More Articles...
Print
Loren Munk
by Tomassio LonghiAndre Zarre
Through June 27, 2002
Loren Munk is a painter who for quite some time has been engaged in a dialogue between the formal language of synthetic Cubism and casual imagery derived from popular culture. In the recent paintings, one is once again taken with his persistent gaiety of spirit.
Like a committed observer of city life, many of his subjects seem to weave together early American modernism and post-contemporary culture. Whether the references are drawn from Stuart Davis’s colonial cubism or new school graffiti, the overall compositions, with their elaborated handmade frames of cut glass mosaics, are constructed by a network of flat shapes and patterns. They are painted thickly and with intense contrasting color, mostly primary colors subordinated with variations of neutral tones. It’s not so much the imagery that is celebrated in Munk’s work, but the sheer physical joy of painting. The painterly surface, the musicality of the color, and the vitality of the form make one want to run up a few blocks to see Alfred Jensen’s spectacular exhibit at the Dia Foundation.
Integrated Sensibilities
In the back of the space of the gallery is a modest but beautiful exhibit of four Williamsburg painters: Geoff Davis, Chris Martin, Margrit Lewczuk, and Larry Mullins. Both Chris Martin and Larry Mullins are known for their large works. However the two paintings here in the show suggest the more sensuous and intimate side of their sensibilities. While Martin retains his deep interest in esoteric philosophy, Mullins continues to explore the visual repertoire of various forms of ornamental lettering and typefaces.
Geoff Davis is one of a few painters I know whose obsessive nature would dazzle anyone, especially those who are not familiar with his bizarre paintings. The highlight of the show is Margrit Lewczuk’s new work. With the more pared down, almost minimal approach towards primitive form, one witnesses here the remarkable effort of a veteran painter after a long period of gestation. Lewczuk lost most of her life’s work in a recent studio fire, and her new paintings represent an impressive rebirth.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
IN DIALOGUE: Toothy Divinity in Jessica Dickey’s The Convent
by Anna ZieglerDEC 18-JAN 19 | Theater
Every time I read, or see, one of Dickey’s plays, I am struck by how darkly funny they are, and by how much space and love she gives to her characters, despite their faults.
Shifting and Symmetry of Time
by George WidenerJUL-AUG 2018 | Critics Page
Although my investigations and conceptions of time are certainly self-taught and personal, they are not necessarily outside the canon of human experience or destiny. They’re in fact juxtaposed to the future evolution of technology and human neurological development. This is to say that perhaps one day some of my pictures will awaken from their present hibernation. The question here is whether my calendric calculations and reference points are merely personal or whether they’re connected to a futuristic synergized public.
Brancusi & Duchamp: the Art of Dialogue
by Mary Ann CawsOCT 2018 | ArtSeen
It would be difficult to come up with a more challenging duo than this one. The exhibition is packed with sculptures, photographs, objects, films, little magazines—nothing is lacking—but we could just stop where it starts: with those two gorgeous faces of Brancusi and Duchamp by Man Ray, from 1920 and 1934, preceded by a sweater-clad Brancusi rarely seen. Here we are given the proper spin to this remarkable dialogue.
Nell Painter's Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over
by Karen ChernickJUL-AUG 2018 | Art Books
Nell Painter made no mention of the fact that she was enrolled as a first-year graduate painting student at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) during her guest television appearance on The Colbert Report in March 2010. She wasn’t there to talk about the new career she had started from scratch, at age sixty-four, as an artist.
RSS