Lucas Deon Spivey's Blog(s)

The Exhibitionist INSTALLS THE FREAKING MOON

2012-01-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

TO THE MoON, Johnny Adimando

17 Cox, Beverly MA

The Exhibitionist POP RIVETS A MOBIUS STRIP

2012-01-05T20:13:00.001-05:00

It's the job that never ends.

The Exhibitionist SAYS THERE AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH FOR NATALIE LANESE

2012-01-03T10:55:00.001-05:00

Flatland, 2012, Natalie Lanese

Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist says RENOVATIONS ARE ALL ABOUT MAKING ENDS MEET

2011-12-18T20:46:00.000-05:00

17 Cox, Beverly MA

It's a matter of perspective

2011-12-13T10:58:00.003-05:00

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon)

1907, oil on canvas, 96 x 92 inches, Museum of Modern Art, New York

After Ai Wei Wei's Studies of Perspective also at MoMA

Fingers by Brian Galderisi

Inked and hosed

2011-12-12T13:55:00.001-05:00

Brent Lewis, Chicago Tribune

Todd Panagopoulos, Chicago Tribune

Seward Johnson, Forever Marilyn, 2011

Stainless steel and aluminum, 26' tall, Pioneer Court, Chicago

In August 2011 she got a tattoo. In September 2011 she got splattered with paint. It seems that vandals mark the easiest target or the most conspicuous target. For glory? More info on Seward Johnson's controversial art-bomb magnet on the Chicago Tribune's website...

Vandal gives Marilyn Monroe statue makeshift tattoo
Marilyn Monroe statue hit by vandals again

The Exhibitionist & Friend MAKE A 7 LAYER VINYL SALAD

2011-12-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

301 Building, Montserrat College of Art

Looks like I'll have to eat my way out of this one...

2011-12-09T15:52:00.001-05:00

Rena Masson, 2012

Montserrat College of Art

Can You Spot The Difference: Unpacking Subtle with Rose Olson's Doubles

2011-12-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

Moving Mists, Rose Olson, 2011

acrylic on baltic birch, diptych 12 x 26 x 3

There are many lenses through which to look at art: there's the analysis of art historical precedents; the microscopic deciphering of symbolism and iconography; rote speculation on contemporary influences; and (among many others) the strict compare and contrast with other artists in the world, region or even between artists within the gallery. But a particularly interesting lense is to view the artwork side by side its brethren, works by the same artist, of the same mode, media, scale and application, and to find the difference between them and the story therein.

Installation view, Kingston Gallery

I curated Rose Olson's new exhibition of small paintings at Kingston Gallery this December, called Doubles. Its premise of seeing the separations and commonalities between works in a series isn't rare at all (who didn't have to do the compare and contrast essays in the back of their high school classical lit courses?), but the method of viewing an exhibition not as individual works but as unions of individual works can engage the viewer in an active way.

As a common descriptor in the art-world, 'subtlety' is applied to many artworks, yet is seldom unpacked as a term and so we run the risk of glazing over at its mention and subsequently glazing over its power as a visual mechanism. The 'sub' in subtle refers to its hidden characteristics, what lies underneath a surface is sometimes not loud enough to draw attention to itself, but relies on (or at least entrusts) the viewer to use close scrutiny over nuance and discover for themselves the differences within.

Most of us are familiar with the game of hidden differences, the Hidden Pictures segment for Highlights for Children or the entire Spot the Difference genre for example. We know how aggravating and thrilling these games are, and I've rarely looked into a series of works with the specific task of separating details into like and dislike categories. I should note here that only two out of the twelve works in Olson's exhibition belong together in a diptych - the other ten works are individuals that cohese together and prompt us into further analysis.

I hope the viewer is reminded of the power of subtlety, the lense of compare and contrast and that childlike and wonder-filled response to the bodies of akin but not identical works of art. Happy hunting.

Installation view, Kingston Gallery

Rose Olson's exhibition opens this Friday, December 2nd 5 - 8 pm at Kingston Gallery alongside Jennifer Moses' Roswell: New Works

The Exhibitionist INSTALLS A TRIPLE DOUBLE

2011-12-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

Doubles, 2011, Rose Olson

installation view, Kingston Gallery, Boston

The Exhibitionist USES ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR TO TRACE HIS HANDWRITING FOR THE VINYL LETTERING TO A SHOW ABOUT SKETCHING CAUSE THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE AND DON'T TELL ME IT DOESN'T

2011-11-30T09:13:00.001-05:00

Untitled, 2011, Liz Wikstrom

graphite on paper, sketchbook,
Viterbo 2011, Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery

Sans Serif

2011-11-25T11:31:00.001-05:00

Mathieu Tremblin, Tag Clouds, 2010
spraypaint and stencil

More on Mathieu's website

The Exhibitionist MAKES PBJ IN THE GALLERY

2011-11-21T18:43:00.001-05:00

Rena Masson, Performance Lab, 2011

The Collective @ 17 Cox

The Exhibitionist IS AFRAID OF SCARY CORNER

2011-11-21T17:21:00.001-05:00

Thanks for Everything, 2011

Rena Masson, Chris Pianka, Aoi Suzuki, Matt Weir

301 Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist NEEDED A TALLER LADDER

2011-11-14T10:52:00.001-05:00

Thanks for Nothing. Senior Thesis Exhibition

301 Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

21st Century Cartography: Dialectic Map-making on the Surface of Culture

2011-11-07T14:44:00.001-05:00

The Cartographer's tool box

Cartography (from Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study and practice of making maps. Combining aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.

When Aaron Berger first started his collage works for the Cartography series, he set very few expectations on what the work would become, saying he had “no destination in mind but knew their identity would come from outside of the piece”. The series of 18 works was completed during a 2 week artist residency at 17 Cox in Beverly MA and is currently on display at Marblehead Arts Association. During this relatively quick period of time, Berger left vital room for the slow growth and maturity in the series of works by encouraging random viewers to critique, collaborate and engage in other dialectic strategies.

Berger in his studio

Initially, Berger set out to use a series of maps as the staging for his collages, both aesthetically and thematically. Aaron balanced his composition through the addition and subtraction of collage elements, layering new materials and then digging through the landscape with an X-acto knife or sandpaper. Berger layered hand-dyed paper, maps of trading routes between ancient civilizations, clippings of typography and sections of the daily New York Times, August 27 - September 1, 2011. He then removed what was deemed unnecessary, whether by his own aesthetic judgement or through peer critique.

The addition of text and print contributed the weight of current events, but when the composition became too heavily pop culture or political, Berger sanded or cut down through these layers to return a balance to the work. Too often we think of the aesthetic balance of a work and overlook what could be called the connotative balance: the leveling of culturally or emotionally charged iconography. Too much sensational imagery or text can disturb the balance of a work. The Cartography series is not just a negotiation between vibrant colors, rhythms and shapes, but also loaded subject matter from magazine and newspaper clippings of Hurricane Irene, the Arab Spring, the recession et al.

King Weeps, 2011
Collaged newsprint, Coloraid
and hand-dyed paper on panel
18 x 9.5”

Regarding map-making, cartography is the study of the different ways humans model our world, a process altered by current events. Map-makers create visuals to articulate the distances between points, and Berger has begun plotting the emotional and aesthetic differences that mold our perceived sociopolitical boundaries. In effect he is creating a map of time and content, instead of just location. In it’s most linear form,Berger’s compositions connect separate social phenomena with visual reference points, read: roads.

Berger trusts that the collaborative, dialectic and often off-road process is inherently beneficial because a map is a tool that seeks to communicate borders between social and cultural realms, something not easily done without the knowledge base of others. Rather than traveling down roads that he already knows, Berger and his collaborators blazed new trails and found broader ways of connecting current events than any could do alone.

Stop me if you've heard this one...

2011-11-02T17:30:00.000-04:00

10 x 10 x 10 x Tieton, Tieton Warehouse Gallery,
Mighty Tieton, Tieton WA

The Exhibitionist HANGS A CHAIR IN A CORNER

2011-11-01T21:13:00.004-04:00

Aaron Berger, Cartography (installation view), 2011

Marblehead Arts Association, Marblehead MA

ENDLESS BUMMER

2011-11-01T17:25:00.000-04:00

via borfyou.com

The Exhibitionist MEETS HIS MATCH

2011-10-29T22:01:00.000-04:00

Chelsey Tyler Wood, Small Spaces (installation view), 2011

Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist KNOWS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS A DOG

2011-10-29T21:22:00.000-04:00

Samantha Fields (left) and Kirsten Reynolds (right)

Photographer: Elizabeth Woodward (and Peaches)

Home Sweet Home, 2011

Montserrat Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist PUTS YOUR GRID ON TYVEK

2011-10-16T21:19:00.000-04:00

Sarah Wentworth, Performed Photographs, 2011

301 Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist SWEEPS UP

2011-10-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

Maria Molteni, Holy Ghost // Hungry Ghost, 2011

301 Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist PARKS IN A GALLERY

2011-10-04T21:26:00.000-04:00

Kylie Alexander, Continuity (installation view), 2011

17 Cox, Beverly MA

The Exhibitionist HAS A H3LPER

2011-09-28T21:39:00.000-04:00

Zachary Goldstein

Just what is it that makes today's galleries so different, so appealing?

2011-09-15T09:52:00.002-04:00

Richard Hamilton, $he, 1958-61
Oil, cellulose paint and collage on wood support

I was notified by Gagosian Gallery yesterday in an email that Richard Hamilton has passed away. I was both sad to hear about his passing and also grateful to read about Hamilton's life and the contributions he made, not just with Pop Art, but in particular the way he increased my awareness of the curves and colors that commerce uses to grab my attention.

But the announcement tripped on the starting block for me. Hyperlinking your gallery to someone's obituary in the first sentence seemed... well... tacky. We all know that the death of an artist caps their production, therefore limiting their suite of works and ultimately raising their market value, right? That Hamilton appropriated and critiqued the advertising world in his work makes this even more jarring.

Still, what's a gallerist to do when artists leave more and more of their personal affairs in the hands of their gallery; so much so that they may delegate every public relations task (including the announcement of their death) to the gallery's PR team? Where does the representation of Richard Hamilton as an artist stop and where does his representation as a person begin?

Klimt and paste

2011-09-15T09:16:00.000-04:00

Via barbiecollector.com

After

Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907

Oil, silver and gold on canvas, 54 x 54 inches

Embedding Experience

2011-09-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Wayne Stokes, studio view

Find a way to turn things back

What never happened seems to last

Mission of Burma, Dead Pool
from Vs. (1982)

At some level, an art object contains the documentation of its creation stored as replayable data. This is what happens when we are confronted with a work of art and consider how it was made. For example, when we're listening to a music album we're hearing the actions that have created the replayable data, but we're not hearing the original live music. We're, in essence, listening to the documentation of a performance (that we weren't present for), which then becomes an album embedded with its own creation story that we play again and again. Likewise, a painting or drawing is built out of its actions, which create the object we see; then we're witness, not just to the actions that created the work of art, but the object itself, which replays this history to us if we look closely enough. In the contradictory nature of ‘live albums’ and process-based paintings and drawings (particularly those that attempt to conceal their process) we see a pattern where the original experience of creating the object is part-and-parcel with the finished object.

The Horrible Truth about Burma,

Mission of Burma, 1985

Let's do a case-study: In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Mission of Burma (MoB) was a punk group operating out of Boston. Famous for their live shows, when MoB recorded their first and only full studio album of the 1980’s, Vs, (1982) the recorded experience was jarringly different than their live performances. The sequel to Vs. was MoB’s first live album, The Horrible Truth about Burma, (1985) which captured an equally intricate but less filtered sound. A record of their final tour in 1983, its tongue-in-cheek title evokes the raw and unpolished ‘truth’ that fans look forward to hearing in a live recording.

MoB delivered music to a wide range of fans; with songs like This is not a photograph and Max Ernst, they captured the attention of visual artists and the pursuit of representing reality. This is not a photograph on their debut EP Signals, Calls and Marches (1981) captures the impossibility of honestly representing an experience and how we begin to pay attention to the way something is portrayed, not just what it attempts to portray. The title references the Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte’s painting The Treachery of Images, a painting of a pipe with the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe) painted below it. Magritte’s painting calls attention to itself as a representation of a pipe, as opposed to an actual pipe, and consequently we see Magritte's choices as a painter rather than what he is portraying. In a similar way, MoB’s song is not the original performance, but rather a recording of it in replayable format, which acknowledges its contradiction through its title, This is not a photograph.

This is just a perpendicular line to the grain
(This is not a photograph)
This wants to be outside the cage of the age
(This is not a photograph)

This is not a photograph
from Signals, Calls and Marches (1981)

Ian Jeffrey and Wayne Stokes
Courtesy of Anthony Greaney Gallery

Another case study: I walk into Wayne Stokes’ studio in South Boston and he and I sit down and have a beer (this matters - I'll explain later). On the walls are a series of purple and black constellations on canvas. His upcoming show with Ian Jeffrey at Boston's Anthony Greaney Gallery is called The Horrible Truth. My chat with Wayne brings up two themes: the impossibility of packaging an experience and how, consequently, feedback becomes a message in itself.

Wayne Stoke’s paintings are a deep hybrid: a painting of both its subject matter and its documentation. After layering iridescent purple vinyl on canvas and gel medium, Stokes scrapes down to the canvas. The result is a shiny lawn of purple wrinkles that Stokes then photographs with a heavy flash. The resulting photograph with its glare of flash is then painted onto another canvas, a painting of both the subject matter and its documentation.

Ian Jeffrey arrives and he too sits down. From a box he pulls out what look like doodles of paramecia in plastic sleeves. I begin sorting through the works and I believe I’m looking at negatives of photographs from microscope slides, but he keeps referring to them as drawings. I don’t believe him and I keep trying to correct him.

Ian Jeffrey

Ian assures me that they are indeed drawings; that they are actually the redrawn lines of a reversed graphite rubbing of a tracing of doodles in the margin of a drawing loosely based on a MoB album cover. Each step in Ian’s process removes the trace of each previous step, until there is no evidence of the original source material. His subject matter is the residual noise from the previous subject matter, looped and reestablished as its foremost content. We're no longer even looking at the original creative act - now we're looking at the creative response. Further and further away we go from the original actions of the artist. This is no longer a drawing: it's a drawing of a photograph of a drawing of a photograph of a drawing... and so on.

Sitting in the studio looking at Stoke’s and Jeffrey’s works, I begin seeing the actions that lead to their current states. Whether I can see them or not the actions are tied up inside the works, begging to be discovered. Some actions are louder and more discernible than others, some are completely drowned out by the noise of the next action. Only the artist was there for each step of the process. The completed object offers all of these histories (if only I could see them all).

The Horrible Truth (installation view), Ian Jeffries and Wayne Stokes
Anthony Greaney Gallery, Boston MA

Final case study: If the experience of ‘being there’ at a punk concert can be likened to a studio visit in Boston, then I guess I was there. I was there in 2011, I drank a beer with the artists (told you that'd come around) and saw the works before they were finished; but I would argue that one needn’t be there for any particular part of the life cycle of any work, visual, audio or otherwise. These works were formed as replayable data, to be seen in a multitude of different venues by a multitude of eyes, across time. Only the work is truly ‘there’; we come to it so that we may experience it, for the first time or be reminded of it, in whatever format it holds at that particular moment.

-----------------------------------------------

Remember this when you finish reading: This is not just a text. It's a live album too. It's a record with embedded experience.

FFFFFFFFFFRRRRPPP...

2011-09-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

Kathy Liao with self-portrait, oil on canvas

CHILDREN EAT FREE

2011-09-05T19:52:00.002-04:00

Spotted in Beverly, MA

The Exhibitionist LINES EM UP

2011-08-31T20:01:00.000-04:00

Preinstallation for For the Record: Searching for Objectivity in Global Conflict

and Make Believe: Posters from the Montserrat Teaching Collection

Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA

The Exhibitionist KEEPS IT WRAPPED

2011-08-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

Robert Yoder and Ben Waterman

Ubiquitous Foundations, 2011

301 Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist IS IN THE AIR

2011-08-24T22:14:00.000-04:00

J ames O' Neil, Tigris River

For the Record: Searching for Objectivity in Global Conflict, 2011

Montserrat Gallery, Montserrat College of Art

The Exhibitionist DIDN'T HANG ALL THIS BUT TRUST ME HE COULD

2011-08-18T18:34:00.000-04:00

Marblehead Arts Association

The Exhibitionist TAKES HIS (FRIEND'S) SHIRT OFF

2011-08-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

The Desert of the Black Cross, 2011

Aaron Colantti, silkcreen on paper

17 Cox, Beverly MA

The Desert of the Black Cross

2011-08-13T12:21:00.002-04:00

Aaron Colantti and Rob K-S

Trip Relics, Unfinished Projects

and a Good Hitchhiking Uniform

2011, mixed media, detail

On the heels of their Above the Line show in a St. Paul warehouse, Aaron Colantti and Rob Kaiser-Schatzlein (K-S) hitchhiked across the state of Wisconsin to Milwaukee to drive out for their residency at 17 Cox. Joined by filmaker Megan Schiller, they left St. Paul on July 7, 2011 and began The Desert of the Black Cross, a well laid plan that was to be redacted and rewrote again and again. A document of life on the road, including all of the changes and detours that are synonymous with a journey into the unknown, The Desert of the Black Cross is not a destination but a series of sleep-overs and a constant renegotiation of what is necessary and unnecessary, what stays and what goes.


Kazimir Malevich Black Cross, Black Square, Black Circle 1915, oil on canvas

The name of the exhibition is in reference to Kazimir Malevich’s painting Black Cross, and his manifesto on ‘Suprematism’, a search for the pure feeling in a painting. Black Cross was a work stripped of every comfort and convention associated with art of its time. In 1913, Malevich argued that his painting of a black cross on a white background was the most efficient way to achieve the “pure feeling” he wished to communicate. By discarding comfort and convention, Malevich argued that one enters a metaphorical desert...

...in which nothing can be perceived but feeling. Everything which determined the objective ideal structure of life and of "art ideas, concepts, and images, all this the artist has cast aside in order to heed pure feeling.

Aaron Colantti and Rob K-S, Sketchbook Grid

2011, photocopied sketchbook

installation view

Colantti and K-S have left behind their “ideal” life: access to a studio, equipment, and the creature comforts of kitchens and bathrooms. On the road, the back of their van was a studio by day and a bed for three at night. Arriving at 17 Cox, their studio, exhibition space and kitchen were all rolled into one. Their apartment upstairs was converted into a film production chamber and Rob had to sleep in the library.

All of these mash-ups and hybrid spaces are adaptations to the changes involved in crossing a desert of any sort. Survival devices are created or discarded to serve needs that change in each new environment, Colantti said that this method is an “imposed pain” that inspires new ways of thinking, and is integral to maintaining a creative mind.

“When, in the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art from the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field, the critics and, along with them, the public sighed, "Everything which we loved is lost. We are in a desert .... Before us is nothing but a black square on a white background!"

Aaron Colantti and Rob K-S, Tent + Stove

2011, tent, stove, basil plant

For K-S, the significance of a black cross on a white background is often limited to two interpretations: either it as a reduction or a minimal deployment. However, K-S argues that the desert and the journey are a dialogue of additive and subtractive gestures. A history of actions and redactions is Malevich’s process of arriving at pure feeling. Likewise, the artist team’s journey across the country was not simply a reduction of belongings or a minimal deployment of needed objects, but a constant renegotiation of what was necessary or unnecessary. Objects were obtained as needed and discarded when they became cumbersome or broken; plans were made and remade to solve new surroundings and discoveries.

No more "likenesses of reality," no idealistic images nothing but a desert! But this desert is filled with the spirit of nonobjective sensation which pervades everything.

Aaron Colantti and Rob K-S

1081 photos taken since July 7 - August 6 2011

2011, digital video

An installation of moment-to-moment photography, a hitchhiking sign, video of hotel vignettes, graffiti tags, worn clothing: Colantti and K-S have broken down the convention that galleries show likenesses of things and events and not actually the things or events themselves. Most of the objects exhibited are either tools or artifacts of an event that happened between Minnesota and Massachusetts - and fall outside the definition of traditional art media and process. All of the work was created on the road starting on July 7th (K-S’ birthday); and then adapted and focused in 17 Cox’s space.

Speaking personally, this exhibition has stretched the assumed functions I had for an exhibition space. Now the tradition of exhibiting a finished object seems like an inherently second-hand presentation of what has actually occurred. How can we present the history of an object with only that object? And can a series of objects come anywhere near the actual weight of the history involved? It seems the more objects we present the more we have to explain, yet each object still remains itself. Is the whole exhibit necessary? Or can a single object contain all of the context it needs?

...a tree remains a tree even when an owl builds a nest in a hollow of it.

The Exhibitionist HAS A LUNCHBOX

2011-08-05T23:07:00.000-04:00

Hittin the road to NYC to pick up some paintings

The Exhibitionist KNOWS YOUR FAMILY A WHOLE LOT MORE NOW

2011-08-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

Private client, Beverly MA

The Exhibitionist MAKES IT FIT

2011-08-01T21:47:00.000-04:00

Fran Carreiro, Sugar of Life, 2011

Montserrat College of Art

Hairy helmet

2011-07-29T13:44:00.001-04:00

Mags Harries, Hair Hat Drawing, 1990

Hair, tape, wire, Boston Sculptor's Gallery, Boston MA

Halo kitty

2011-07-29T13:19:00.001-04:00

Samantha Fields, Composition with Circle 2, 2011

Recovered afghan, beads, 30 x 30"

'Selected' works by Mike Guppy

2011-07-27T09:42:00.001-04:00

Highlight the text to read the artist information

GIFs via Mike Guppy's anothersight

Rene Magritte, The Son of Man, 1964

oil on canvas, 116 cm × 89 cm

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1486

tempura on canvas, 172.5 cm × 278.5 cm

Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781

oil on canvas, 101.6 cm × 127 cm

2011-07-25T23:36:00.000-04:00

Via Pundit Kitchen

'Vandals painted a Soviet statue in Bulgaria to look like comic book characters along with the words, “moving with the times” below it in Bulgarian. The statue was originally erected in 1944 to celebrate the Soviet “liberation” of Bulgaria. Authorities believe this to be either a political statement or viral marketing by D.C. Comics to promote their new series in which Superman teams up with Ronald McDonald and Santa Claus to liberate the Eastern bloc.'

Tangible Polygons: The solution is to keep solving

2011-07-19T22:24:00.004-04:00

Tangible Polygons, installation view

Jacob Perkins, untitled (work from BFA exhibition)

2009, vine and compressed charcoal on paper

I met Jacob Perkins at the UW - Seattle, School of Art. At the time I was working in the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, an academic gallery in the School of Art, and was hanging the 2009 BFA Painting show. I remember the first time I really looked at Perkins’ work: I had surveyed his paintings and drawings in order to hang them properly and in the right location, but it wasn’t until I placed his painting on the nail that I really gave it its due time. With my hands still on the frame, I closed my eyes and took a moment’s rest (installation is hard work), as I opened my eyes I became lost in Perkins’ universe of microscopic strokes and restrokes.

Perkins is notorious for building up a surface and tearing it down again, or burying it and excavating it years later. While many painters are known for this, Perkins does it to a degree that is almost infuriating to me. Indeed, living and working along side him during his residency here at 17 Cox has been agonizing as he solves one area of the canvas, but has to paint over that area to solve the entire canvas.

Sphere, oil on panel, 2011, 24 x 30”, installation view

This exhibition is evidence of the trouble-shooting and correcting that few can truly appreciate, but I think it's an exhibition that a painter can definitely appreciate. Perkins is a “painter’s painter” in the sense that he follows Clement Greenberg’s stipulation that the medium ought to acknowledge itself in the work. Looking at the works in Tangible Polygons, there is no hiding that they are paintings, yet Perkins' history of actions is discerned and felt.

While traveling with Perkins to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, I took him to the 3rd floor of the Art of the Americas Wing. There he wiggled through Cesar Paternosto and Frank Stella to point out a Josef Alber’s painting to me, and you can definitely see the influence of Post-Painterly Abstraction in Perkins' work. Certainly not a hard edge painter, I admire the way that Perkins approaches solutions that we assume to have a hard answer somewhere; somehow he finds and offers up the finer lines in between these answers.

Jacob Perkins, (clockwise from upper left) Raspberries, Drrr., Arizona, Vibestone Beach

More info at 17cox.com

The Exhibitionist KNOWS HOW TO REUSE THE ALPHABET

2011-07-14T18:30:00.000-04:00

Jacob Perkins, Artist-in-Residence

17 Cox, Beverly MA

Tubbed

2011-07-12T17:17:00.003-04:00

From Desperate Romantics

After

Ophelia, 1851-1852, John Everett Millais, 30 x 44"

"What would Rosetti do?"