Dan Walsh, Days and Nights – Nights, 2010
Acrylic on canvas

February 19 – March 27, 2010

“Days and Nights,” an exhibition of new paintings by Dan Walsh, will open at the Paula Cooper Gallery (521 West 21st Street) on Friday, February 19, and remain on view through March 27, 2010.

Walsh is known for paintings that employ linear geometry while at the same time subverting it with irregularly drawn shapes, inconstant lines and a pervasive wit. Over time, Walsh’s formal (yet purposefully casual) vocabulary has tended to concentrate around the repetition of simple strokes forming intricate, visually striking patterns, such as punctuated lines, cross-hatched grids, concentric squares and collapsed diamonds. Despite their layered complexity, Walsh’s paintings make no mystery of their process. They are “proposals” presenting various options, or ways in which programmatic ideas are realized. They suggest the shifting balance between the amount of control exerted over an image and the freedom or flexibility to let the image veer off in its own direction.

The exhibition includes six to eight new paintings, as well as a multipanel project titled Days and Nights, which will function as an experimental, self-reflective chart of Walsh’s own tangling with his painting process.

Dan Walsh was born in 1960. His work has been exhibited in national and international venues, including the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, the Centre national d’art contemporain in Nice, la Synagogue de Delme, France, CCNOA (Art + Architecture) in Brussels, Belgium and the Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz. His prints and limited-edition books were the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Cabinet des Estampes du Musée d’Art et d’histoire, in Geneva, Switzerland. He was also included in the Ljubljiana Biennial, Slovenia, and the Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art, France.

WITH YOUR EYES ONLY is an experimental project, which analyses the elements of perception in a collage of artistic interventions and objects. Within the frame of reductive art, levels of perception and the mechanisms of observation are questioned in a multidisciplinary, playful approach. Starting point are the phenomenological conditions of the artistic production like color, light, material and time which influence the structure and content of the reductive works and wherein exemplary questions related to perception open up. Visual structure is given to the artistic interventions by an architectonic display which refers directly to a changing spatial experience through its staging qualities and, at the same time, is a platform for the presentation of different perceptual levels.

Reductive art is a relational „language of art“, which aims at a specification of perception and develops abstracting image strategies via an analytical and emotional approach. Reductive works, thus, not only question their conditions, but also refer as translating media to further reaching contents and contexts which cannot be experienced straightly. In the foreground of the analysis of these strategies of reductive art and its communicating “physicalness” is the relation of the audience and the object, which contribute to an attempted clarification of the understanding of an artwork by linking up physically directed associative reactions, intellectual consciousness and the interpretation of meaningful content.

The topic also refers to notions of a participatory perception of an artwork following an open concept of the artwork, as it was postulated, amongst others, by the American artist Robert Morris in the 1960s. The approach to expose the artwork to a phenomenological experience was critically opposed by Michael Fried arguing that this understanding of art devotes itself to a dramatics which neglects the audience and negates the auratic right of the artwork (Art and Objecthood, 1967). In contemporary art and in particular in the reductive realm, these, also by Morris proposed options of creation, are consciously employed and discussed anew with respect to changing conditions.

The exhibition project analyses the encounter with strategies of a reductive image language in the context of a relational, perceptual behavior which depends on movement. With the approach of presenting the artistic objects and interventions in a relatively unconventional way, the exhibition consciously refers to the translating, transforming qualities of the respectively addressed levels of perception, which concentrate towards a contentwise expanded discourse. The artistic strategies are developed via various procedures and aim at the development of a dialogical process of perception including also methods which consider site-specific conditions that integrate the artwork in the present or generated space. In this process, the evolving objects serve as information carrier, which point at the content as such via a sensorial mode of perception. The transporting function of the object points at different approaches of recognition, it invites physical participation and notional debate. At first place, it is often drawn on familiar and established perceptive patterns which yet have to be examined with respect to their up-to-dateness and the definite object.

The site-specific extensive intervention of the Belgian artist Ward Denys will set the parameters of the visual-artistic basic orientation of the overall project. Denys deals with the intersections of visual art and architecture, analyzing the borders of functionality and dysfunctionality, of surface and space. Often a physical reversion of the present situation and the object, resembling a mirror effect, is crucial. By this “suspension” of physical constants, he involves the audience and their perceptual reception into the work. Denys realizes this approach when “shifting” the exhibition space by turning the floor plan through 35 degrees, and thus requests, through the changed spatial orientation, also a shift and translation of the perception. This “new” floor plan is the construction plan for his site-specific structure, which, at the same time, serves as a platform for further artistic works.

This intervention lets evolve a new spatial situation, which the New York-based artist Dan Walsh takes up to interpret his notions on light as a phenomenological condition of artistic production. Walsh understands the medium of painting as a tool to bring into play the contemplation of perceptual mechanisms. The analytical experimental projects which he has pursued since years focus on the questioning of the perceptual process. Walsh will construct some site-specific objects of similar texture and form and subject them to different light conditions and -qualities, in order to analyse the changes of perception.

With interventions which are driven by painting, into present, often for this purpose conceived spatial situations, the Brussels-based artist Pieter Vermeersch creates site-specific environments. By means of painting, Vermeersch describes spatial conditions and their interaction with color. With these created color spaces, he lets the audience directly participate and addresses their sensorial levels of perception. Vermeerschs’ contribution will be developed in tight cooperation with Ward Denys integrating his architectonic intervention regarding color and space.

In the specially conceived video installation “Minimal Reality”, the Russian artist Alexandra Dementieva pointedly goes into the process of visual perception. We see a movement, an additive and substractive time lapse which appears through a process of contrasting. In the course of a minutely detailed procedure and starting from a white “void” image, a complementary form evolves up to its anew emptying. We do not know and will not really know what it is that we perceive. But what we see is a process which refers back to the act of seeing; this process is enhanced to an expanded sensorial level of perception by the cooperation with the Belgian sound artist Aernoudt Jacobs.

The contributions of the other participating artists will be presented in such a way that a tight context between the different perceptual levels evolves and a dialogue of the sensorial qualities is triggered. The totality of the exhibited objects shall concentrate, in a wider sense, to an image which is directed by a link of various overlapping, complementary or distinguishing perceptual patterns and contents. The works start a dialogue in the sense of perceiving and using visual levels of perception, and this shall be understood as a proposed physical, mental and sensorial expedition.

The exhibition project finally offers the opportunity to question critically and if necessary re-evaluate possible traditional expectations with respect to the own perception of reductive art. WITH YOUR EYES ONLY hints at a continuous recheck of the own position considering the interaction with present objects and situations.

Participating Artists:
Greet Billet, Kjell Bjørgeengen, Alexandra Dementieva, Ward Denys, Clemens Hollerer, Simon Ingram, Aernoudt Jacobs, Leopoldine Roux, Esther Stocker, Tilman, Pieter Vermeersch, Dan Walsh, Carrie Yamaoka

Daniel Göttin, Transformer 2, 2008

After 2step, minimalpop, Painted Objects, Double Exposure, A Bit O’ White, My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble, Yo, Mo’ Modernism, With Your Eyes Only, COMPOSITE VISIONS is the ninth touring group exhibition organized by CCNOA, Brussels, Belgium.

Since its last theoretical stance as a sublime yet powerful art form, creating a new -ism and ironically also stating the end not only of painting but possibly also of visual art in general, and of its intellectual process, the idea of the ‘reductive’ itself has made an impressive return. Traces of the idea of the ‘reductive’ and similar approaches to art-making can be found in many artistic oeuvres which have come into the limelight since the overpowering postmodern related statements by artists and critics in the late 80’s, and the aesthetics of the ‘reductive’, nonobjective and concrete are now a subject of reflection in contemporary art practices, re-emerging from an imposed quasi non-existence.

In this state of relative non-recognition within the discourse and debate around art and culture in general, the subject of the ‘reductive’ as a possible antithesis to the overpowering reintroduction of representational painting and at the same time to the emergence of the focus on new media, technology and photography, has regained considerable strength over the last decade within an international frame of cultural production and commerce, as well as through the firmly held lone positions of artists like Mosset, Charlton, Armleder, Morellet, Palermo and others throughout the 80’s and 90’s.

Having seemingly recovered from the harsh critical overtones after almost being eliminated from contemporary discourse, in which a retroactive and purely commercial tone took over, the ideas and strategies of the ‘reductive’ and ‘essential’ have slowly found their way back into artistic language and practice. Yet, due to the visual superimpositions of present times, artists have started to shy away from the rigid limitations of -isms related to the ‘non-objective’ or ‘reductive’ and have embedded existing ideas, confluence of styles and approaches into the contemporary world, the here and now, mingling with popular culture as well as branching out of the studio practice inherent in painting as we know it and as the majority still likes to understand it.

Crossovers with other forms of art, like pop art, installation, and new media, play a major role in this new understanding of art-making in the realm of the ‘reductive’ and in its breaking out of its claimed territory with excursions into new planes of understanding, confronting the remarkable stakes which are on offer within the perimeter of ‘reductive’ art production today.

COMPOSITE VISIONS is triggered by the multitude of influences entering the thinking, thought process and practices of an array of like-minded contemporary artists from around the globe working within the fascinating and resilient discourse surrounding the historical, formal and contemporary explorations within the field of the ‘reductive’ in general and ‘reductive’ painting in particular.

Organized by the Brussels-based CCNOA COMPOSITE VISIONS comprises the work of 16 international artists and aims to give a modest inside overview of the possibilities within this broad approach. This type of exhibition is never able to display the entire palette of diversity; CCNOA’s objective is simply to document some of the thinking around this subject.

Participating Artists:
Kjell Bjorgeengen, Julian Dashper, Delphine Deguislage, Edith Dekyndt, Daniel Gottin, Clemens Hollerer, Camila Oliveira-Fairclough, Ingrid Maria Sinibaldi, Michael Skoda, Tilman, Alan Uglow, Jan van der Ploeg, Dan Walsh, Lars Wolter, Carrie Yamaoka, Beat Zoderer

Tilman, NYC39/7 (detail), 2009
Mixed media

December 12, 2009 – February 13, 2010

With Your Eyes Only is an experimental project, which analyses the elements of perception in a collage of artistic interventions and objects. Within the frame of reductive art, levels of perception and the mechanisms of observation are questioned in a multidisciplinary, playful approach. Starting point are the phenomenological conditions of the artistic production like color, light, material and time which influence the structure and content of the reductive works and wherein exemplary questions related to perception open up. Visual structure is given to the artistic interventions by an architectonic display which refers directly
to a changing spatial experience through its staging qualities and, at the same time, is a platform for the presentation of different perceptual levels.

Participating artists: Greet Billet, Kjell Bjørgeengen, Alexandra Dementieva / Aernoudt Jacobs, Ward Denys, Clemens Hollerer, Simon Ingram, Leopoldine Roux, Esther Stocker, Tilman, Pieter Vermeersch, Dan Walsh, Carrie Yamaoka

Steven Parrino, Untitled, 1993

October 11, 2009 – January 3, 2010

The MAGASIN is starting its season with a portrait of the artist Olivier Mosset. The exhibition takes the form of a tribute, gathering works by different artists, but never showing Olivier Mossetʼs own work. The artists are of all generations, from Carl André to Stéphane Kropf including the famous group of artists 1m3 among the youngest. As a key figure of the artistic scene and part of a family with the same artistic sensitivity, Olivier Mosset keeps close links with them. He collects or swaps works with them. He has today gathered an important collection, most of which was offered to the Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds. Other works are to be found at the MAMCO in Geneva, the Consortium in Dijon and in Tucson.

The exhibition aims at drawing a portrait of the artist through a series of rooms organized around different specific subjects. A first room will introduce his roots, with Chardinʼs engravings (given each year by his grandfather to his colleagues), or Gregoire Müllerʼs portrait. Another one will highlight portraits of Olivier Mosset with Steven Parrinoʼs photographs of him and acrylic paintings by Walter Steding. Another room will reveal quotations, borrowings and copies (from Hugo Pernet in particular). The following rooms will show monochrome paintings, floor-based works, and the indestructible link between Olivier Mosset and the bikers world.

Participating Artists:
Donald Alberti, Carl André, Ian Annul, Janine Antoni, Matthew Antezzo, John Armleder, Art Club 2000, Richard Artschwager, Olivier Babin, Fia Backström, Donald Baechler, Francis Baudevin, Jérôme Beauvarlet, Lisa Beck, Ford Beckman, Joseph Beuys, Alexandre Bianchini, Mike Bidlo, Dike Blair, Philippe Bodenmann, Serge Bramly, Gavin Brown, Neil Campbell, François Chessex, Robert Colescott, Collectif 1m3, Michael Corris, Mark Dagley, Jamie Dalglish, Ricardo De Olivera, Steve Di Benedetto, Alain Dister, John Dogg, George Dupin, Gretchen Faust, Helmut Federle, Sylvie Fleury, Roland Flexner, Christian Floquet, Catherine Eyde, Jonathan Genkins, Fritz Glarner, Janine Gordon, Christophe Gossweiler, Dan Graham, Amy Granat, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Bill Gruner, Wang Guangyi, Raymond Hains, Marcia Hafif, Isabel Halley / Joanna Avillez, Peter Halley, Stephane Huitmere, Nicole Hassler, Drew Heitzler, IFP, Alain Jacquet, Kyle Jenkins, Michael Jenkins, Kim Jones, Donald Judd, Allan Kaprow, Ben Kinmont, Yves Klein, Serge Kliaving, Jeff Koons, W.J.M. Kok, Joseph Kosuth, Frank Kozik, Stéphane Kropf, Alix Lambert, L/B, Bertrand Lavier, Louise Lawler, Louise Lawler/Sherrie Levine, Ange Leccia, Serge Lemoine, Lépicié dʼaprès Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Renée Levi, Sherrie Levine, Sol LeWitt, Russel Maltz, Christian Marclay, Jackie McAllister, Matthew McCaslin, Allan McCollum, Mathieu Mercier, Haley Mellin, Tom Merrick, Jonathan Monk, Elena Montesinos, Valentine Mosset, Grégoire Müller, Chuck Nanney, John Nixon, Cady Noland, Eric Oppenheim, Dimitry Orlac, Elisabeth Oser, Virginia Overton, Steven Parrino, Laurie Parsons, Nicolas Pasche, Yan Pei-Ming, Luciano Perna, Hugo Pernet, Gilles Porret, Philip J. Reilly, Delphine Reist, Bettina Rheims, David Robbins, Christian Robert-Tissot, Walter Robinson, Gerwald Rockenschaub, David Row, Claude Rutault, Lisa Ruyter, Frederic Sanchez, Adrian Schiess, Peter Schuyff, Michael Scott, Donald Sheridan, Tara Sinn, Howard Smith, Keith Sonnier, Walter Steding, Frank Stella, Valentina Stieger, Rudolf Stingel, Vincent Szarek, Blair Thurman, Jean Tinguely, John Tremblay, Li Trincere, Allan Uglow, Günter Umberg, Lily van der Stokker, Jean-Thomas Vannotti, Ben Vautier, Not Vital, Joan Wallace, Wallace & Donohue, Dan Walsh, Joan Waltemath, Andy Warhol, Stephen Westfall, Larry Weiner, Peter Young, Michael Zahn.

Daniel Levine, Untitled #2, 2001
Oil on cotton, 16 x 15 3/4 inches

June 16 – August 28, 2009

“Blue, here is a shell for you…Inside you’ll hear a sigh.” –Joni Mitchell, 1971

James Graham & Sons presents Blue, a group painting exhibition curated by John Zinsser. The exhibition will include the work of: Richmond Burton, Rudolf de Crignis, Joe Fyfe, Wayne Gonzales, James Hyde, Daniel Levine, Nancy Lorenz, Olivier Mosset, James Nares, R.H. Quaytman, Kate Shepherd, Amy Sillman, Kimber Smith, Philip Taaffe, and Dan Walsh.

As much as the color blue is purely color, chroma, it has also been considered as an emotional state. This exhibition uses a single color, blue, as a common theme to examine the practices of a contemporary generation of formalist painters. While the methodologies embraced are pluralistic, ranging from photographic image-based to straight monochrome, a larger trajectory is shared.

Historical works by Kimber Smith, Olivier Mosset, Philip Taaffe and Rudolf De Crignis frame the show. Smith’s underconsidered late canvases break open the ground between geometric abstraction and color field. Mosset’s approach to the monochrome has long been startlingly literal, radical as it moves painting toward form alone. Taaffe uses appropriation to “rupture” preconceived notions of originality. While De Crignis’s transparent layerings of color create perceptual atmospheric space out of material experience.

Richmond Burton, Joe Fyfe, Daniel Levine, James Nares, Amy Sillman and Dan Walsh all work predominantly abstractly, referencing well-known iconic sources through unorthodox and newly exploratory means.

Wayne Gonzales, James Hyde, Nancy Lorenz, R.H. Quaytman and Kate Shepherd employ recognizable imagery—from figuration, to architecture, to landscape—with objectified distance. These artists weigh limited color and material veracity against more traditional illusionistic readings.

Most of the artists included were growing up in the 1970s, and started out painting at the beginning of the end: the end of Abstract Expressionism, the end of Pop and the end of Minimalism. They share this common lineage, and have used its influence toward directed personal ends. In this show, a viewer will discover shared impulses, philosophies and a larger sense of purpose. The strongest connection to be found, however, may be the affect of mood.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 6-8pm

Wine bar and hors d’oeuvres

Gary Snyder Project Space
250 West 26th Street
4th floor, between 7th & 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10001

for inquiries please call 646 325 4581

Tickets
$25 NOS Donor
$50 NOS Patron
$100 NOS Benefactor, includes
or more acknowledgment in 2009 catalogue

Raffle
Win a DAN WALSH work
Tickets: 1 for $30, 2 for $50, 5 for $100
All other works for sale $500 and under

Artists:
Andisheh Avini, Tanya Barr, John Beech, Marina Berio, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Eric Brown, Angela Cumberbirch, Mark Dagley, Christoph Dahlhausen, Stephen Dean, Matthew Deleget, Anne Deleporte, Gabriele Evertz, Manuela Filiaci, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Douglas Gordon, Daniel Göttin, Nora Griffin, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Steve Karlik, Tania Kitchell, Karl Klingbiel, Lluis Lleo, Rossana Martinez, Norman Mooney, Matt Mullican, Scott Ogden, Salvatore Panatteri, Jan van der Ploeg, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Judy Rifka, Gary Rough, Jackie Saccoccio, Karen Schifano, Kate Shepherd, Motoe Shiratori, Jason Silva, Melissa Staiger, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Ian Tyson, Don Voisine, Jan Maarten Voskuil, Dan Walsh, Rob Wynne, Michael Zahn & Harry Zernicke

* List in formation

Special thanks to Susan Madden, John Melick and Gary Snyder for their assistance.

If you are unable to attend and would like to make a fully tax deductible contribution,
please make check payable to Non-Objectif Sud send to:

Non-Objectif Sud
560 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211, USA

Non-Objectif Sud is a non-for-profit 501(c) (3), all financial contibutions are tax deductible
to the fullest extent of the law.

Our first viewlist exhibition is conceived by Brooklyn-based painter Douglas Melini.

I Can Read in Red, I Can Read in Blue, I Can Read in Pickle Color Too
Conceived by Douglas Melini

Trying to make sense of color can be so difficult. I guess a big reason is that there has been very little written about it to help us out. I’m always grouping my experiences, and ideas about color together; making lists of my thoughts, categorizing them, hoping that somehow this process will help me achieve a better understanding of what color means to me.

Some of those meditations are about the relationship between color and humor, and that sense of playfulness that can happen with color, shape, and space. For a long time now, I’ve had this theory that the way we look and think about color has been influenced by the late Theodor Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss. For those of us born after the 1950s, Dr. Seuss books became one of our first formal encounters with color.

For me, it was the first time I began to assign meaning to color. The words, shapes, and feel of color in those books all seemed wrapped up together and functioned as a whole.  As a kid I would often open those books just to breeze through the images. That excitement is something I have never forgotten. Sometimes when I see certain works of art I feel like I am having that experience all over again.

For the last 12 years or so, I’ve made mental notations of artworks that fall into this space and this group of images is a collection of those thoughts, a representation of those experiences.

Dan Walsh, V > Y, 2008
Ink on colored paper

November 8, 2008 – January 10, 2009

Paula Cooper Gallery presents a one-person exhibition of books and drawings by Dan Walsh. Since the early 1990s, Dan Walsh has animated minimalism’s simple vocabulary of squares, lines and grids with vibrant colors and a whimsical, personal hand.  Spare and geometric, his work evokes the history of modern abstraction, but his idiosyncratic approach based on the repetition of hand-drawn shapes or lines relinquishes hard-edge angles in favor of a casual, human trace. Progressively integrating color into his pared-down environments, Walsh paints smooth, clearly contoured fields of color on which various shapes are composed: floating squares and rectangles hung from bisecting horizontal lines or huddled together at the corner of the canvas, suggesting weight, volume or pulsing movement.

With his artist books, Walsh offers an intimate, tactile environment for the viewer to engage with his geometries and color fields. Playing on the sequential nature of pages in a book, the artist activates various possibilities for seriality and progression. In one book, concentric rectangles cut out of the paper expose the dimensional properties of the book and its layers. In other works, the paper itself becomes a dynamic participant, rippling with paint or bearing the marks of a letterpress. Poring over these books, the viewer is put in intimate proximity to the tangible, visible, and meditative qualities of Walsh’s work.

Dan Walsh was born in Philadelphia in 1960, and lives and works in New York.

August 20 — September 13, 2008

Organized by CCNOA and curated by Tilman, the exhibition includes artists Justin Andrews (AUS), John Beech (UK/USA), Kjell Bjorgeengen (N), Helen Calder (NZ), Julian Dashper (NZ), Matthew Deleget (USA), Alexandra Dementieva (RUS/B) & Aernoudt Jacobs (B), Ward Denys (B), Billy Gruner (AUS), Andre Hemer (NZ), Clemens Hollerer (A), Andrew Huston (UK/USA), Simon Ingram (NZ), Kyle Jenkins (AUS), Klaas Kloosterboer (Nl), Pippa Makgill (NZ), Rossana Martinez (USA), Simon Morris (NZ), Rose Nolan (AUS), Miranda Parkes (NZ), Léopoldine Roux (F/B), Esther Stocker (I), Tilman (D/B), Emmanuelle Villard (F/B), Dan Walsh (USA), Tamara Zahaykevich (USA), Beat Zoderer (CH).

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

April 27 — June 5, 2008

The Suburban presents four new projects: Lars Wolter, Dan Walsh, Andrea Zittel and The Smockshop, & The John Riepenhoff Experience presents Sarah Clendening Sculptures.

February 22 — March 29, 2008

Paula Cooper Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Dan Walsh. This is the artist’s sixth one-person show at the gallery, which has represented him for over fifteen years. Since the early 1990s, Walsh has approached the precedent-laden field of geometric abstraction with an idiosyncratic methodology based on the repetition of hand-drawn shapes or lines set within a clearly delineated picture plane. His early paintings used a simple vocabulary of squares, lines, and grids: spare yet casual, with an occasional tongue-in-cheek quality, they looked like diagrams, charts or sketches. Progressively integrating color into these pared-down environments, Walsh painted smooth, clearly contoured fields of color on which various shapes were composed: floating squares and rectangles hung from bisecting horizontal lines or huddled together at the corner of the canvas, suggesting weight, volume or movement. Walsh’s recent work addresses the canvas’s potential as a field of optical experience. Moving away from compositions of geometric forms, the artist’s dynamic color choices and systematic marks are used to energize the surface itself. The intense optical activity is reined in by deliberate repeated forms, creating works that, though pulsating with color, also appear meditative and serene. With these paintings, Walsh invites the viewer to contemplate the effects of color and shape variations in the experience of perception.

Installation view of main gallery

Perry Roberts & Emmanuelle Villard

Tilman & Clemens Hollerer

Ward Denis

June 18 — September 23, 2007

Curated by Petra Bungert, Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art (CCNOA), Pas de soucis …, French for ‘no worries, mate’, conveys the laissez-faire attitude conditional to the noonday heat of southern France. Such an environment may seem antithetical to the rigorous and disciplined art practice, yet one need only think of Paul Cézanne’s tireless gaze upon Mont Ste-Victoire — located not so far away — as he explored and developed a new visual language and human perception that would change the course of art and thus create a cool compatibility between summer nonchalance and artistic thought and exercise. 

This year NOS and CCNOA present the work of 21 international artists — John Armleder, John Beech, Cedric Christie, Ward Denys, Clemens Hollerer, Andrew Huston, Renée Levi, Mathieu Mercier, Gerold Miller, Olivier Mosset, Benjamin Rivière, Perry Roberts, Gerwald Pockenschaub, Léopoldine Roux, Michal Skoda, Tilman & Wolfgang Glum, Emmanuelle Villard, Jan Maarten Voskuil, Dan Walsh, and Beat Zoderer — who explore the boundless territories of abstract, nonobjective, concrete, and conceptual art through a dialogue of form and color, working with an eclectic choice of materials, including industrial-based and found objects. By alternately fusing the abstract, the decorative, and the utilitarian, their works interact on the borders of painting, sculpture, installation, architecture, and video, while presenting a complex visual vocabulary, both playful and serious, and expressing the dynamic diversity and relevance of abstract art practice today.  The exhibition includes large site-specific indoor and outdoor installations, paintings, objects, multiples, audio and video works and is accompanied by a 24-pages full-color publication.