Don't miss our reception:
Saturday, July 30th, from 6:00 - 8:00pm
at Mark McDonald, 555 Warren Street, 2nd Floor, Hudson, NY
(518) 965-4064
(518) 965-4064
The term “AbEx” has commonly been employed to describe a movement seemingly frozen in time. The “big boys” of this avant garde - Jackson Pollack, Willem DeKooning, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline were drinking hard at the Cedar Tavern in New York City or throwing ideas and paint around in their Lower East Side studio lofts or camping on the sofas of their various therapists who themselves were trying to coin an understanding of what made these people, this moment in history, so incredibly unique. With the luxury of hindsight, we can see how desperately committed all of the players were in ferreting out a path or a definition of this extraordinary and totally new way of applying paint to canvas, expressing the ideas that were born out of a century addicted to war and atrocity. It is impossible to understand this work simply as a movement that grew out of Surrealism and was nurtured by the plethora of late 19th and early 20th century isms…Impressionism, Post –Impressionism, Cubism, Orphism, etc….Abstract Expressionism, as exhibited in this show, has continued to evolve and flourish to this day thanks to a number of influences.
With these thoughts in mind we can celebrate the accomplishments of the pieces in this show.
The Conrad Marca-Relli collage of canvas, paper and paint on board is a wonderful example of organic shapes and a variety of textures organized inside a narrow palette. Punctured canvas puzzle parts are “sewn” together like a dressmaker’s pattern in a beautiful light salmon field. Also in this vein, but with an explosion of color, is the Robert Goodnough oil on canvas. I’ve rarely seen such an enormous painting done successfully on such an intimate scale. The affinity these two pieces share, one from the 1950’s one from the 1970’s, one with a subdued palette, the other with dozens of colors, tones and hues is quite memorable. (I love how each puzzle piece holds the viewers attention) The large Kazuya Sakai in this show is a fascinating bridge between the Goodnough aesthetic of the 50’s and the Marca-Relli studied composition of the 70’s. Sakai was born in Argentina, raised in Japan and painted in New York City in the 1960’s. This canvas from 1964 has all the bells and whistles of Absrtract Expressionism-texture, form, depth and a solid composition. The canvas was purchased from the original owner in 1988 and has never been exhibited in public…. wonderful to see three decades of East Coast painting sharing the same space.
The incredibly bold attack with brush and color that James Suzuki executed on the three oils on paper in this show are in stark contrast to the large, 60” x 72”, oil on canvas from the same period. The frenzy with which the paint is lashed onto the works on paper is the perfect storm before the calm sea of color forms intricately connected with graphite lines on the complex canvas; these works by the same hand couldn’t be more different. The same observation could be made of the two canvases in this show by Noriko Yamamoto. The predominantly black and white action painting “Untitled 60-4” continues the West Coast assault with gesture. On the other hand, “Tsukumi” from the same year, is a quiet cerebral meditation.
AbExEastWest at Mark McDonald offers a unique opportunity to see a large variety of works in different mediums from different schools of the AbEx movement in one room. The dialogue that springs up amongst works in so many different sizes is a real highlight of seeing an exhibition in person; particularly so when drawn from several privates collections. We hope you enjoy viewing this show as much as we have enjoyed pulling it together.
Kico Govantes
