On the Money & From Now On In @ Brian Morris Gallery

Zachary Keeting, September (3), 2012, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 97 inches

By Guest Contributor: Matthew Neil Gehring

I was fortunate to catch a number of great shows this weekend, including these two at Brian Morris Gallery, both on Chrystie Street.  

"On the Money” at the 163 Chrystie is a group show including Alison Hall, Suzanne Jolson, Zachary Keeting, Jenna Pirelli, David Rhodes, and Gary Stephan.

“From Now On In” at 171 Chrystie is a group show including Michael Berryhill, Tom Burkhardt, Steve DiBenedetto, Lydia Dona, Fabian Marcaccio, Carrie Moyer, and Alexi Worth. 

Brian Morris continues to deliver an ambitious program and these shows are testaments to his efforts.  These are two solid groups of artists who have something to say.  All of the artists included in both shows have contributed paintings that seek to expand our experience of painting, and to nudge the enterprise along in some way.  Perhaps each is successful, but the works by DiBenedetto (who also just closed a killer show at Derek Eller,) Keeting, Moyer, Rhodes, and Stephan are particularly resonant.  Like the others in both shows, these artists present very different points of view.  They have also brought their A games, and a sense of urgency in their paintings.  Chris Martin once penned the phrase “alchemy of the moment” (Everything is Finished Nothing is Dead: An Article About Abstract Painting, Brooklyn Rail, April 1, 2003) in description of what it means to be relevant as an artist. Brian Morris and company have delivered the elixir of life, are in pursuit of the philosophers stone, and will make some gold in the end, to be sure.

“On the Money" runs through May 17 2015.

“From Now On In” closed Saturday.

Fore more info visit brianmorrisgallery.com.

Gary Stephan, Being and Doing, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

David Rhodes, Untitled (13.3), 2015, acrylic on raw canvas, 72 x 42 inches

Jenna Pirello, Maneater, 2015, acrylic on wood, 24 x 33 inches

Alison Hall, x for JK., 2015, oil graphite, and venetian plaster on panel, 27.5 x 22 inches

Suzanne Joelson, Blue Slip and Spin, 2014, fabric, photograph, and found lumber on wood panel, 50 x 100 inches

*All images by Matthew Neil Gehring. Above images from On the Money. Images, below, from From Now On In after the jump . . . . 

Tom Burckhardt @ Tibor De Nagy Gallery

Three Ninety To Seven Eighty, 2014, oil on cast plastic, 32 x 40 in.

Tom Burckhardt: AKA Incognito

Opening: Thursday, May 7th, 6 - 8 PM

May 7 - June 12, 2015

Tibor De Nagy Gallery

724 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10019

catalogue available

Also of interest: Studio Visit w/ Tom Burckhardt, March 2013

Artist's Talk @ LoM: Brenda Goodman and John Yau

Brenda Goodman and John Yau taking in Goodman's show of new work at Life on Mars Gallery.

photo courtesy of Life on Mars

From the Press Release:

Life On Mars Gallery is proud to present a special artist talk with painter Brenda Goodman and the esteemed poet, author and critic John Yau at Life on Mars Gallery on Sunday, April 19th, the final day of her one-person exhibition here. 

Goodman's work is most recently also featured in the current Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational, for which she was one of five recipients of an Exceptional Accomplishment Award. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. She has had 34 one-artist exhibitions at numerous galleries throughout the country, and her work has been exhibited in more than 170 group shows, most notably in New York City at The Whitney Biennale, The New Museum, Edward Thorp Gallery, Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, and throughout the US. 

John Yau has published books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. Recent publications include A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (D.A.P/Distributed Arts Publishers, 2008) and Exhibits (Letter Machine Editions, 2010). In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007-2011) before he began writing regularly for Hyperallergic Weekend.

We hope you will join us for this fascinating discussion and will contribute to a lively dialogue. And of course, there will be cookies. 

WHAT – Artist talk with Brenda Goodman and John Yau
WHEN – Sunday, April 19th, 2-4 pm 
WHERE – Life on Mars Gallery, 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 
HOW TO GET HERE - L train to Morgan Ave., exit at Bogart St. 
PRESS CONTACT: Dana James Dana@lifeonmarsgallery.com

*Important travel info for everyone coming to our Artist Talk this Sunday!:

We have just learned that there will be no subway service on the L line between 8th Avenue Manhattan and Lorimer St Brooklyn this weekend, April 18-19. This means people coming to Life on Mars Gallery from Manhattan will need an alternate route.

According to the MTA, the M line from Manhattan to Brooklyn will be running from 57th St and 6th Ave (F station) down to W. 4th and then across to Brooklyn (with stops at B'way-Layfayette and Delancey).

You can take this M to Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues/Myrtle Avenue where it connects to the L. (Note: there are 3 other Myrtle Ave stops before the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues/Myrtle Avenue stop-- don't get off at them.)

You can then take the L back (towards Manhattan) 3 stops to Morgan which is right across from the gallery. (56 Bogart St.) www.MTA.info will also supply other route options

If you are coming for the talk between Brenda and John Yau, which begins at 2 on Sunday, please allow a little extra time.

**Also, for more on Brenda Goodman and her work check out her recent interviews with Ashley Garrett for Figure/Ground and Gorky's Granddaughter (video).

Syd Solomon @ Berry Campbell

Runoff, 1979, acrylic and aerosol enamel on canvas, 60 x 64 inches.

Syd Solomon: Swingscape, Paintings from the 1970s

April 23 - May 23, 2015

Opening: April 23, 6 - 8 PM

Berry Campbell 

530 W 24 Street

New York, NY 10011

Some Assembly Required @ The Curator Gallery

Celia Johnson

Tomorrow is the last day to catch Some Assembly Required, curated by Mark Wethli.

From the Press Release:

Taking its title from the familiar phrase found on   the labels for everything from tricycles to bedroom furniture, Some Assembly Required points to a similar stipulation for artists who employ geometry, which might be thought of as a kind of “kit” from which their work is constructed. While the narrow range of platonic forms found in plane geometry might seem too limiting for some, for these artists (and others like them) geometry’s neutrality and universality is what leaves it most open--but also most challenging--to creating new meanings and visual experiences. 

“For artists working in this vernacular, geometry is to their work what haystacks were to Monet or bottles were to Morandi; not what the work is about or even what defines it, but simply the constant through which other ambitions, forms of expression and visual experiences can be tested and realized,” says Wethli.  

Wethli chose the artists for their differences as much as their similarities, creating a striking collection of contrasts and connections.  “The strengths these artists bring to their work is not in their use of geometry alone—which is something of a given -- but how these timeless forms are assembled and developed,” says Wethli.  “They even invite the pleasurable prospect of ‘some assembly required’ for the viewer as well.” 

Some Assembly Required

curated by Mark Wethli

featuring work by: Steven Alexander, Karen Gelardi, Celia Johnson, Lael Marshall, Duane Paluska, and Don Voisine

Through April 18, 2015

The Curator Gallery

520 W 23 Street

New York, NY 10011

Brenda Goodman @ Life on Mars

 Installation view with Almost a Bride, 2015 (rt.)

 Almost a Bride, 2015, oil on wood, 80 x 72 in.

Almost a Bride, 2015 (detail)

Brenda Goodman continues to plumb the depths of her own, as well as our collective unconscious in this staggering exhibition of major, new paintings. 

Goodman, once again presents a very personal narrative brought to life through intimate and unexampled forms that are both guarded, and set afloat by a limited palette of muted and gemlike colors.

Brenda Goodman: New Work is on view through April 19 when Life on Mars will present an Artist's Talk between Goodman and the poet and critic John Yau. The event will be moderated by Michael David and will take place between 2 - 4 PM.

For more images follow the link below . . . . 

Gili Levy @ Chase Family Gallery in West Hartford, CT

From the Press Release:

Israeli artist Gili Levy's paintings dwell in the realm of the intimate. They do so in their way of telling a personal story and in the means by which it is told. Depicting people, places, or abstract relationships, they all share a similar vision through a consistent sense of color and a unique way of juxtaposing elements in space. In essence, and throughout the different topics they choose to explore, they articulate through paint a certain way of being, which is both performative and experienced.

Gili Levy: Will you find me?

curated by Jill Greenspan Ziplow

April 2 - May 7, 2015

Chase Family Gallery 
335 Bloomfield Avenue  
West Hartford, CT 06117


*Levy's work can also be seen in the group exhibition, Faceless: Figuring Immediacy + New Nudes, a group show curated by Julian Armand Jimarez- Howard. Opening April 4, 7 - 10 PM @ OUTLET Gallery, 253 Wilson Avenue, Brooklyn.

In Chelsea: At the Opening Reception for Walter Darby Bannard's Minimal Color Field Paintings @ Berry Campbell

 Gallery owners Christine Berry and Martha Campbell greet opening night visitors before Bannard's Truk, 1958.

Seasons #1, 1965, Alkyd resin on canvas, 66 3/4 x 62 3/4 in.

Christine Berry and Martha Campbell chat with Frank Stella.

 Walter Darby Bannard greets well wishers at his opening.

The opening reception for Walter Darby Bannard: Minimal Color Field Paintings 1958 - 1965 took place on Thursday, March 19th. The exhibition is on view through April 18, 2015.

From the Press Release:

Berry Campbell is pleased to announce, Walter Darby Bannard: Minimal Color Field Paintings 1958-1965, featuring rare paintings and works on paper from the artist’s early years as a painter in New York and New Jersey.  Bannard, a leader in the development of Color Field Painting in the late 1950s, has been committed to color-based and expressionist abstraction for over five decades.  The exhibition opens on Thursday, March 19 with a reception from 6pm to 8pm.  The artist will be in attendance. The exhibition is accompanied by a twenty page catalogue, including fourteen color illustrations and a brief essay, The Shape of Color, written by Walter Darby Bannard.

During his undergraduate years at Princeton University, he joined fellow students, the painter Frank Stella and....