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M5, Philip Feldman Gallery + Project Space, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, ORposted August 1st, 2010
Steve Karlik, Flip, 2010 August 1-22, 2010 Philip Feldman Gallery + Project Space M5 explores the intersections and mutual interests of five artists who have exhibited at Brooklyn’s MINUS SPACE: Don Voisine, Patricia Zarate, Steve Karlik, Nancy White and Rossana Martinez, combined with two of the Northwest’s most historically relevant abstract practitioners Francis Celentano and Mel Katz. “The connection between these artists is direct since Katz was once Karlik’s professor and Celentano is a pioneer of the Op Art movement first coined in the 1960s, though perceptual art has existed prior and since. Also, since so many Portland artists are interested in these ideas surrounding minimalism, perceptual and reductive art practices I felt it was valuable to expose these two groups to one another,” says Jeff Jahn, curator of the exhibition. MINUS SPACE is an international web platform, itinerant international curatorial program and Brooklyn alternative space who in 2008 had its five-year retrospective at P.S.1. Curator Jeff Jahn is co-founder of PORT, an online catalyst of critical discourse focused on contemporary art in Portland. Jahn is a curator, cultural historian, critic and artist who has been published and exhibited internationally. Since its founding in 1909, Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) has become a leader in innovative educational programs that connect students to a global perspective in the visual arts and design. In addition to its nine Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, PNCA offers graduate education with an MFA in Visual Studies, as well as an MFA in Applied Craft and Design developed in collaboration with Oregon College of Art and Craft. PNCA is actively involved in Portland’s cultural life through exhibitions and a vibrant public program of lectures and internationally recognized visiting artists, designers and creative thinkers. With the support of PNCA+FIVE (Ford Institute for Visual Education), the College has a partnership with the nationally acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Craft. For more information, visit www.pnca.edu. Press Contacts: Becca Biggs SUPPORT PRESS 30/30 – Image Archive Project (IAP), MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted June 26th, 2010
Work by Emmanuel Van der Meulen June 26 – July 31, 2010 MINUS SPACE is delighted to present the first installment of the Brussels, Belgium-based Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art’s (CCNOA) most recent initiative 30/30 – Image Archive Project (IAP). Conceived by artist and CCNOA Chief Curator/Artistic Director Tilman, the exhibition will feature a diverse group of small works by 9 international artists, including Delphine Deguislage (Belgium), Clemens Hollerer (Austria), Atsuo Hukuda (Japan), Andrew Huston (USA), Camila Oliveira-Fairclough (Brazil/United Kingdom), Ingrid Maria Sinibaldi (France), Emmanuel Van der Meulen (France), Jan Maarten Voskuil (The Netherlands), and Lars Wolter (Germany). With 30/30-IAP, CCNOA seeks to establish a collective collection that will showcase the mesmerizing breadth and depth of approaches reductive artists are currently pursuing on the international level. The project’s title refers to the size restriction for all works to be included in CCNOA’s emerging registry, which is set at 30 x 30 cm with a maximum depth of 5 cm. This will enable CCNOA to easily travel the project worldwide (museum in a suitcase). 30/30-IAP is administered by CCNOA in a joint effort with artists CCNOA has collaborated with over the past 12 years, as well as newly invited artists from around the globe. CCNOA is currently planning forthcoming 30/30-IAP exhibitions at artist-run venues in Australia, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Hartmut Böhm: Graphic Systems, Prints 1965-1975, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted May 8th, 2010
Hartmut Böhm May 8 – June 12, 2010 MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce the exhibition Hartmut Böhm: Graphic Systems, Prints 1965-1975. This is the Berlin-based artist’s first solo exhibition in New York City and it will feature ten silkscreen prints produced between 1965 and 1975. For more than fifty years, Hartmut Böhm has been working in installation, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking. His work focuses almost exclusively on the aesthetics of systems that highlight the relativity of perception. Böhm’s practice is organized around four primary areas of investigation: Systems (serial structures), Perception (transparency and visual ambiguity), Gestalt (partition and outline), and Concept (linear principles and infinite progressions). Perception is the dominant facet of the work he produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which includes the prints on view at MINUS SPACE. About his work of this period, Böhm states, “It was about investigation, comprehension, and perception as active learning…it wasn’t about optical sensations.” Böhm views the systems in his work as pictorial strategies, rather than metaphysical vehicles pointing toward the realm of utopia. He continues, “The fascination for me lies in the simultaneous logical combining of the visible and invisible elements, and their derived principal separation from that same logic.” A comprehensive interview with Hartmut Böhm, his first in English, was conducted by Matthew Deleget and published on MINUS SPACE in February 2004. Böhm’s work was recently included in the group exhibitions Open House for Butterflies at MINUS SPACE in 2009, and MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in NYC in 2008. Hartmut Böhm is one of the most important European reductive artists of his generation. He was born in Kassel, Germany, in 1938, and studied with Arnold Bode, the founder and curator of Documenta, at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel. Böhm produced his first systems-based work in 1959. Several years later, he was included in the seminal constructivist exhibition Nouvelle Tendance: Propositions visuelles du mouvement international at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France in 1964. The exhibition heralded in the Op, Kinetic, and Zero Art movements. Böhm has mounted more than sixty solo exhibitions and has participated in hundreds of group exhibitions internationally. His work is included in nearly seventy public collections worldwide. The Chelm Museum Collection of Contemporary Art in Chelm, Poland, mounted a retrospective of Böhm’s prints in 2008. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealandposted April 22nd, 2010
Mark Dagley, Final Sequence, 2007 April 22 – May 8, 2010 The Engine Room MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce the group exhibition Escape from New York at The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, from April 22 – May 8, 2010. Curated by Matthew Deleget, the exhibition surveys reductive strategies by 29 artists living in and around New York City. Each artist will present a single small work, as well as an open letter to the local community of artists. Escape from New York originated at Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia, in 2007, and later traveled to Curtin University in Perth in 2008 and Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University in Melbourne in 2009. Participating Artists: Also on view at The Engine Room: Collective Monochrome: Billy Gruner & Sarah Keighery. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you! Michelle Grabner: Get Better Mrs. Michelle!, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted March 27th, 2010
Michelle Grabner, Untitled, 2010 March 27 – May 1, 2010 MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce a new exhibition of drawings by Chicago-based artist Michelle Grabner. Grabner works primarily in painting, drawing, and printmaking, and her practice is commonly organized around straightforward mathematical systems. For her exhibition, Grabner will present a new series of drawings made from black gesso and silverpoint on heavyweight paper. In contrast to her other work, Grabner thinks of her drawing practice as “purely playing — it’s curiosity.” She continues saying, “The drawing just has to be executed, I have to play through it. I’m working on a lot of silverpoints right now; they’re not painting, but in their presence, I see them as an extension of painting.” Michelle Grabner has exhibited her work extensively, including in North America, Europe, and Australia. Her work has been presented at museums, such as the Milwaukee Art Museum (WI), Kunsthalle (Bern, Switzerland), Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), Smart Museum (Chicago, IL), Mary and Leigh Block Museum (Evanston, IL), Naples Museum of Art (Naples, FL), Ulrich Museum (Wichita, KS), and Tweed Museum of Art (Duluth, MN). Her work has been reviewed widely and is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), Musée d’Art Moderne (Luxembourg), Milwaukee Art Museum (WI), Daimler Art Collection (Berlin, Germany), and Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC). Michelle Grabner is also a professor and chairperson of the Department of Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University in Chicago, and an MA in Art History and BFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. In addition to her artistic work, Grabner and her husband, artist Brad Killam, founded and direct The Suburban, a very well regarded, experimental exhibition space in Oak Park, Illinois. Grabner has also written extensively for publications, such as ArtForum, Modern Painters, Frieze, and X-tra. In collaboration with MINUS SPACE, Grabner recently organized the online VIEWLIST project There are many things in the air and all of them are for free, published in May 2009. Her work was also included in the group exhibition Open House for Butterflies at MINUS SPACE in August 2009. A comprehensive interview with Michelle Grabner by Saul Ostrow appears in the March 2010 issue of Art in America magazine. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Daniel Göttin: Network 45 with Signs, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted February 6th, 2010
Daniel Göttin, Installation Proposal for MINUS SPACE, 2010 February 6 – March 13, 2010 MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce a new immersive installation by Basel, Switzerland-based artist Daniel Göttin entitled Network 45 with Signs. For the past 20 years, Göttin has focused on making temporary, site-specific interventions that examine the subjective nature of perception. His installations, always consisting of common industrial materials, such as tape, carpet, and paint, playfully respond to the specific characteristics of an architectural site and activate the viewer’s relationship to it. For Network 45 with Signs, Göttin will create a black tape wall installation throughout the entire gallery. At select intervals throughout his installation, he will also install a series of abstract “signs” made of aluminum foil on laminated cardboard, which were informed and inspired by his recent residency in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Daniel Göttin has mounted nearly 60 solo exhibitions and projects since 1990 at museums, galleries, and non-profits worldwide, including throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, and the United States. His work has been presented, commissioned, collected, and written about widely over the past 20 years. In addition to his artistic work, Göttin, along with his partner, artist Gerda Maise, also directs Hebel_121, an experimental exhibition space in Basel, Switzerland. Daniel Göttin’s installation Network 42 (2008) is also still on view in the café at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate in Long Island City, NY. It was originally created for the exhibition MINUS SPACE, curated by Phong Bui, which was on view at the museum from October 2008 – May 2009. SUPPORT
Albers / Albums, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted December 12th, 2009
December 12, 2009 - January 30, 2010 MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce a new exhibition of seven album covers designed by Josef Albers (1888-1976) for Command Records between 1959-1961. The exhibition will also include additional Command Records album covers designed by other artists, such as Charles E. Murphy, Barbara Brown Peters, and Gerry Olin, as well as photographic reproductions of materials from The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation’s archives. About Command Records Command Records was founded in 1959 by Enoch Light (1905-1978), a classical violinist, bandleader, and sound recording engineer. Light went to extraordinary technical lengths, and often great expense, to create recordings of the absolute highest quality possible that took full advantage of new technical capabilities of home audio equipment in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Light specifically perfected stereo effects that bounced sounds between the right and left channel speakers, which was called a “ping-pong effect”. On each album sleeve, Light would include lengthy technical descriptions about each song, the musicians, the depth and breadth of the sounds, and how they were recorded. In order to fit his descriptions, he doubled the size of a standard album sleeve and enabled it to fold open like a book, thereby inventing the gatefold-packaging format. The gatefold sleeve became highly popular in following decades. Light’s first Command Records LP, Persuasive Percussion, which featured an Albers cover, was a highly successful popular hit. The album was listed as one of the 25 best-selling albums of the modern era by Joel Whitburn. For further information about Light, please see the Enoch Light web site (www.enochlight.com). Josef Albers’ Designs Albers’ designs for Command Records in 1959-1961 came at a pivotal and highly-productive point in his professional career. In 1958, at age 70, he had just retired from his position as chairman of the Department of Design at Yale University. In the short period between 1959-1961, he completed many, large-scale public commissions, including for the Corning Glass and Time & Life Buildings in New York City; the Manuscript Society Building in New Haven, CT; and St. Patrick’s Church in Oklahoma City, OK. Several years later, in 1963, he published his seminal book Interaction of Color. By 1959, Albers had been working on his Homage to the Square series for nearly a decade. He would continue to work on this series until his death in 1976. His designs for the Command Records, however, were a bit of a stylistic anomaly for him. Although references to music do appear in his work 25 years earlier, in works such as Keyboard (1932) and his Treble Clef series (1932-1935), his designs for Command Records prominently featured new formal elements for the first time, specifically circles and grids of circles. There are only two other instances of Albers using circles in his work: first, in the Christmas/New Year’s greeting cards he designed for his personal use (1952, 1957); and second, the sand-blasted glass door panels he designed for the Todd Theater in Chicago (1957). Albers designed the following seven album covers for Command Records: * Provocative Percussion (Volume 1), 1959 About Josef Albers Interestingly, a short biography about Albers was included on many of the Command Records albums he designed. It read: “JOSEPH ALBERS is one of America’s foremost contemporary painters, was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1888. After studying in Berlin, Essen and Munich he taught at the famous Bauhaus school from 1923-1933. When the Bauhaus was closed by order of the German government in 1933 Mr. Albers came to the United States to head the Art Department at Black Mountain College where he remained until 1950. After leaving Black Mountain, Mr. Albers took over the direction of the Department of Design at Yale University. At the present time, Mr. Albers lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut.” For further information about Josef Albers, please see The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation’s web site (www.albersfoundation.org). PRESS SUPPORT MINUS SPACE’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you! MINUS SPACE
Douglas Melini: It Flows Over Us Without Meaning, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted October 24th, 2009
Douglas Melini, Untitled (Abstract Painting No. 14), 2009 October 24 – December 5, 2009 MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce a new solo exhibition by Brooklyn painter Douglas Melini. Douglas will be exhibiting a group of new acrylic on canvas paintings with hand-painted frames. Known for his use of densely visual patterns, Douglas’ new work continues his decade-long investigation into pattern and color. In contrast to his previous work, which utilized asymmetrical all-over fields of pattern, his new paintings elicit a kaleidoscopic effect and feature single, bilaterally symmetrical forms constructed from juxtaposed grid and stripe patterns. His new paintings also feature a new visual element not present in his previous work: elaborate, hand-painted frames. Douglas views the frame and painting in his new work as a single object. Resembling a frieze, the painted frame defines the outside perimeter of the painting, acts as a viewfinder for the forms depicted in the painting, and enables the painting’s surface to function as an interior space. Douglas Melini has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center/MoMA, White Columns, Danese Gallery, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, Southfirst (all NYC), Gallery Sonja Roesch (Houston, TX), Richard Heller Gallery (Santa Monica, CA), Rocket Gallery (London, UK), DaimlerChrylser Contemporary (Berlin, Germany), and Illeana Tounta Gallery (Athens, Greece), among others. In 2008, Douglas was awarded a Painting Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work has been featured in the New York Sun, New York Observer, Artnet Magazine, Mallorca Magazin, and P.S.1 Newspaper, and included in corporate and private collections worldwide, including The Daimler Collection, The Progressive Corporation, The Phillip Schrager Collection, and Wellspring Capital Corporation. In addition to his artistic work, Douglas has also curated several exhibitions over the past several years, including The Difficult Shapes of Possible Images at ZieherSmith Gallery in New York (2007) and I Can Read in Red, I Can Read in Blue, I Can Read in Pickle Color Too, a VIEWLIST project for MINUS SPACE (2009). Douglas holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, CA, and a BA from the University of Maryland, MD. TEXT PRESS SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Bibi Calderaro: Pineal Action IV, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted September 12th, 2009
Pineal Action IV, 2009 September 12 – October 17, 2009 We are delighted to announce a new solo project by Brooklyn-based, Argentinian artist Bibi Calderaro. Bibi is a multi-disciplinary artist working in installation, performance, film/video, photography, audio, and language. Her project at MINUS SPACE, entitled Pineal Action IV, will be the fourth in a series of performance installations where viewers are invited to physically interact with her work. Her installation will consist of a single large, irregularly-shaped piñata, approximately five feet in diameter, suspended from the ceiling. The paper piñata will be covered with layers of language excerpted from the theory of aesthetics, as well as texts about human perception. A list of writings used to create the piñata will be available at the gallery. The word piñata comes from the Latin word for pine nut, pinnea. The pineal gland in the human body, whose name reflects its pine nut shape, sits between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. According to ancient and recent studies on the human brain, it apparently acts as the hinge or connector between the two hemispheres. The French philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes referred to this gland as the seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. Similarly, yogis are also aware of the significance of the pineal gland. In Hatha Yoga, there is a technique called Kechari Mudra where a yogi places their tongue at the back of their mouth and into their nasal cavity near the pineal gland in effort to achieve a state of deep meditation. For Pineal Action IV, visitors are invited to hit the piñata with a stick, one blow per visit, until it breaks apart and crumbles into pieces on the floor. About her project, Bibi remarks: “In my personal quest for meaning, the ideas of destruction and creation are two forces that constantly interact and fluctuate, as in a tide. Tracing and erasing and tracing. Shaking and moving and shaking. Dying and living and dying. The physical interaction in this work aims at freeing the energy of the visitors, to shake bodies and move minds.” Bibi’s new publication, PRESENT: Selected Writings 2008-2009, documenting her recent performance at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, will also be available at MINUS SPACE’s bookstore. Bibi Calderaro has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including at museums such as P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio (all NYC), Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of Fine Arts (both Argentina), and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Spain). She is the recipient of awards from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Aaron Siskind Foundation, among others. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Art Museum at Princeton University (New Jersey), Museum of Modern Art, and National Museum of Fine Arts (both Argentina). Bibi holds an MFA from Queens College/CUNY, NY, and a BA from Wesleyan University, CT. Editor’s Pick, ARTCARDS, October 2009 SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Open House for Butterflies, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted July 31st, 2009
July 31 – August 29, 2009 We are pleased to announce our summer group exhibition Open House for Butterflies featuring work by seven international reductive artists. Participating artists include: Justin Andrews (Melbourne, Australia) We are also delighted to announce our new flatfiles and bookstore. Our flatfiles feature works by select reductive artists working around the globe, including drawings, prints, photographs, works on paper, editions, and multiples. Some paintings, sculpture, and design objects are also available. Our bookstore features dozens of publications on reductive art and ideas on the international level, including artist monographs, exhibition catalogs, journals, ephemera, and select vintage books. SUPPORT MINUS SPACE
Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australiaposted May 8th, 2009
May 8-29, 2009 RMIT University School of Art and Sydney Non Objective present contemporary non-objective practice from MINUS SPACE New York. A survey of reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City. Presenting a single work from each artist, as well as an open letter to the artist community affiliated with RMIT Non Objective. The exhibition originated at Sydney Non Objective in 2007, and later travelled to Curtin University in Perth in 2008. Participating Artists SUPPORT MINUS SPACE extends a heartfelt thanks to artists David Thomas and Billy Gruner for bringing the show to Melbourne! Additional thanks to Daniel Argyle for his assistance.
Linda Francis: Interference, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted February 7th, 2009
February 2009 MINUS SPACE presented an exhibition of new work by New York artist Linda Francis. Francis will show a single painting conceived in three parts for the project space. In a text accompanying the exhibition, artist and writer Michael Zahn remarks about her work, “…Although they are compassionate, they offer no solace. They are wise, but provide no instruction. They are radiant, and pass before us like the days. If I’m able to decipher the depth of their intention, then what they explicate in allographic form is perception of the numinous enfolded Other, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of Infinity, the immense plenum beyond our threshold where information is stored as a dynamic force, and from which collective experience of the world is ceaselessly drawn…” Linda Francis has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. She has mounted solo exhibitions at Nicholas Davies Gallery, Condeso Lawler Gallery, Damon Brandt Gallery, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Hal Bromm Gallery (all NYC), Ben Shahn Gallery / William Paterson University (NJ), Galerie Ghislain Mollet-Vieville et J.P. Najar (Paris), Gallery Per Sten (Copenhagen), New Arts Program (PA), and The Sarah Moody Gallery of Art / University of Alabama. Recent group exhibitions include the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Leubsdorf Art Gallery / Hunter College, Gallery Janet Kournatowski (all NYC), Sydney Non Objective (Australia), and Rogaland Kunstmuseum (Norway). Linda Francis is the recipient of awards from the Terra Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts (CAPS Grant). Her paintings and drawings are included in the collections of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Nordjyullands Kunstmuseum, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Rogalund Kunstmuseum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art / University of Alabama, Schlumberger Collection, Equitable Collection, and Philip Morris Collection. Her work has been discussed by critics including Tiffany Bell, David Shapiro, Yve-Alain Bois, Ken Johnson, Michael Brennan, and Ben La Rocco, in publications such as Flash Art, Arts, Artforum, Art Press, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Artnet Magazine, Art in America, Artcritical.com, and New York Times.
Interview
There’s Something Else I Wanted to Say: “There’s something else I wanted to say. No one ever demonstrated so clearly the extent to which painting takes place among the colors, and how one has to leave them completely alone, so they can come to terms among themselves. This is the whole of painting.”
That’s what Rainer Maria Rilke, with an exacting sense of verity, wrote on a wet Paris afternoon as he described the work of Paul Cezanne. I close the book of the poet’s letters, and look out from under the dormers. Thick clouds darken the sky. It’s snowing today. Enormous flakes the size of silver dollars fall straight down on the Brooklyn rooftops. The radio is on. The Dow is off. At least for the moment, it’s tough imagining a picture with more apocalyptic juice. It rains. It snows. Plus ca change? I check my mail. Linda Francis asks me for a few remarks on her recent paintings. Appearances aside, I’m not sure if these are truly paintings at all, or if that distinction in itself is even relevant any longer. Perhaps it’s more accurate if I say that’s not how they need be judged. Therein lies the rub, and I like that, as it leaves the nomothetic fallacy of modernist abstraction behind for unfamiliar new digs. Using simple tools– a pencil, for the most part– her activity excavates a vast scalar field where she discovers, quite to her astonishment, clustered points that form merely to reform. When approached they vanish in the distance, only to appear and then disappear anew. Despite these paradoxical qualities the works, in their enmity toward a certain kind of expression buttressed by the plainness of their making, quietly reveal the entangled pith of structure, and evince how apprehension of it implicates us within the order of its rendering. These immediate objects have both everything and nothing to do with anything at all but the continuous unfolding arc of their constituent facticity. That’s to say the works barter with mind as much as matter, and negotiate agency as a proviso of medium. They leave the rest alone, and with this lucid gesture at once become profound. Although they are compassionate, they offer no solace. They are wise, but provide no instruction. They are radiant, and pass before us like the days. If I’m able to decipher the depth of their intention, then what they explicate in allographic form is perception of the numinous enfolded Other, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of Infinity, the immense plenum beyond our threshold where information is stored as a dynamic force, and from which collective experience of the the world is ceaselessly drawn. Still, there are no images here. What there is actually, at the visible limit of two dimensions, is the recursive inscription of a living symbology made manifest as embodied thought. It matters little whether the motif is a mountain or a molehill. Sensed in this thinking is the movement of mind without memory, a pellucid consciousness that distills myriad perturbations of incalculable colorless stimuli, confounded by the perpetual conundrum of its own representation. Michael Zahn is a Brooklyn-based painter.
Minus Space, Curated by Phong Bui, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate, Long Island City, NYposted October 19th, 2008
Exhibition poster October 19, 2008 – May 4, 2009 (Daniel Göttin’s ceiling work in the cafe continues through summer 2009) We are delighted to announce our exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. P.S.1 is one of the oldest and largest non-profit arts centers in the United States solely devoted to contemporary art. The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui, and includes the work of 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary. We greatly thank curator Phong Bui and the remarkable staff at P.S.1, the participating artists and their galleries, and our generous donors, whose financial support made this exhibition possible. Participating Artists Ongoing Performance Interview Press / Blogs MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Abstract Contemporary Art Blog, December 18, 2008 Top Ten 2008, by Jerry Saltz, Artnet Magazine, December 15, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10) The Year in Art: The Top Nine Shows (and One Event), by Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, December 7, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10) Michael Brennan at 210 Gallery and P.S.1, by Paul Corio, November 16, 2008 Interview with Simon Ingram / MINUS SPACE exhibition at P.S.1, New York, Vernissage TV, November 10, 2008 MINUS SPACE, by Eva Lake, November 10, 2008 MINUS SPACE at P.S.1, The James Kalm Report, November 2, 2008 Update, Henri Art Magazine, November 1, 2008 Reductive Art at P.S.1, by Jon Meyer, October 25, 2008 Gallery Credits Additional Credits
Shinsuke Aso: Postcard (SAPC), Presented by MINUS SPACE, Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk08, Atlantic Gardens, Brooklyn, NYposted June 7th, 2008
June 2008 MINUS SPACE presented Shinsuke Aso: Postcard (SAPC) — part installation, part performance, part micro enterprise. SAPC is a postcard company run by artist Shinsuke Aso as a long-term performance. He makes postcards with found cardboard, packages, newspapers, and magazines, and then sells them for 25 cents each. The idea for SAPC derives from the global market system, in which anything can be a source of business, as well as how small economies can depend on trust among people. The postcard is simultaneously an artwork and a communication device, all depending on how the audience chooses to view it. Shinsuke Aso (b. 1979, Gunma, Japan) has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Tobey Fine Arts, The Center for Book Arts, Flux Factory (all NYC), and Maebashi Cultural Institute (Gunma, Japan). He holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC, where he first began his SAPC project. Aso lives and works in Brooklyn. Shinsuke Aso: Postcard (SAPC) was generously supported by Barbara Koz Paley, Art Assets & Atlantic Assets Group. PRESS
Words Fail Me: Steve Karlik, Li-Trincere & Don Voisine, H29, Brussels, Belgium, Curated by Matthew Delegetposted May 24th, 2008
May 24 – June 7, 2008 H29 presented Words Fail Me, a group exhibition featuring artists Steve Karlik, Li-Trincere & Don Voisine. The exhibition was curated by Matthew Deleget, artist and co-founder of MINUS SPACE in Brooklyn, New York. Abstraction has a tenuous relationship with language. It often eludes description. Words Fail Me included three New York City-based painters, each of whom contributed one painting to the exhibition.
Installation view (left to right): Mark Dagley: Shaped Canvas, Selections from 1987, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted April 5th, 2008
April 2008 MINUS SPACE presented a solo exhibition by New York artist Mark Dagley. Dagley presented four shaped paintings — two monochromes and two with checkerboard patterns — which were originally produced in 1987. Dagley made the works in William S. Burrough’s Bunker space on the Bowery in NYC, exhibited them later that year at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Soho, and subsequently put them into storage. Dagley’s exhibition at MINUS SPACE marked the first time the works will be shown publicly in more than twenty years. Mark Dagley (b. 1957, Washington, DC) has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include McKenzie Fine Art (NYC), Sydney Non Objective (Australia), NyeHaus (NYC), San Antonio Museum of Art (TX), Up & Co (NYC, London), Riflemaker Gallery (London), Jersey City Museum (NJ), Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences (NJ), The Shore Institute of Contemporary Art (NJ), Axel Raben Gallery (NYC), and Galeria Leyendecker (Tenerife, Spain). He is a member of American Abstract Artists and his work has been reviewed in publications, such as ARTFORUM, The Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art, and the New York Sun. His work is included in the collections of The Broad Art Foundation, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Swiss Credit Union, Foundation Prini, Hoffman/LaRoche, Henkel Gmbh., and EMI, among others. Mark Dagley also co-founded and directs Abaton Garage, a project room in Jersey City, NJ, and Abaton Book Company, specializing in artist editions, book projects, cds and videos. A color catalog accompanies the exhibition, with texts by Matthew Deleget & Nora Griffin, and a comprehensive interview by Don Voisine.
Upside Down: Sydney Non Objective Artists, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted March 15th, 2008
March 2008 Upside Down features eleven artists affiliated with Sydney Non Objective (SNO), Australia. The exhibition includes work in a variety of media exploring a broad range of conceptual and formal concerns. Many of the artists are exhibiting in the United States for the first time. Participating artists: Sydney Non Objective (SNO), an artist run non-profit organization, is dedicated to the investigation of non-objective art, abstraction, and other concrete and post-conceptual concerns in Australia and beyond. SNO opened its first project space in 2004 and for the past four years has presented exhibitions of established and emerging artists side-by-side, allowing for a broader perspective on non-objective art in both contemporary and art historical terms. SNO is a located in the Sydney’s Marrickville neighborhood. TEXTS
Machine Learning, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TXposted March 8th, 2008
March 8 – May 3, 2008 An exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini. The title of the exhibition, Machine Learning, is inspired by a part of artificial intelligence concerned with the development of algorithms that allow computers to “learn”. Machine learning recognizes patterns within massive sets of information and has a wide range of real-world applications, the most ubiquitous of which is the Internet search engine. The exhibition Machine Learning examines the relationship between abstraction and the information age, and presents four artists making new forms of pattern-based painting. The exhibition raises multiple questions. How has abstraction responded to the irresistible siren call of the Internet? How has abstraction digested the appearance, logic, and behavior of the Internet? And finally, with every conceivable kind of information now available at the click of a mouse, what are contemporary abstract artists’ core concerns? The exhibition originated at The Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD in September 2007, and then traveled to The Painting Center, New York, NY in December 2007. A color catalog accompanies the exhibition. SUPPORT PRESS
Lynne Harlow: BEAT, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted December 8th, 2007
December 2007 New York City and Providence-based artist Lynne Harlow presented BEAT, which translated an earlier work, Lena’s Beat, from an intimate wall piece to a large-scale installation and performance. BEAT combined specific, yet inherently unrelated elements: color and music. The shared space and resulting energy were the focus of the work. The performance took place on Saturday, December 8, from 4-6pm, and consisted of two hours of solo drumming by various volunteer musicians. BEAT was a collaborative work that was completed by the participation of the drummers and all those who attended. Lynne Harlow (b. 1968 Attleboro, MA) has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Sideshow Gallery, Smack Mellon Gallery (Brooklyn); New York University, White Box, International Print Center (NYC); Sydney Non Objective (Sydney); and Kunsternes Hus (Oslo). Harlow was a visiting artist at the Chinati Foundation (Marfa, TX) in 2002 and elected member of American Abstract Artists in 2006. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times and Artnet Magazine, among others. She holds an MFA from Hunter College (NYC) and a BA from Framingham State College (MA). TEXTS
Machine Learning, Curated by Matthew Deleget, The Painting Center, New York, NYposted November 27th, 2007
November 27 – December 22, 2007 An exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini, with a special project room installation by Michael Zahn. The title of the exhibition, Machine Learning, is inspired by a part of artificial intelligence concerned with the development of algorithms that allow computers to “learn”. Machine learning recognizes patterns within massive sets of information and has a wide range of real-world applications, the most ubiquitous of which is the Internet search engine. The exhibition Machine Learning examines the relationship between abstraction and the information age, and presents four artists making new forms of pattern-based painting. The exhibition raises multiple questions. How has abstraction responded to the irresistible siren call of the Internet? How has abstraction digested the appearance, logic, and behavior of the Internet? And finally, with every conceivable kind of information now available at the click of a mouse, what are contemporary abstract artists’ core concerns? The exhibition will later travel to Gallery Sonja Roesch in Houston, TX. A catalog accompanied the exhibition. SUPPORT PRESS
Tilman: LOST AND FOUND | Concrete Findings, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted September 29th, 2007
September 2007 Brussels, Belgium-based artist Tilman presented an installation consisting of new drawings and sculpture. Tilman (b. 1959, Munich, Germany) has exhibited widely throughout Europe, the United States, and Australia. Recent exhibitions include Gallery Sonja Roesch (Houston), Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), Konsortium (Dusseldorf), and Sydney Non Objective (Sydney). His work is included in numerous collections internationally, including Bayerische Landesbank International, Deutsche Bank, Pfizer, and New York Pubic Library. Tilman has also recently curated several exhibitions including My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble (Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, The Netherlands) and A Bit O’ White (CCNOA, Brussels, Belgium). TEXTS PRESS
Machine Learning, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MDposted September 4th, 2007
September 4-28, 2007 An exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini. The title of the exhibition, Machine Learning, is inspired by a part of artificial intelligence concerned with the development of algorithms that allow computers to “learn”. Machine learning recognizes patterns within massive sets of information and has a wide range of real-world applications, the most ubiquitous of which is the Internet search engine. The exhibition Machine Learning examines the relationship between abstraction and the information age, and presents four artists making new forms of pattern-based painting. The exhibition raises multiple questions. How has abstraction responded to the irresistible siren call of the Internet? How has abstraction digested the appearance, logic, and behavior of the Internet? And finally, with every conceivable kind of information now available at the click of a mouse, what are contemporary abstract artists’ core concerns? The exhibition will later travel to New York and Houston. A color catalog accompanies the exhibition SUPPORT
Machine Learning Prequel, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MDposted September 4th, 2007
September 2007 – January 2010 Curated by Matthew Deleget St. Mary’s College of Maryland has a remarkable art collection. I first learned this when I visited the college last spring to finalize details for Machine Learning, an exhibition I planned to curate at Boyden Gallery in the fall. The college’s collection was built in a unique way with a kind of do-it-yourself spirit. The collection was mainly formed through the maverick efforts of its faculty, who quite literally drove a truck up to places like to New York City, loaded it up with art purchased from artists’ studios and sympathetic galleries, and brought it back to the college. The faculty’s aspiration in all of this was to create a teaching collection. In that spirit, I’ve selected a group of works from the collection to be displayed in the corridor outside the gallery. This selection functions as a kind of prequel or point of entry into the exhibition inside the gallery, Machine Learning, which explores new pattern painting in the information age. Pattern painting, like all art forms, has a lengthy and provocative history, and the corridor gallery is filled with a select, yet diverse group of precedent works by nearly twenty artists made during the past sixty years. On view are excellent examples of Op, Pattern, Hard-Edge, Color Field, Minimal, and Post-Painterly Abstraction. Personal highlights for me include works by Thomas Hart Benton (Jackson Pollock’s teacher), Victor Vasarely, Sam Gilliam, and James Carroll. I also included many compelling works by artists who are utterly new to me and whose names and work should be more widely known. SUPPORT
Escape from New York, Curated by Matthew Deleget, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australiaposted August 3rd, 2007
August 3 – September 2, 2007 A group exhibition surveying reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City. Each artist will present a single work, as well as an open letter to the artist community affiliated with Sydney Non Objective. Participating Artists: SUPPORT
Letters Soledad Arias > view letter Richard Bottwin > view letter Sharon Brant > view letter Michael Brennan > view letter Bibi Calderaro > view letter Mark Dagley > view letter Gabriele Evertz > view letter Daniel Feingold > view letter Kevin Finklea > view letter Linda Francis > view letter Zipora Fried > view letter Julio Grinblatt > view letter Lynne Harlow > view letter Gilbert Hsiao > view letter Andrew Huston > view letter Steve Karlik > view letter Daniel Levine > view letter Sylvan Lionni > view letter Rossana Martinez > view letter Juan Matos Capote > view letter Manfred Mohr > view letter Karen Schifano > view letter Analia Segal > view letter Edward Shalala > view letter Robert Swain > view letter Li-Trincere > view letter Don Voisine > view letter Douglas Witmer > view letter part 1 / letter part 2 Michael Zahn > view letter Michael Zahn: This, That, and the Other, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted April 21st, 2007
April 2007 Brooklyn artist Michael Zahn’s exhibition presented simple materials, organized into a loose picture of an immersive symbolic space. His project was accompanied by an in-depth online interview conducted by MINUS SPACE artist Michael Brennan, in which the two discuss Zahn’s paintings based on digital iconography. Michael Zahn (b. 1963 in Cleveland, USA) has exhibited widely thoughout the United States and Europe. Recent exhibitions include Galerie Ruzicska (Salzburg), Gavin Brown’s Passerby (New York), Stadtsgalerie (Kiel), and Haus Huth (Berlin). His work is included in numerous collections internationally, including the DaimlerChysler Collection. TEXTS PRESS
Michael Brennan: Knife Paintings, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted December 16th, 2006
December 2006 Brooklyn artist Michael Brennan’s installation consisted of five new paintings produced since relocating from the Bowery in Lower Manhattan to the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. The paintings reflect the change in his environment and a newfound feeling for structural form inspired by the industrial remnants — smokestack towers, derelict advertising signs, metal barges, the elevated subway platform and Brooklyn/Queens Expressway — of his new surroundings. TEXTS PRESS
Gilbert Hsiao: Two Vinyls, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted September 16th, 2006
September 2006 Brooklyn artist Gilbert Hsiao’s installation consisted of experimental striped paintings on rowlux (vinyl with an iridescent appearance), as well as a curated selection of record album covers that relate to, have influenced or resemble his work.
Jan van der Ploeg, MINUS SPACE, Brooklyn, NYposted July 1st, 2006
July 2006 For our inaugural exhibition, Amsterdam-based artist Jan van der Ploeg will present an installation consisting of a single painting and two editioned works made of cut adhesive paper.
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