Untitled (in Honor of Leo at the 30th Anniversary of his Gallery), 1987 (All Photos by Gail )
In these uncertain times, I find myself drawn more and more to the comfort of nostalgia — especially the kind tied to art and the people I experienced it with. For me, that means thinking back to when my close friend, artist Geoffrey Dicker, was still living in New York and we were inseparable. For years, Thursdays meant gallery-hopping through Chelsea — sometimes a dozen openings in a night —and weekends were reserved for museums. Art wasn’t just something we looked at. It was everything. Continue reading Dan Flavin’s Grids at David Zwirner Gallery→
Beginning in the 1960s, Keith Sonnier (1941 – 2020) was one of the few artists experimenting with neon tubing as a sculptural medium. His pursuit was part of a larger interest in using everyday and industrial materials, foregoing the illusory space of painting in favor of a more literal and direct, artistic approach.
Bruce Nauman’s neon sculpture, Human Nature / Life Death (1983) is a circle of words corresponding to the defining contradictions of human existence — life and death, love and hate, pleasure and pain — are trisected by the words Animal, Human and Nature.
Circle Portal A By Keith Sonnier (All Photos By Gail)
Maccarone Gallery is currently hosting Portals, 14 new wall-mounted neon sculptures by artist Keith Sonnier. Sonnier’s by-now iconic work is emblematic of a generation of artists who sought to liberate the artistic encounter from the formal constraints of Modernism to produce a sensory and emotional experience that also extended beyond the Spartan affect of Minimalism. The category of post-Minimalism, however, does not adequately describe both the unique wit and visceral impact that Sonnier’s work displays. Continue reading Keith Sonnier, Portals at Maccarone Gallery→
Ivan Navarro uses electric light as his primary medium, appropriate the austere visual language of Minimalism and imbuing it with political resonance. For Homeless Lamp, the Juice Sucker (2004–05), he built a grocery cart out of fluorescent tubes and, with it, wandered to the gallery-lined streets of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. The luminous sculpture evokes the work of Dan Flavin while also referencing an object commonly repurposed by homeless people for storage and transportation. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Ivan Navarro’s Homeless Lamp, The Juice Sucker→
