Jene Highstein - Minimalism

 

 Jene Highstein ( 1942 -2013 )
"Jene Highstein is a sculptor who, like his peers and friends Richard Nonas, Bob Grosvenor, and Gordon Matta-Clark, among others, emerged in the early 1970’s on a landscape in New York populated by powerful sculptors a few years older – Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, Donald Judd, and Dan Flavin. Sharing many of their minimalist concerns, the new sculptors were however free men and women who were not wearied by the intellectual demands of the fight with Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and were filled with a newer sense of adventure in materials, process, and occasionally romantic relationships with landscape and architecture.
Highstein’s early work in New York depended on large and brutal manipulations of common building materials such as giant pipes, concrete, and plywood. Brought to location in Soho and Tribeca in big pick up trucks and maneuvered into place with old fashioned rope rigging, the placements were daring: such shows depended on close circles of friends and trusted allies.
These early 1970’s works acted as a bridge between pure process pieces such as Richard Serra’s late 1960’s work, and later, more formal sculptural works by Highstein in the 1980’s. While Highstein’s 1980’s work moves towards more clearly defined forms using fabricated materials, his earlier body of work combines abstract shapes with raw, industrial materials and pure or geometrically rigorous measurements to create minimalist, transitional, carefully sited formations. "(hclocktower.org)

 

John Grillo - American Abstract Expressionism

"John Grillo was an American Abstract Expressionist painter whose brightly colorful works represent a unique vision with the movement. His works are appreciate for their golden luminosity and lush brushwork that is comparable to earlier masterful painters such as J.M.W. Turner or Peter Paul Rubens. Filled with a lyrical rhythmic quality, Grillo once said that “abstract painting is on a level with music. It’s a physical outburst from your whole being. It’s not the idea that is created and then you start painting. It’s always a challenge to shape something from nothing, to do the impossible.” Born on July 4, 1917 in Lawrence, MA, the young artist was initially influenced by the Ashcan School of painters, including John Sloan and Robert Henri, while attending the Hartford School of Fine Arts. After serving in the US Navy, he studied at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts under Bay Area Figurative artist Richard Diebenkorn before moving to New York and taking classes with Hans Hofmann, who became and lifelong influence on and supporter of Grillo. Today, his works are in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Grillo died on November 26, 2014 in Hyannis, MA."(artnet)

 

 

 

Installation art Jason Rhoades

"Jason Rhoades (1965-2006) is known for his highly original, large-scale sculptural installations, which incorporate miscellaneous materials inspired by Los Angeles car culture and his rural upbringing in Northern California, amongst other sources. Until his untimely death in 2006 at age 41, he carried out a continuous assault on aesthetic conventions and the rules governing the art world, wryly subverting those conditions by integrating them within his practice. He conceived his works as part on an ongoing project to which objects were continuously added—dream catchers and oriental carpets, neon signs, power cords, building materials, and his own newly fabricated products were assembled and re-assembled in different configurations and also enlisted as part of performances and happenings within the installations. Underpinned by a unique combination of strong conceptual vigor and humor, his practice redefined and expanded the space in which artworks are both made and exhibited. Believing in ultimate freedom for artists, Rhoades circumvented notions of taste and political correctness in a candid pursuit of the creative impulse itself.
Rhoades was born in Newcastle, California in 1965. He received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1993. Later that year, Rhoades joined David Zwirner—becoming part of the gallery's original roster of artists—and had his first New York solo show.

 In 2014, David Zwirner presented Jason Rhoades: PeaRoeFoam at the gallery in New York. The comprehensive exhibition was specially dedicated to Rhoades's body of work using PeaRoeFoam, the artist's self-made recipe for a "brand new product and revolutionary new material" created from whole green peas, fish-bait style salmon eggs, and white virgin-beaded foam. It marked the gallery's first exhibition showcasing Rhoades since its critically acclaimed installation of Black Pussy in 2007. An accompanying publication by David Zwirner Books features new scholarship by Julien Bismuth, an interview with Linda Norden, and selected interviews from the Jason Rhoades Oral History project devised by Lucas Zwirner, who interviewed over fifty artists, curators, and others who intimately knew the artist.
Rhoades's work has been exhibited internationally since the 1990s. His first solo presentation at a European institution was held at Kunsthalle Basel in 1996. Other international venues which have organized solo shows include Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany (both 1998); Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany (1999); Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK), Vienna (2002); Le Magasin - Centre National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble, France (2005); and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2006).

 In the Fall 2017, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center will present a solo exhibition featuring Rhoades’s works from The Brant Collection as well as significant projects from the artist's career, including My Brother/Brancuzi (1995); The Grand Machine / THEAREOLA (2002); and Untitled (from the body of work: My Madinah: In pursuit of my ermitage…) (2004).
In 2013, Jason Rhoades, Four Roads marked the first American museum exhibition of the artist's work, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. In 2014, the exhibition traveled internationally to the Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany, followed by the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England in 2015.
Work by the artist has been prominently featured in group exhibitions worldwide, most recently in 2013 as part of NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star at the New Museum, New York. Other group shows include the Whitney Biennial (1995, 1997, and 2008) and the Venice Biennale (1997, 1999, and 2007).
Museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York."(davidzwirner.com)

Outsider art John Bunion Murray

John Bunion (J.B.) Murray (1908–1988) was a self-taught artist in Glascock County, Georgia. He is considered to be a major figure in the world of Southern Vernacular Art and Outsider Art. His work is now in many important collections, including that of the American Folk Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and has been featured in many museum exhibitions, including "Self-Taught Genius" at AFAM and "When the Stars Begin to Fall" at the Studio Museum.Murray worked as a sharecropper for the majority of his life. He was married, and he and his wife had eleven children. By the time he was in his fifties, his wife had left him and his children had also left home, leaving him especially isolated.At the age of 70, Murray experienced a religious vision while working the fields which inspired him to produce a remarkable body of abstract paintings and drawings in the last decade of his life.  Seeing an eagle descend from the sun, Murray believed that he had been granted a privileged religious insight, which was to be the inspiration for his work as an artist.

Due to the limitations of his circumstances, Murray had little to no formal education, and was unable to read or write. Illiterate, Murray instead developed his own personal style of seemingly unintelligible asemic writing, a sort of modern Adamic script, which he inscribed onto his drawings and paintings. Murray's writing gave him a power he believed could be used for benediction and protection of himself and others. As a part of the process, Murray kept a bottle of what he called "holy water" on a table by his bedside, which he would raise towards the sky whenever he prayed. Murray believed that if a person read his "writing" while looking through the bottle of holy water, that person would read messages from God. During the last few years of his life as his reputation grew as a mystic, Murray would receive visitors on his property who requested ritual readings of the holy water.  When writing these holy messages, Murray would often hold the bottle of holy water in one hand and write with the other, keeping his hand as limp as possible, and letting the holy spirit guide it. This process of automatic writing was recorded in a documentary directed and produced by Judith McWillie of the University of Georgia toward the end of his life.

Murray distrusted people who did not believe in God; in his mind, most people had strayed from the Lord's path and were therefore potentially harmful. He also believed that destructive evil spirits populated the world, and thus much of the artwork he created served a protective purpose. His paintings and painted objects functioned as a shield to ward off such harmful forces. Some of his earliest work involved small mysterious piles of stones , concrete blocks, and other found objects, which he positioned around his property. In this way and in many others, his work shares a connection with the tradition of African American Yard Shows, though in person J.B. Murray never commented on the nature of these piles or divulged their purpose. Art historian Mary Padgelek, who wrote a book about Murray's life and works,has also written a musical about him: Visionary Man, being presented at the Hudson Mainstage Theater.Wikipedia

Paul Thek - sculptor and installation artist

Paul Thek (November 2, 1933 - August 10, 1988) was an American painter and, later, sculptor and installation artist  Born in Brooklyn, he studied locally, at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. In 1951 he entered Cooper Union.
Although Thek began as a painter, he became known later in life for his sculptures and installations. Notable works include Technological Reliquaries (1964–67), a series of wax sculptures of human body parts presented on pedestals in glass or acrylic cases, and The Tomb (1967), a bright pink ziggurat installation. The pink ziggurat had a ramp that led to an effigy of the artist inside with a casted replica of Thek's body. Thek realized an alter ego in this piece which began his interest as a performance artist.Unfortunately The Tomb was badly damaged in 1981, however the piece was documented in Edwin Klein's black and white photographs.Today his work may be seen in numerous collections, including that of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Thek, who was bisexual, died of AIDS related illness in New York City in 1988, aged 54.
In 1954, Thek moved to Miami and worked in several different occupations. He formed a partnership with the set designer Peter Harvey,[6] who would design for Balanchine and who introduced him to artists, composers and writers, among them Tennessee Williams.During this time, he created some of his first well-known drawings, including studies in charcoal and graphite, later followed by abstract watercolors and monochrome oil paintings. Thek first referred to himself as Paul Thek starting in 1955. In 1957 Thek exhibited his works for the first time in a Miami gallery.
During the 1970s, Thek lived in Italy, where he created many works in conjunction with friend and photographer Peter Hujar. In 1976, Thek returned to New York once again. Having lost what prestige he had accumulated in the American art scene of the 1960s, he spent his remaining days washing floors and bagging groceries, however creating art all along. On August 10, 1988, Thek, weakened by HIV/AIDS, died of illness. Susan Sontag dedicated her classic and influential 1966 collection of critical essays, Against Interpretation, which took up with the latest developments in European critical thought—notably that of Roland Barthes—and her later AIDS and its Metaphors to Thek's memory.Wikipedia