mundane objects found over 20 years after her grandmother’s death, Crader began exploring the similarities between their two lives. Utilizing the contents of the box as source material, The Eula Project explores the formation of an identity as it relates to space, aesthetics, gender, social class and memory.

A native of southern Louisiana, Crader’s exhibit history includes Gallery Sonja Roesch in Houston, Women and their Work in Austin, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY. Her work has addressed the complex issues of identity and the feminine as it is packaged through predominantly consumer channels. Her clean, crisp, at times minimalist stylistic leanings bring focus to specific detail divorcing it from its original context. The Eula Project provides an examination of one identity revealed through such details.

Melanie Crader is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Marlene Sarroff
Disruptive Elements, 2010
Corrugated cardboard, paint

August 26 – September 4, 2010

The exhibition, Disruptive Elements, explores the dynamic interconnection between the striated surface space and the smooth surface space. When the smooth space is disturbed interrupted and ruptured by the intervention of cutting peeling and repositioning a process of change brings into being a striated space. The striated space becomes new territory, emerging and, developing a dialogue with the smooth. The smooth and striated space is found on the surface of corrugated cardboard which consists of several large black, rectangular and square works. These works are assembled together, some overlapping, like a cluster, strategically placed, and resting against the gallery wall. Several parts make up one complete work. They are connected although they can be separated or rearranged into other configurations and are capable of producing any number of effects. In the gallery space another form of disruptive elements emerges resulting from the way the works are placed, causing a sense disruption for the viewer whilst in the gallery space itself.

Marlene Sarroff’s work is concerned with materials and process. She uses very ordinary industrial materials and then sets about a process to manipulate them enough so as new work evolves, whilst at the same time, being true to the material. Previously, she has used soft, light materials such as bubble wrap and used a process of winding around. In Disruptive Elements mostly the material is hard and the process of cutting and peeling presents a bolder aesthetic. However, one work in the exhibition does continue the process of winding. White elastic is wound and stretched around a frame, completely covering it, and creating a contrast to the hard surfaced cardboard works. So the hard and soft creates a contrast of surfaces and continues a process used previously by the artist.

Factory 49
49 Shepherd St
Marrickville, Sydney, Australia

August 5-28, 2010

Geraldo de Barros, Pampulha, Sao Paulo, Brazil,
[From the Series Fotoforma], 1949
Silver gelatin, 29 x 28 cm
Edition 5 of 15, Print 2006

September 8 – October 6, 2010

David Thomas, Duration circle (Yellow), 2010
Acrylic on photoprint, 21 x 29.7 cm

August 12-28, 2010

Daniel Göttin, Untitled, 2008 (detail)
Adhesive tape on anodized aluminium

August 14 – September 29, 2010

August 13 – September 4, 2010

Installation view

August 14 – September 4, 2010

Works by:
Manfred Mohr, Josef Linschinger
Dora Maurer, Karl-Heinz Adler
Karl Gerstner, Vesna Kovacic

July 31 – October 30, 2010

Participating Artists:
Karl-Heinz Adler, Rita Ernst, Karl Gerstner, Hans-Jörg Glattfelder, Wolfgang Körber, Vesna Kovacic, Josef Linschinger, Dora Maurer, Manfred Mohr, Marcello Morandini, Axel Rohlfs

Richard van der Aa, Reasons to be cheerful:
Paris winter series no.13, 2009
Acrylic on paper, 19 x 24 cm

August 12-21, 2010

One of the streams in Richard van der Aa’s work of recent years is an ongoing series of paintings entitled Reasons to be cheerful. The Reasons to be cheerful paintings have been realised in a variety of forms and scales. From the tiny aluminium tablets which were shown throughout the Christchurch Art Gallery in 2006 as a part of the Out of Erewhon exhibition, to the bi-chromatic square panels exhibited recently at le Pavé d’Orsay in Paris, the “reasons” consistently underline the comprehension that, above all, a painting is an object to be appreciated in relation to others, and in the context of the physical space of the showroom.

At Factory 49 van der Aa is presenting a fresh incarnation of this series. The group of works on paper subtitled Paris winter series is a series of simple compositions utilising a limited palette of three colours: (grey, white and a dirty cream – the colours of Paris winter). The group of 25 small paintings can be read sequentially as each composition is born out of a formal adjustment made to the previous one. The emphasis is on relationships of form.
There is similarity and difference and a sort of visual logic at work, a sense that each painting is the natural extension of the system set up in the preceding pieces. Each one exists as a matter of course. Each one is a reason to be cheerful.

Richard van der Aa was born in New Zealand to Dutch parents and has lived in Paris since 2005 after spending 15 years in Sydney.

Installation view

July 31 – August 21, 2010
By appointment

Sara Schnadt is a Chicago-based performance/installation artist. Raised on an international commune in Scotland, an ‘alternative’ context which considered itself as a social experiment outside of conventional culture, she spent formative years understanding herself as an outsider, an observer. Since moving to the United States in 1986, Sara has become fascinated with the unifying rituals and values that are common threads in contemporary western culture, and has made work that frames and resonates with those common threads.

Formally, Sara makes performance and installations that use task, found objects, interactivity, projection, and movement derived from common gestures. Her work creates environments that shift the audience regularly from spectator to participant as the performer constantly moves between pedestrian and more stylized or evocative activity and the viewer negotiates spacial immersion in the work.

Works often take shape as installations and live activities that translate data visualizations of large quantities of socially-resonant information into material, gestural and poetic form.

Network, Domestic Intervention

Since November 2009, site-specific versions of Network have been created in Chicago for an unused store front downtown and a gallery space at Hyde Park Art Center. For What it is, a version of Network will be created to inhabit the entire house that is the project space and artists’ live-work space and extend out into the garden.

Visualizing the idea that we simultaneously live in a real and virtual world, and that the virtual is infinitely expansive, Network uses large quantities of electric yellow twine (tied in patterns based on both social network structures and Internet network infrastructure) to suggest a virtual network landscape cutting through an otherwise ordinary space.

Artists/curators/residents Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes will also live with the work in their home for a month, negotiating their routines around it. A series of photographs will document their activity for the project catalog.

Sara Schnadt is a Chicago-based artist working in new media, installation and performance art. She has shown her in work in Chicago at Hyde Park Art Center, Pop-Up Art Loop temporary gallery series, 12×12: New Artists New Work at the MCA Chicago, Looptopia, the Site Unseen Performance Festival, Balloon Contemporary, and at Antena Gallery. National and international shows include Exchange Rate public projection series in LA and New York, Upgrade! – Chain Reaction in Skopje, Macedonia, CINEA Paris, FreeManifesta in Frankfurt, and the Busan Biennale in Busan, South Korea.

View more installation photos here.