Self-Destroying Art
At
The Flux Factory

by Gordon Fitch

— Read about it here .... — .

INNOVATIVE ARTS:
THAT WHICH ROARS

by Robert Sievert

(Susan Roecker: Spirochetes)

Peekskill is a sleepy little town up the Hudson River that has undergone decline, renovation and rebirth. It has a real Americana charm. Once a middle-class suburb it is now a burgeoning art community. There is artist housing, and new galleries all set in a prewar town filled with vintage storefronts that inspire images of a former America. But the 21st Century has moved in and Galleries such as Innovative Arts are ready to supply upper Westchester with a hip bohemia and cultural focus.

— More here .... — .

Colorful guests packed EXIT ART opening night

EXIT ART is a gallery that has been around for 27 years. It had a space downtown where they specialized in fringe art, art that was out of the mainstream. Now Exit Art has morphed into "arts center" that has a space on 10th Avenue and 36th St. This was the site for a new show, ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES, that opened September 24, 2010.

I remember in or around 1975 going to OK Harris to see Andy Warhol's show of large 'political' paintings of Mao and his 'Hammer And Sickles' wanting to hate them, but resigned that they were just too good to disparage. Warhol had made serious painting irrelevant, which annoyed me.

Reading this book was quite a revelation.

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NINE at Saugerties

Jeffrey Schiller: welded steel sculpture

by Robert Sievert

Our intrepid editor went to Saugerties to see 'Nine', an exhibition of nine artists at the Clove Church. Our editor in a church? — More here .... — .

Dead Flowers

— Read about it now! .... — .

Book Review:
  A Painter's Life
    by K.B.Dixon

book cover of "A Painter's Life"

by Robert Sievert

If you live in New York and are familiar with the art world you may think that it is something goes on only in the big towns. K.B. Dixon's A Painter's Life belies such thoughts with an interesting account of a fictional painter, Christopher Freeze. The book is set as a series of notes by Christopher Freeze. It reveals the ongoing life of an artist living in parts of America's West, first Phoenix, then the Northwest. The notes are like diary entries; then there are excerpts of various reviews and sections of "unpublished journals."

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Bill Jensen
at Cheim and Read

Bill Jensen: Linen

by Juan Seoane Cabral

— Read the article here.... — .

Richard LaPresti
at The Bowery Gallery

by Robert Sievert

Richard LaPresti's current show at the Bowery Gallery(March 30-April 24) is a revival of many familiar themes.

For many years this artist has stuck to subject matter in which he is obviously comfortable and free to work. Self-portraits, landscapes and (my personal favorites) his beach scenes which I believe first started to appear in the 70's.

more.... — .

Pinhole Camera Pictures

by Robert Sievert

I have been admiring the pin hole photography that I have been seeing as the results of the workshops John Skelson has been doing at the Art Lab (Snug Harbor, Staten Island).

First there was a raucous shot of Times Square (above) that he showed at an exhibit at the Art Lab. There is a distinct feeling of unreal light generated by all the neon and glare of the theater signs.

By minimizing the details the overall aura of the shot is allowed to take prominence. Skelson has figured out how to use a high end digital camera to produce pin hole images.

Phyllis Featherstone has been working with Skelson and has produced some rather remarkable images. Her shot of some bottles really bought to mind the writings of Aldous Huxley. In Doors Of Perception he talks about seeing the "Dharma Body", the essential aspect of an object that is seen once the mind is cleared of superficial identities. That is what I think is so compeling about these images.

They are closer to visions than ordinary photography. They eschew the mundane for the essential.

— more pictures.... — .

Peter Halley
at Mary Boone Gallery

by Robert Sievert

An intellectual jolt of color theory in the recent Bauhaus exhibit at MOMA was followed by the discovery of Peter Halley's work at the Mary Boone Gallery this month (Feb 13 - March 20) Halley has been painting geometric images for the last decade. His most recent work opens up the dimension of color.

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BRONZINO

drawings at the Met

by Robert Sievert

Several interesting things emerge when one visits the Bronzino exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum (now through April 17). One thing is the scarcity of paper at the disposal of Renaissance artists. These drawings (60 of the known 62) are mostly done on letter-sized pages; many spaces are filled with more than one image. . . .

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