Mark Ryden’s much-anticipated new exhibit, Dodecahedron, opened last Thursday at Paul Kasmin Gallery on 10th Avenue, and what a happening it was! A line of hardcore fans began snaking down the block 30 minutes before the doors even opened! Once we were let inside, promptly at 6 PM, it quickly became a mob scene and it was virtually impossible to get clear shots of any of the art, perhaps best exemplified by the photo above, where the epic, 12-foot high painting, Aurora, is obscured as high as 5 feet off the ground. It was evident that we would have to make a return trip for blogging purposes, which we did this weekend. Continue reading I Went to Mark Ryden’s Dodecahedron Exhibit, And it Was Really Crowded→
Artist Chuck Close is renowned for his highly inventive investigations into how we process information. Celebrated internationally, Close uses the absolute minimum amount of information necessary to render likenesses. In the new works for his sixteenth exhibition with Pace, entitled Red Yellow Blue , Close continues his involvement with the grid as an organizing device, creating full-color paintings out of only cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments, and layering colors in singular brushstrokes; applying multiple thin washes of red, yellow and blue paint in each cell of the grid, until they accumulate into extravagant full-color images. Continue reading Chuck Close, Red Yellow Blue at Pace Gallery→
ClampArt Gallery is currently hosting an exhibit of homo-erotic self-portraits from the ’70s and ’80s by the infamous gay icon, Peter Berlin. The reason there are only two photos in this post is because these were two of the few in which Berlin’s very impressive junk is not fully on display. Here is a bit of background on the photographer and model: in his 20s, Berlin worked as a celebrity portraitist for German television. Around this time, that he began designing and sewing his own skin-tight clothing, which he would wear as he cruised the parks and train stations in Berlin, Rome, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. Continue reading Peter Berlin, Wanted at ClampArt→
Jamie Wyeth (son of artist Andrew Wyeth) began painting Pumpkinhead (1972) as a portrait of his friend, Jimmy Lynch, but eventually finished the painting himself, wearing the pumpkin as a mask.
Cropped at the ankles and wearing a too-small military jacket, he stands alone in a hazy field strewn with dry autumn leaves. To the artist, the jack-o-lantern carries an eerie charm. “I always loved the carved face just leering at you…” he admits.
Photographed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was born and educated in England but lived most of her adult life in Mexico City. She was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. At one point, Carrington was involved in a relationship with fellow surrealist Max Ernst, but the couple never married.
