Archives For Art

The Art of Samantha Thomas

September 6, 2014 — Leave a comment

Once upon a time in the art world if you started your career selling your work at a home furnishing chain store it might have been a career killer. In the past year Restoration Hardware has opened an Art Gallery in Manhattan showcasing a large stable of artists. One of them, Samantha Thomas, is doing work far beyond her years and really reminds me of some of the works by the late, great artist Antoni Tapies ( see image below).

antoni_tapies_ocre_i_negre_amb_tela_encolada_d5363068h

OCRE I NEGRE AMB TELA ENCOLADA (OCHRE AND BLACK WITH PASTED ON CLOTH) by ANTONI TÀPIES (B. 1923). Image via Christies

Samantha Thomas has a more intimate relationship to fabric when sculpting it into bold, undulating abstract works that deftly and powerfully intersect the worlds of painting and sculpture in a series she calls: Landscapification. If she keeps up this type of amazing output my bet is she will not be at RH much longer… 

 

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Samantha Thomas 8

All images via RH Contemporary

 

The Art of Samantha Thomas

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The Final Art Work of Sigmar Polke

August 7, 2014 — Leave a comment

With his beautiful, crazy, confusing, monumental and must see retrospective winding down at MOMA I could not help thinking about the final project Sigmar Polke spent the most time on. Forget that everyone has found it impossible to decode his enormously confusing body of work (see review links below). It turns out Polke use to be a stained glass artist and he spent the last 3 years of his life designing stained glass windows for the Grossmünster Church in Zurich using a variety of techniques including thinly sliced geodes. Much like the MOMA retrospective that Peter Schjeldahl calls, “the most dramatic (and important) museum show of the century to date”, the final stained glass works are a wonder. 

Sigmar Polke

sigmarpolke_kf_gm_03

Sigmar Polke Elijah Chariot

 All Images via http://www.grossmuenster.ch/polke.html

 

A PDF (from the church web site) explaining the entire project can be viewed here.

via Sigmar Polke – Church Windows Grossmünster Zürich from ikonoTV on Vimeo.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/28/shock-artist

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/12/many-colored-glass-2

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117806/sigmar-polkes-alibis-reviewed-jed-perl

http://galleristny.com/2014/03/connecting-polkes-dots-moma-decodes-the-work-of-a-tricky-postwar-master/

 

 

The Final Art Work of Sigmar Polke

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Gabriele Rothemann: Bird Cages

August 4, 2014 — Leave a comment

Gabriele Rothemann: Bird Cages 2009

video with sound, 6 min (looped)

via http://www.gabrielerothemann.com

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Film Review: Tim’s Vermeer

July 4, 2014 — Leave a comment

Can an untrained person paint a Vermeer?

This is a wonderful and quirky film about a very smart inventor with a truly unique Johannes Vermeer obsession. Maybe one of the best documentaries concerning art and optics (and especially the way the lens and eventually photography has completely changed painting and drawing forever). David Hockney is consulted in this film because of his brilliant book Secret Knowledge which explores how optics changed painting forever (and thus dispelling most of the mythical “great painters” in art history).

 

 

 

Film Review: Tim’s Vermeer

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Joel-Peter Witkin & Jerome Witkin: Twin Visions

June 30, 2014 — Leave a comment

Most are familiar with the incredible photographic tableaux’s  of Joel Peter Witkin but until this exhibition I did not know there was an equally talented yet estranged twin brother named Jerome Witkin. Take a few minutes and soak in the exhibition of a unique moment in the history of art; Separated twin artists reunited for the first time over 70 years later.

(Check out the video….Very interesting to see how their work (which is equally visionary in many respects) compares and contrasts).

Las Meninas, 1987. Gelatin Silver Print, 30 x 40 inches ©Joel-Peter Witkin & Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles

Las Meninas, 1987. Gelatin Silver Print, 30 x 40 inches
©Joel-Peter Witkin & Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles

 

Twin Visions: Jerome Witkin & Joel-Peter Witkin

An historic exhibition united two celebrated artists – identical twin brothers – Jerome Witkin & Joel-Peter Witkin

March 1, 2014 at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles.

Jerome Witkin and Joel-Peter Witkin are acknowledged as two of the greatest contemporary artists in their respective genres. Jerome Witkin is a painter cited by critics and curators as the finest narrative contemporary artist. Joel-Peter Witkin is equally regarded as a master of his genre – a groundbreaking photographer famous for masterfully conjuring his uniquely surreal images. These identical twin brothers, artistically estranged, have enjoyed remarkable success during their respective careers spanning more than fifty years, have never exhibited together. Until now.

via Jack Rutberg Fine Arts

 

©Jerome Witkin THE GERMAN GIRL, 1997 Oil on Canvas Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles

©Jerome Witkin
THE GERMAN GIRL, 1997
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles

 

JOEL-PETER WITKIN & JEROME WITKIN : TWIN VISIONS

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