Bas Jan Ader, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

Bas Jan Ader

Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

22 mai - 28 juin 2003

Bas Jan Ader est né aux Pays-Bas, à Winschoten, en 1942. Il fait des études d’art à l’Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs. Après plusieurs périples aventureux en mer, il s’établit à Los Angeles en 1963 au terme d’un voyage de 11 mois à bord d’un voilier cargo, parti du Maroc. A Los Angeles, il étudie l’art et la philosophie à l’Académie des Arts. A partir de ce moment, Bas Jan Ader devient un membre très actif de la scène artistique californienne. Il participe à des séminaires à CalArts et au Otis College, et devient un membre permanent de la UC Irvine Art Faculty.

Bas Jan Ader meurt âgé de 33 ans, en 1975, en disparaissant au cours d’une performance : In Search of the Miraculous II. Parti de Cape Cod (USA), Il entreprend en solitaire la traversée de l’Atlantique à bord d’un petit voilier, qui doit l’amener à Land’s End (GB). A son arrivée aux Pays-Bas, une exposition prévue au Musée de Groningen devra rendre compte de ses travaux réalisés au cours de ce voyage.

Pendant les années 1970, de nombreux artistes de la Côte Ouest s’intéressent au rapport entre l’art et la vie, entre la performance et la photographie, à la différence entre l’objet d’art et la documentation d’une action.

Bas Jan Ader connaît et apprécie le travail conceptuel de ses contemporains - Ed Ruscha, Gordon Matta Clark, Robert Smithson, Chris Burden, John Baldessari, ainsi que Ger Van Elk. Comme plusieurs de ces artistes, il expérimente la relation entre son corps et sa présence modifiant un environnement choisi.

Il documente soigneusement ses actions, sous la forme finale de films, de photographies aux compositions sophistiquées, de textes, de publications. Aux caractéristiques qui marquent les œuvres de ces contemporains conceptuels : le détachement, le constat objectif, Bas Jan Ader ajoute un élément très personnel : l’émotion sobre.

‘Ader évolue vers le risque et l’erreur mortels inhérents à toute recherche du miraculeux, ou de l’expérience du sublime’. (Bruce Hainley in: Legend of the Fall, Artforum, March 99)

A travers son œuvre, Bas Jan Ader rappelle régulièrement ses origines. Il réalise de nombreuses pièces à références hollandaises, ou qui suggèrent un retour au pays.

Ainsi, notamment dans The Artist as Consumer of Extreme Comfort, l’unique œuvre réalisée entre 1967 et 1969 (à côté de la revue Landslide), l’auto-mise en scène photographique est marquée par une gravité ambivalente. Ader y évoque un portrait de l’artiste mélancolique, allusion au romantisme, considéré fin des années 60 comme totalement obsolète.

Par son engagement extrême dans le refus des codes établis, par sa pratique du voyage comme une forme d’art, Bas Jan Ader ne cesse d’interpeller, et d’influencer les générations successives d’artistes.

La Galerie Chantal Crousel présente la première exposition en galerie de Bas Jan Ader en France.

GALERIE CHANTAL CROUSEL

40, rue Quincampoix, 75004 Paris

www.crousel.com

Hokusai Katsushika, San Diego Museum of Art - The Living Line: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings by Hokusai

The Living Line: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings by Hokusai 

San Diego Museum of Art 

May 24 - August 3, 2003 

This exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art demonstrates the genius of Japan's most celebrated and prolific artist, Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849). The Living Line: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings by Hokusai presents a fine selection of 22 original drawings and paintings from the collection of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena alongside a selection of 37 prints from SDMA's collection.

A master of the brush and a skilled draftsman, Hokusai was an extremely versatile artist producing over 30,000 sketches, paintings, and print designs during his lifetime. The adopted son of a mirror maker, he was born in Edo (modern-day Tokyo). He apprenticed as a woodblock engraver at the age of fourteen, a training rare for Japanese artists at the time, but one which proved invaluable to him later.

By the age of eighteen, Hokusai was already designing kabuki actor prints with celebrated artist, Shunsho Katsukawa (1726-1793). During this time, he became associated with the ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") school of painting, which was renowned for capturing scenes of everyday life in a realistic way. For the next twenty years, Hokusai designed ukiyo-e prints, book illustrations, and fine, limited-edition color prints known as surimono. Towards the end of his long life, he concentrated his artistic efforts on painting, signing many of his works Gakyo rojin, "Old Man Mad-with-Painting."

Fascinated by all types of painting, Hokusai studied Chinese and Western painting techniques, including vanishing-point perspective. After 1820, he began to produce his most famous series of woodblock prints: Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (1829-1833) and the Waterfalls series (1831-1832). Selections from both series are presented in this exhibition in addition to pages from Hokusai's One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (1834-1835), a three-volume collection of monochrome prints. Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji marked the beginning of Hokusai's courtship of the great mountain; One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (undertaken immediately thereafter) testifies to his ambitious effort to capture Fuji from every significant vantage point and every telling context.

Although Hokusai Katsushika would go on to achieve international fame through his woodcuts, the original drawings and paintings from the Pacific Asia Museum included in this exhibition provide a rare, intimate, and immediate look at this artist's versatile hand, the source of some of the most recognizable and moving images of the people and landscapes of Japan.

SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART

1450 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA

www.sdmart.org

Lin Fernström, Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm

Lin Fernström
Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm
May 17 - June 19, 2003

Galleri Lars Bohman presents Linn Fernström’s second exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition consists of a new series of paintings.

Linn Fernström’s large, powerful paintings embrace their own world inhabited by people and animals, from small birds to tigers. The dream-like landscapes are populated with flowers, animals and severed body parts where ambiguous, nightmarish scenes are enacted in which Linn Fernströmis often the protagonist. In this seductive, realistic world that is at the same time both recognisable and strange time and place are difficult to define and the colourful, vaguely surrealistic and psychologically charged images are both beautiful and cruel. The influences for these richly detailed and at times macabre tableaux can be traced both to the Swedish landscape painter Bruno Liljefors and Frida Kahlo. Linn Fernström describes her paintings thus:

“ A world between dreams and reality. The adults clumsily play with children and the animals attempt to capture the human tail. Life and death is interwoven and asks the question in a wonder about why life is so bloody strange. The people and the animals in the paintings are my dolls and teddy bears of today. Together we play follow my leader without end.”

Absolute Generations is an experimental art project involving several of Europe’s leading artists. Linn has been chosen by her former professor from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Dan Wolgers as his protégé and creative partner. Linn Fernström’s collaboration with Dan Wolgers has been featured in Time magazine and will be presented together with 12 other artist duos as an exhibition at Palazio Zenobio at the Venice biennale 14 June - 28 September 2003.

Born 1974 in Örebro, Sweden Linn Fernström lives and works in Stockholm. She attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm (1995-2000). In 2001 she participated in the Carnegie Art Award for Nordic Painting.

GALLERI LARS BOHMAN
Karlavägen 16, 114 31 Stockholm
www.gallerilarsbohman.com

Allen Hirsch at Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York

Allen Hirsch - Selected Works from 1993-2003
Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York
May 17 - June 10, 2003

Monique Goldstrom Gallery presents the portrait, figure and landscape painting of Allen Hirsch.

Allen Hirsch has found his own unique means of expression through representational painting by combining his interests in optics, neuropsychology, and classical European art.

Hirsch's intense dedication on his work over the past 30 years has spanned several careers:

His interest in the enigma of surface and depth in painting resulted in his invention of "string painting" in the late 1990's. Specks of paint on an array of nylon strings suspended over a plain ground use the contructive abilities of our eyes and brain to recreate an image that appears to float within. This illustrates his idea of painting as "the translation of the seen back into the unseen."

His explorations with the self-portrait, which number in the thousands, reveal new connections between art and science. He has documented how personality is expressed through each side of the face, and how the brain projects it's own lateralization through the artist's hand.

As a portrait artist, Allen Hirsch was a favorite cover artist for TIME magazine. His portraits of Gaddafi, Khomeni, Gandhi, himself and others graced the covers during the mid-1980's and early 90's. He also painted the inaugural portrait of President Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in 1993.

As a landscape painter, he has painted the streets of New York for 20 years for which he earned a landscape award from the National Academy of Design museum in 1998. His interest in landscape painting as with portraiture is in capturing a psychological space illuminated inside the canvas. This show will include works from New York and Venezuela.

Allen Hirsch was born in Los Angeles, California in 1959. He studied art extensively in London, Florence, Syracuse and New York. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, the White House, Sindin Gallery (NYC), Society of Illustrators, National Academy Museum, Ron Hall Gallery (Dallas), Quick Art Museum (NY), Louis Stern Fine Arts (Los Angeles), Allan Stone galleries (NYC) Indiana University Art Museum, and American Art (Carmel, CA).

Monique Goldstrom Gallery
560 Broadway (at Prince St.), Suite 303, NYC 10012
www.moniquegoldstrom.com

Helmut Federle, Peter Blum Gallery, New York - Works on Paper from 1969 to 2001

Helmut Federle 

Works on Paper from 1969 to 2001 

Peter Blum Gallery, New York

May 3 - July 12, 2003

Peter Blum presents the exhibition HELMUT FEDERLE: Works on Paper from 1969 to 2001 at the Peter Blum Gallery, 99 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012.

The exhibition comprises 200 drawings executed in pencil, gouache, ink, crayon and oil and ranging from sketches and studies to finished works. It is the first time that such an important and extensive group of works on paper by Helmut Federle has been shown anywhere.

The range of the drawings traces Helmut Federle’s development from his early abstract studies of mountain ranges, which perhaps already show a tendency towards geometrical reduction, to a later incorporation of motifs which bring together characters of the Far East and symbolic shapes.

Helmut Federle has always traveled extensively among the remains of ancient cultures, in particular the Far East, but also South and North America. In 1985 Federle traveled to China and Tibet. Many travels followed including Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. The work of that period can be seen to reflect latent formal links to art of these cultures.

In 1985 Helmut Federle formulated and published a fundamental text on his theory of drawing called: “On Mass and Expansion in Drawing”.

From 1992 Helmut Federle spent time in Galisteo, New Mexico where he met regularly with the artist Agnes Martin, a stated influence on his work. At that time Federle was exposed to the ancient Mimbres culture of the Southwest whose ceramic works gave title to two of the drawings in this exhibition and in general has had a significant influence on his work.

From this exhibition, as well as statements from the artist, it is clear that the works on paper are not only an important adjunct to Helmut Federle’s paintings, but also an integral part of his overall work.

Born in 1944 in Switzerland, HELMUT FEDERLE now lives and works in Vienna, Austria. A partial description of Federle’s major exhibitions follows. In 1985 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Basel exhibited an extensive survey of the paintings and drawings of Federle. In 1986 The Los Angeles County Museum of Art included Federle in its thematic review exhibition entitled The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985. In 1989 Federle had his first major individual exhibition in France at the Musée de Grenoble. This was followed in 1992 by an individual exhibit at the Kunsthalle Zürich of large paintings which went on tour to the Moderna Museet, Stockholm and the Museum Fridericianum, Kassel. In 1995 the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris exhibited his “Corner Field Paintings” for the first time on a larger scale. In 1996 there followed a retrospective (paintings from 1977 – 1995) at the Kunstmuseum, Bonn. In 1997 Helmut Federle’s work represented the official Swiss contribution to the 1997 Venice Biennial, and in 1999–2000, a major exhibition followed at the Kunsthaus, Bregenz.

PETER BLUM GALLERY

99 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012

www.peterblumgallery.com

Yoshitomo Nara, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Yoshitomo Nara

Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

2 – 31 May 2003

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.

Like a child negotiating the confusing period of adolescence, Yoshitomo Nara's work reflects an abundance of emotions and characteristics such as anxiety, fear, preciousness, insecurity, pleasure and confidence. Figures often exist in a dream-like world and appear to float or stand on clouds and water. Children challenge the viewer with aggressive glares and animals beckon with tender faces. Throughout Yoshitomo Nara's varied practice, the viewer is reminded of the allure of youth as well as current adult preoccupations.

The visual vocabulary of Japanese manga and anime (cartoons and animations) and Yoshitomo Nara's own childhood experiences mould his work. Western media culture, modernism and Rock 'n' Roll music also influence the artist. Far from naïve and illustrative, images which emerge in Yoshitomo Nara's work tend to be based on the dark or painful side of life, tapping into our most personal and emotional thoughts. The work also inspires optimism and encourages the viewer to look for hope.

Yoshitomo Nara has exhibited extensively around the world. Recent solo exhibitions include Centre National de l'estampe et de l'art imprimé, Chatou, France in 2002; Yoshitomo Nara: in those days, Hakutosha, Nagoya, Japan and I don't mind if you forget me, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (and touring) in 2001. Selected group exhibitions include Splat, Boom, Pow! The Influence of comics in Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, USA in 2003; Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, MoMA QNS, Queens, New York, USA in 2002; Super flat, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angels, USA in 2001. In 2003, Yoshitomo Nara will also have a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, USA, travelling to the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, USA and the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, USA.

STEPHEN FRIEDMAN GALLERY

25-28 Old Burlington Street, London W1S 3AN

www.stephenfriedman.com

Hung Liu, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco - Toward Peng-Lai

Hung Liu: Toward Peng-Lai

Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco

May 1 - June 7, 2003

Rena Bransten Gallery presents new paintings by Hung Liu in an exhibition called "Toward Peng-Lai" - toward paradise. Known for paintings drawn largely from Chinese historical photography, Liu's new works display a greater focus on what she calls the "mythic poses" that underlay the photographic surfaces of history. Representing such elemental human activities as laboring, eating, journeying, leaping, fighting, dreaming, and carrying one's burden, these "mythic poses" come from particular Chinese circumstances, but seem epic, tans-historical, and allegorical in the new works. With an overlay of traditional Chinese birds, flowers, insects, dragons, and - most recently - stylized human figures, Liu offers her subjects artistic evidence of their own rich heritage - as if to remind or comfort them.

Also included is a series of small, framed paintings of individual children - "The Baby Paintings." Each portrait has been culled from a single group photograph of Chinese girls attending a mission school in the late 19th century.

In effect, Liu turns old photographs into new paintings, liberating the rigid methodology of socialist realism - the style in which she was trained - as an improvisational painting style that dissolves the photo-realism of propaganda art into a fresh kind of history painting. She converts socialist realism into social realism.

Liu was born in Changchun, China in 1948, growing up under the Maoist regime. She emigrated to the US in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego, where she received her MFA. She currently lives in Oakland and is a tenured professor in the art department at Mills College. Her work is included in many major museum collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Walker Art Center, The Dallas Museum of Fine Art, The Spencer Museum of Art, and locally, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, The Oakland Museum, and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museums.

RENA BRANSTEN GALLERY

77 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94108

www.renabranstengallery.com

Larry Clark, punk Picasso Photographs at Luhring Augustine

 

Luhring Augustine presents punk Picasso, a major new work by Larry Clark.

This installation consists of photographs, collages and other material collected and produced by the artist over the course of his entire life. These objects are also the original material that make up the pages of the much anticipated book, punk Picasso, due to be released this summer.

The autobiographical material in punk Picasso collectively documents both the personal story, and the artistic projects undertaken by Larry Clark. Unique photographs, letters and stories both from Clark’s art and film career graphically depict the life of one of the most controversial and highly influential figures in contemporary culture. This exhibition will include approximately 250 framed, mixed media collages, photographs, and objects that represent a significant portion of Clark’s oeuvre, and vividly illustrate his uncompromising aesthetic.

Best known for his haunting portrayal of teen subculture in his photography books, Tulsa and Teenage Lust, Larry Clark continues to be a significant figure in contemporary art and film. His work is included in important museum collections in the United States, Europe and Asia, including the Whitney Museum, MOCA LA, and the Frankfurt Museum für Moderne Kunst. Clark's groundbreaking first feature film, Kids, was released in 1995 to critical acclaim. Clark’s fifth feature film Ken Park is due to be released in theaters in June 2003.

 

Published by AKA Editions, the autobiographical, artist book, punk Picasso is due to be released in July. punk Picasso will be produced in a limited edition of 1000, with 10 boxed special editions that will include a unique photograph, a soundtrack, and other original items with the book. For more information, please contact Roth/Horowitz at (212) 717-9067.

 

LARRY CLARK

PUNK PICASSO 

May 10 – June 28, 2003

 

Luhring Augustine

531 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

 

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Larry Clark, Tulsa and Teenage Lust at Simon Lee Gallery