Left: “Why Artists Are Going Abstract: The Case of Stuart Davis”, by Winthrop Sargeant
Life Magazine, February 17, 1947, p. 78-83, © Life Magazine

Right: Loren Munk, The Roots of the New York School, 2010
Oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

December 11, 2010 – January 29, 2011

MINUS SPACE is pleased to announce the exhibition Becoming Modern in America. The twofold exhibition will feature more than 20 vintage issues of Life magazine spanning the years 1936-1972, as well as two recent paintings by Brooklyn, New York-based painter Loren Munk.

Life Magazine
Life was purchased and redesigned as a weekly news publication by Henry Luce in 1936. It was the first photojournalism magazine published in the United States and its editors placed photographs on par with written text. For more than 30 years, Life was one of the most wide-reaching and influential popular media outlets in the US with its circulation reaching 8.5 million copies weekly by 1970.

Between 1936-1972, Life published more than 20 feature articles about the emergence of Modern Art in the US, including the development and public reception of geometric abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism. It is still debated today whether the magazine’s coverage of the visual arts during this time was a benefit or a detriment to the artist community in New York City.

Groundbreaking articles include its August 8, 1949 issue, in which Life published the controversially-titled article “Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?”. This was followed a year later on January 15, 1951 by Life’s second landmark article “The Metropolitan and Modern Art: Amid Brickbats and Bouquets the Museum Holds Its First US Painting Competition”, which featured the iconic photograph of The Irascibles by Nina Leen.

Life also profiled dozens of other artists in its pages during this period, including Piet Mondrian, George Braque, Stuart Davis, Jean Xceron, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, and Frank Stella, as well as the critics Clement Greenberg and Meyer Schapiro, among others. The magazine highlighted key moments in the development of Modern Art, such as the Carnegie International Exhibition in 1937, A.E. Gallatin’s Museum of Living Art in 1938, the Museum of Modern Art’s roundtable on Modern Art featuring 15 major art critics in 1958, The Downtown Gallery founded by Edith Halpert, and The Jewish Museum’s Primary Structures exhibition in 1967.

Loren Munk
For the past decade, Loren Munk has created intricate, impastoed information paintings mapping the history of New York City’s artists, writers, venues, and movements. Becoming Modern in America will feature two recent paintings by the artist. The first painting, The Roots of the New York School, highlights the artists Hans Hofmann, Arshile Gorky, Stuart Davis, and John Graham, and diagrams the history, influences, and venues that led to the development of the New York School. Loren’s second painting, Critical America, similarly visualizes the field of art criticism as two primary streams of thought — formalistic and poetic -– and maps the influence of the key critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg.

Loren Munk (b. 1951, Salt Lake City, Utah) has exhibited his work in museums, galleries, and non-profit venues nationally and internationally for the past 30 years, including in New York, Germany, Switzerland, France, Poland, and Brazil. His work is included in countless public and private collections worldwide, such as the Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Transit Authority, Chase Manhattan Bank, Sony Music, Forbes Magazine (all NYC), Everson Museum (Syracuse, NY), and Hood Museum of Art (New Hampshire).

In addition to his artistic work, Loren has been a highly visible art critic for more than a dozen years. Working under the pseudonym James Kalm, a persona he created in the 1990s, he produces the weekly video blog The Kalm Report on YouTube, which he describes as a “blurring of criticism, historic documentation, journalism, and performance art”. He is also a regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail, writing the column Brooklyn Dispatch.

Life Articles
* Europeans Sweep Carnegie Show, December 20, 1937, p. 24

* Albert Gallatin’s Great-Grandson Sponsors a Museum of Abstract Art, May 2, 1938, p. 42

* Speaking of Pictures, This Is Art by Piet Mondrian, July 2, 1945, p. 6

* Why Artists Are Going Abstract: The Case of Stuart Davis, February 17, 1947, p. 78-83

* Radar: A Nonobjective Painter Tries to Marry Science and Art on Canvas, Jean Xceron, February 2, 1948, p. 69

* A Life Round Table on Modern Art, Fifteen Distinguished Critics and Connoisseurs Undertake to Clarify the Strange Art of Today, October 11, 1948, p. 56

* Dead End Art: A Frenchman’s Mud-and-Rubble Paintings Reduce Modernism to a Joke, December 20, 1948, p. 22

* High-Brow, Low-Brow, Middle-Brow: There Are Three Basic Categories of a New U.S. Social Structure, and the High-Brows Have the Whip Hand, April 11, 1949, p. 99

* George Braque: Great French Innovator Has Evolved a Serene Modern Art of His Own, May 2, 1949, p. 80

* Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?, August 8, 1949, p. 42

* 100 Years of American Taste: A Gallery of Popular Paintings Reveals an Unwavering Love of Realism, August 29, 1949, p. 56

* The Great Armory Show of 1913: The Most Important Art Event of the Century Threw the People of the U.S. into an Uproar, January 2, 1950, p. 58

* The Metropolitan and Modern Art: Amid Brickbats and Bouquets the Museum Holds Its First U.S. Painting Competition, January 15, 1951, p. 34

* New Crop of Painting Proteges: Dealer with an Eye for Talent Tries to Pick Tomorrow’s Stars, March 17, 1952, p. 87

* New Art at Close View: Details from the Carnegie Show Dramatize Painters’ Approaches, November 21, 1955, p. 96

* Great Recluse: Brancusi and Art Come from Hiding, December 5, 1955, p. 131

* A Boom in U.S. Art Abroad: Japan and Europe Go for Americans, May 19, 1958, p. 76

* Star Brother Act in Art: Two Italian Artists, Afro and Mirko, Make Hit Teaching in U.S. Colleges, June 9, 1958, p. 66

* Baffling U.S. Art: What It Is About, Life Presents a Two-Part Series on the Abstract Expressionists, World’s Dominant Artists Today, Part I, November 9, 1959, p. 68

* The Varied Art of Four Pioneers: Analogies with Nature Help Explain Abstract-Expressionist Work, Part II, November 16, 1959, p. 74

* Master of the Minimal: Ad Reinhardt, Honor Comes Late to a Solitary Moralist in Art, February 3, 1967, p. 45

* Shape of Art for Some Time to Come, July 28, 1967, p. 38

* A New Cut in Art: Oddly Shaped Canvases by Frank Stella Challenges Viewers, January 19, 1968, p. 44

* Fling, Dribble and Dip: Young Sculptors Pour Their Art All Over the Floor, February 27, 1970, p. 62

PRESS
Loren Munk at MINUS SPACE, by Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, January 22, 2011

Becoming Modern in America: Life Magazine 1936–1972 & New Paintings by Loren Monk, by Sarah Schmerler, Time Out New York, January 14, 2011

Gallery Chronicle, by James Panero, The New Criterion, January 2011

A Loren Munk Report, by Sharon Butler, Two Coats of Paint blog, December 12, 2010

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!

Phong Bui, Portrait of Thomas Nozkowski, 2010
Pencil on paper

In Conversation: Thomas Nozkowski with John Yau

Art Books in Review: “Breaking Through: Richard Bellamy and the Green Gallery, 1960 – 1965 / Twenty-Three Interviews”, Author: Erik La Prade, Midmarch Arts Press, 2010, by Greg Lindquist

Brooklyn Dispatches: Funkster Formalism, Crap Constructivism, by James Kalm

Kim Uchiyama: Archaeo, by Stephanie Buhmann

Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, by Greg Lindquist

Installation view of James Hyde, Stuart Davis Group
Pierogi / The Boiler, Brooklyn, NY, 2010

James Hyde with Phong Bui

David Reed In Conversation with Phong Bui, by Phong Bui

Donald Judd and 101 Spring Street at Nicholas Robinson Gallery, by Phong Bui

Mark Dagley, Coded Grid (above)
Acrylic on canvas, 98 x 13 inches

Mark Dagley, Deathtrip (below)
Charcoal on paper, 48 x 36 inches

April 22 – May 28, 2010

Curated by Susan Ross and Melissa Staiger

Participating Artists:
Glen Cunningham, Mark Dagley, Laura Fayer, Molly Herman, Lori Kirkbride, Ben LaRocco, Rachael Wren

City College’s Center for Worker Education will host the third in its “Halls at Bowling Green” series of shows starting on April 22nd, according to series organizer Astrid Persans. Titled Source and organized by curators Melissa Staiger and Susan Ross, the group show features work by seven contemporary abstractionists who share concerns of feminine influence, antecedent and identity.

“Abstraction probably seems like an outmoded relic to some,” Persans remarked. “Yet Staiger and Ross have brought to bear not only a keen understanding of where it’s been but a positive sense of where it’s going. The result makes abundantly clear the extent to which even relatively recent styles are being freed from their presumed periods.”

“These seven artists all exhibit roots in the concept or experience of femininity,” Staiger continued. “Whether a 19th Century Swedish mystic, Palm Beach fashion designer Lily Pulitzer, the work of Helen Frankenthaler or the Yin-oriented Japanese aesthetics known as wabi-sabi, they each trace their work back to some decisively feminine factor.”

At the same time, Ross and Staiger point out, the very diversity of influences the artists acknowledge belies the simplification of placing them all under the umbrella of “Abstraction”. The seven—Lori Kirkbride, Glen Cunningham, Mark Dagley, Molly Herman, Rachael Wren, Ben LaRocco and Laura Fayer—while all nominally abstractionists, range in approach from Kirkbride’s preoccupation with color and pattern to LaRocco’s almost mystical appropriation of forms from the psyche.

The exhibition is to include a panel discussion moderated by Rossana Martinez, curator of Brooklyn’s MINUS SPACE, an alternative gallery dedicated to showing abstraction, minimalism and other reductive art. MINUS SPACE was included in P.S.1’s 2008-09 program, curated by Brooklyn Rail publisher Phong Bui.

The Halls at Bowling Green is a curatorial incubator serving the student body and downtown community with contemporary art exhibitions.

Location:
The Halls at Bowling Green/CUNY
The Cunard Building
25 Broadway, 7th Floor
NYC

Kenneth Noland staining ‘Horizontal Stripe’
paper piece at the paper mill
Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, NY, 1978
Photographer: Lindsay Green

“I’ve followed other artists gratefully and I hope I’ve also followed my own path….sometimes along side other artists. I’ve also been willing to share any help that I could give to any other artist. I love art and I love the life of art and I only wish that the real life of art could affect social change in a good way and that the invasion of commercialism in art and the invasion of entertainment into all areas of our lives hadn’t brought some of the worst features of our culture into the realm of art.

—Kenneth Noland
“The Bennington Years” symposium, University of Hartford, March, 1988

I heard of Kenneth Noland’s death through a text message from my friend and fellow painter Don Voisine: Kenneth Noland RIP. This isn’t the sort of thing artists kid about, not Don’s idea of a practical joke; still, I clung to a small shred of doubt. Moments later, I googled Don’s exact words and found that Noland had indeed passed away. Well, I figured, at least he made it to his 85th year. Not a bad run, not a bad run at all. But it’s difficult to fathom: one of the last great colorists of the 20th century is no more…”

Rudolf de Crignis, Painting No. 97—23
(Ultramarine Blue, Zinc White, Ruby Lake), 1997
Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

May 21 – July 3, 2009

Lawrence Markey presents an exhibition of paintings by Rudolf de Crignis (1948–2006), entitled grays and blues. This is the first exhibition of de Crignis’ work at Lawrence Markey.

The exhibition grays and blues focuses on five oil paintings from 1997 to 2004. During this period, de Crignis’ primary colors consisted of ultramarine and gray. Throughout, his canvas shape of choice remained the square. The five paintings each measure 30 x 30 inches.

The layering of paint is at the core of de Crignis’ paintings from this period. Upon initial examination, de Crignis’ paintings appear to be a single color, in the case of these five paintings, ultramarine or gray, or a variation thereof. The specific hue and intensity of each painting results from the over-layering of numerous glazes of paint covering the entire surface of the canvas. Each layer alternates between horizontal and vertical brushstrokes. A painting can have upwards of 60 layers of paint. The original white gesso ground reflects light. Issues of space and light prevail.

In his obituary for the Brooklyn Rail (February, 2007), John Zinsser wrote of de Crignis’ paintings: Each piece at first appeared all blue or all gray with deeply color-saturated surfaces. But, in fact, these were the results of the artist layering thin oil washes in accumulation. The gray paintings were made without ever using the color gray. The blue paintings, predominantly ultramarine, were “tinted” with secondary hues, red or silver, for example, creating an illusory experience of color “aura.”

In her New York Times obituary (December 30, 2006), Roberta Smith wrote: Mr. de Crignis began making seemingly monochrome paintings, often in radiant blues or subtle grays. Built up from numerous thin layers of different colors, they had a luminous depth that was compared more than once to the light installations of James Turrell. Writing in The New York Times in 2004, Ken Johnson called Mr. de Crignis’s work “at once formally severe and materially luxurious” and noted its ability to “bridge the gap between the perceptual and the transcendental.”

Rudolf de Crignis was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, in 1948. He studied at the Form + Farbe School for Art and Media design in Zürich and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany; his focus was photography, video and performance art. A studio fellowship in 1985 in New York City paved the way to de Crignis’ shift to painting. De Crignis lived and worked in New York until his untimely death in 2006 of an inoperable brain tumor.

Solo museum exhibitions include Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland, 1995; Artothek Cologne, Germany, 2001; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, 2003; Swiss National Library, Bern, Switzerland, 2006.

De Crignis’ work is in numerous collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the Chazen Museum of Art; the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University; the Kunsthaus Aarau, Switzerland; the Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland; the Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; Kolumba, Cologne,
Germany.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition, and is available for sale from the gallery.

Please also visit www.rudolfdecrignis.com for further information

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1961-62
Artificial fiber, 24 3/16 × 18 1/8 inches
Photo Archivio Opera Piero Manzoni
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

March 2009

The Last Breath of Piero Manzoni, by Robert C. Morgan

Chris Martin: Works on Paper at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, by John Yau

Imi Knoebel at Mary Boone Gallery, by John Yau

Philip Guston: 1954-1958 at L&M Arts, by John Yau

The Art World on Facebook: A Primer, by Sharon L. Butler

February 2009

From Abstract Expressionism to Minimal Art: The Legacy of Ad Reinhardt and Tony Smith, by Robert C. Morgan

Al Held at Paul Kasmin Gallery, by Roni Feinstein

R H Quaytman: Chapter 12: iamb at Miguel Abreu Gallery, by Joan Waltemath

Installation in cafe space

Exhibition in cafe space continues until May 2009.

(Boiler Room exhibition closed on January 26, 2009.)  

MINUS SPACE
Curated by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate
Long Island City, NY  

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.

Participating Artists
Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

Ongoing Performance
Bibi Calderaro: PRESENT
Thursdays, 1-4pm, and Saturdays, 12-3pm, in the P.S.1 Cafe

Ad Reinhardt, Drawing, 1946

December 2008 / January 2009

Reply to Irving Sandler, by Michael Corris

Katia Santibañez: New Work, by Phong Bui

Ad Reinhardt’s Emblematic Drawings In Their Moment, by Joseph Masheck

Tibor Freund: Motion in Paintings, by Craig Olson
 
Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, by Anne Byrd

Ronald Bladen: Sculpture of the 1960s and 70s, by Ben La Rocco

November 2008

Re: Michael Corris In Conversation with Joan Waltemath on Ad Reinhardt, by Irving Sandler

Stephen Antonakos: Here and Beyond, by Phong Bui

Giorgio Morandi, by Greg Lindquist

Ron Gorchov, by Ben La Rocco

Merrill Wagner, by Ben La Rocco
 
Lee Ufan, by Robert C. Morgan

October 2008

Joanna Pousette-Dart with Joan Waltemath

Michael Corris with Joan Waltemath

September 2008

Jerry Saltz with Irving Sandler

Exhibition poster

October 19, 2008 – May 4, 2009

MINUS SPACE is 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
Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

ONGOING PERFORMANCE
Bibi Calderaro: PRESENT
Thursdays, 1-4pm, and Saturdays, 12-3pm, in the P.S.1 Cafe

INTERVIEW
MINUS SPACE: The Art of Reduction, by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Newspaper, Fall/Winter 2008

PRESS
Drunkard’s Walk vs. PMU, Ethan Ham blog, December 18, 2008
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
Hartmut Böhm courtesy of Bartha Contemporary, London, UK
Richard Bottwin courtesy of Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY
Sharon Brant courtesy of Elizabeth Moore Fine Art, New York, NY
Melanie Crader courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Mark Dagley courtesy of Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ
Julian Dashper courtesy of Esso Gallery, New York, NY
Matthew Deleget courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Gabriele Evertz courtesy of Ober Gallery, Kent, CT
Daniel Feingold courtesy of Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, Sao Paolo, Brazil
Kevin Finklea courtesy of Margaret Thatcher Projects, New York, NY; Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Daniel Göttin courtesy of Hebel_121, Basel, Switzerland
Julio Grinblatt courtesy of Ruth Benzacar Galeria de Arte, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Galeria Baro-Cruz, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Laura Marsiaj Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Terry Haggerty courtesy of Andreas Grimm Gallery, New York, NY
Lynne Harlow courtesy of Cade Tompkins Editions, Providence, RI
Gilbert Hsiao courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Andrew Huston courtesy of Elizabeth Moore Fine Art, New York, NY
Simon Ingram courtesy of Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Mick Johnson courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Steve Karlik courtesy of Anita Schwartz Galeria de Arte, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Andrew Leslie courtesy of Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia; John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Sylvan Lionni courtesy of Freight + Volume, New York, NY
Lotte Lyon courtesy of Aoyama Meguro, Tokyo, Japan
Rossana Martinez courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Manfred Mohr courtesy of Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY
Dirk Rathke courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Analia Segal courtesy of DPM Gallery, Miami, FL; Guayaquil, Ecuador
Tilman courtesy of CCNOA center for contemporary non-objective art, Brussels, Belgium
Jan van der Ploeg courtesy of Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Don Voisine courtesy of Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ; McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY
Michael Zahn courtesy of Eleven Rivington, New York, NY

ADDITIONAL CREDITS
Poster & Flash Animation: Level Design Studio

Lisa Hamilton, Open Secret, 2008 
Oil on canvas, 36 x 32 inches 

October 17 — November 30, 2008 

Jane Kim / Thrust Projects presents works by New York abstract painter Lisa Hamilton. Lisa Hamilton’s work is focused on the process of geometric constructions of color, shape, and line with an assertion of the materiality of paint. Building up and stripping down to the essential elements allows Hamilton to create and juxtapose opposing visual forces of flatness and depth. The paintings are a nod to traditional concepts of abstraction, particularly the 80′s where abstraction played on a purely visual level. By delving straight into fundamentals, Hamilton re-discovers the language of color and form through compositions that begins from a vertical axis using intertwining diagonals. 

Lisa Hamilton was born in Atlanta, Georgia and is a graduate of The Cooper Union and Hunter College in New York. Recent group exhibitions include “FREEZE FRAME” at Thrust Projects in January of this year with mentions in the show’s reviews in The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Sun, Art in America, and artUS and “The 183rd Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art”, The National Academy Museum, New York. Her work has been shown in Japan, Germany and Holland as well as Los Angeles and New York.

July 2008

Meeting Imi and Blinky at Dia: Beacon, by Sharon Butler 

Philip Guston Works on Paper, by John Yau

June 2008 

David Novros with Phong Bui, by Phong Bui 

Wynn Kramarsky with William Corbett, by William Corbett 

Tribute to Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), by Dorothea Rockburne & Nan Rosenthal 

Mel Bochner, by David Markus 

Milton Resnick: A Question of Seeing, by Thomas Micchelli 

Weltanschauung and Abstract Painting, by Robert C. Morgan 

Rebecca Horn: Cosmic Maps, by Joan Waltemath 

Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, by Josh Morgenthau 

May 2008

Abts’ Traction, by Sharon L. Butler 

Helen Miranda Wilson, by John Yau 

April 2008

Tadaaki Kuwayama’s Aesthetics of Infinity, by Robert C. Morgan 

Dan Walsh, by Cassandra Neyenesch 

Ruth Root, by Nora Griffin 

March 2008

Howard Smith Stroke and Structure, by Joan Waltemath 

John Zinsser Recent Work, by Stephanie Buhmann 

Agnes Martin, by Ben La Rocco 

Thomas Nozkowski Paintings, by John Yau 

Harriet Korman Recent Paintings and Drawings, by John Yau 

Agnes Martin’s Homework, by Jeremy Sigler 

Freeze Frame, by Craig Olson

Portrait of the artist by Phong Bui

In the midst of preparations for his current exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in Chelsea ( January 26th–March 1, 2008), Chris Martin welcomed painter and Rail contributing writer Craig Olson to his Williamsburg studio to discuss his life and work.

Robert Barry, Art and War, 2007
21 latex words, 12 inch letter height

“Robert Barry is one of the most convincing conceptualists from the era of the late sixties and seventies. His word lists, wall and window pieces, his sound recordings, and DVD and slide projections, are focused on one central idea: language. Like an asterisk spinning through the void of space and time, Barry’s linguistic orientation traverses print and virtual imagery. Isolated words, laminated on the walls of various rooms in the gallery, move constantly in and out any coherent syntactical relationship giving the viewer the sense of experiencing a narrative in fragments…“

Joaquín Torres-García, Composición constructiva 16, 1943
Oil on cardboard

“There is a spidered but unbroken vein feeding cannibals (Yes, I said that) into Concrete Art, snaking through the 20th century from the deepest reaches of the Amazon River in Brazil. It was there, in 1928, that Oswaldo de Andrade unleashed his bloodcurdling Anthropophagous Manifesto, declaring that “We are concrete”, while claiming kinship with the Tupi cannibals and threatening to devour all of Western art just like they eat people…“

(photo credit: Phong Bui)

Katy Siegel and artist David Reed discuss their groundbreaking exhibition High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975 at the National Academy Museum in New York with Brooklyn Rail publisher Phong Bui.

(photo credit: Barbara Parmet)

Carol Becker remembers maverick curator Marcia Tucker, former Whitney Museum curator (1969-1977) and founder of the New Museum of Contemporary Art (1977-1999) in New York.

(photo credit: Michael Paoletta)

Artist John Zinsser recalls his long-term friendship with artist Rudolf De Crignis.

Cover Image by MINUS SPACE artist Don Voisine
Published by The Brooklyn Rail & Black Square Editions, 2006

In The Brooklyn Rail, New York artist Jim Long reviews George Ortman’s exhibition at Mitchell Algus Gallery, which included 14 pieces spanning 48 years. “If you weight a piece of string and submerge it in a glass of water saturated with dissolved sugar, over a period of hours you’ll see crystals, “rock candy,” start to form…”