More Articles...
Print
John Zinsser Recent Work
by Stephanie Buhmann JG Contemporary
February 8, 2008 - March 8, 2008
John Zinsser has always found maximum expression in reductive abstract painting, simplifying his visual language to convey clarity of thought and sensory excitement. Despite their straightforwardness, Zinsser’s elegant compositions are never predictable and offer a strong sense of the transcendental.
John Zinsser, "Screen Time," (2007). Alkyd enamel and oil on canvas. 66 × 72 in. Image courtesy of JG Contemporary, New York. In a recent interview with Cindi di Marzo, Zinsser mentioned that an early influence while a student at Yale was the present-tense-consciousness typified by James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus and Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and that he saw Abstract Expressionism as a continuation of these authors’ “open-eyed manner of describing experience.”
Through its distillation of influences, Zinsser’s work formulates its own witty dialogue with 20th-Century abstract painting. In his first New York solo exhibition since 2003 (this time with a new gallery) Zinsser explores the mechanical and the industrial in manifold ways with surprising range and nuance. His palette is always duo-chromatic, juxtaposing enamel and oil paints in two distinct layers, with one as background and the other articulating gesture as defined by thick brushstrokes applied in vertical and horizontal sweeps, or by thin, loosely dripped patterns. Zinsser prefers out-of-the tube oil colors, such as cadmium reds, yellows and oranges or cobalt blue for the surface layer, and commercial oil-based enamel in black, silver or white for the ground. We recognize these colors from our daily urban lives, and yet, their distinct artificiality makes them appear strangely aloof.
While Barnett Newman comes to mind in the strictly vertical color banners, a body of more recent works featuring a freely poured line suggests Jackson Pollock. However, it is a mere hint, and Zinsser establishes an underlying grid that restricts the free-flow to some extent.
In its immediacy, his work also shares a fascination with American cultural insignias with Ed Ruscha and, of course, Andy Warhol. It recalls the blunt billboards dotting much of the American landscape. There is something soothing about having a message delivered so directly and on the surface, and in Zinsser, surface is a big part of the story. In a time when speed, noise, and an information overload bombard us daily, Zinsser’s paintings are refreshingly detached.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Alaska Language Odyssey
by Bob HolmanJUNE 2018 | Poetry
Founder of the Bowery Poetry Club and the author of 17 poetry collections (print/audio/video), most recently The Cutouts (Matisse) (PeKaBoo Press) and Sing This One Back To Me (Coffee House Press), Bob Holman has taught at Princeton, Columbia, NYU, Bard, and The New School. As the original Slam Master and a director at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, creator of the world's first spoken word poetry record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury, and the Artistic Director of the Bowery Poetry Club, Holman has played a central role in the spoken word, slam and digital poetry movements of the last several decades, work that continues with the founding of Bowery Poetry Studios, where he hosts the poetry podcast "Mouth Almighty." A co-founder and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, Holman's study of hip-hop and West African oral traditions led to his current work with endangered languages. His film, "Language Matters with Bob Holman," winner of the Berkeley Film Festival's Documentary of the Year award, was produced by David Grubin and aired nationally on PBS.
Why Sci-Art Needs Not to Make Sense
by James ElkinsDEC 17-JAN 18 | Critics Page
Much of the literature on art-science interactions is celebratory, which I think is never a good sign, because it shows that people who might want to question the limits and sense of the field are not engaged.
Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age
by Terry R. MyersFEB 2016 | ArtSeen
What is “Painting 1.0?” One would think that somewhere, anywhere, in an ambitious exhibition like Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age an attempt would be made to answer that question with clarity and conviction, if only to anchor the curatorial pinpointing of “Web 2.0” (defined as the shift to user-generated content and increased interactivity) as the new thing that has made painting so interesting today.
An Increased Clarity of Address: KEVIN KILLIAN with Tony Leuzzi
NOV 2017 | Books
“That’s an awful lot of me,” Kevin Killian observed when I sent him proofs of the interview that follows this introduction—“Do we need it all?” On the surface, such candid self-effacement seems unlikely in a writer whose work is so searching and confident, but Killian’s apparent lack of ego may be connected to his fascination with makeshift art.
RSS