The most acute charge of contemporary abstraction is its
obligation to engage power structures. Patterns and its affordances serve as
symptoms, critiques, or celebrations of systems of order and routines. Additionally
its formal interpretations are the root of value systems and its visual
multiplicity.
Varied degrees of formal and informal arrangements, systems of
organizations and visual vocabulary are at work and often to different ends in
PATTERNS II. As in the exhibition PATTERNS I which included works by Sheila
Hicks, Edda Renouf, Dan Walsh, Stephen Westfall what is evident in all work is
serious repetitive concentration and a recognition that abstraction is a
complex and evolving cultural engagement. The work in both exhibitions is
rigorous and disciplined but never forced or forbidding. Each work in its own
way manifests degrees of wonderment in material histories, intellectual
disciplines, and systems found in nature.
Polly Apfelbaum, Liza Lou, Sheila Hicks and Stephen Westfall share
the exigent conditions of materiality, temporality, and the professional ethics
in extraordinary works of haptic form and color. Olivier Mosset, Sadie
Benning, and John Zinsser employ formal invention as a critical means to upend
traditional and hierarchical programs in modern histories, visual and material
culture. Amplifying the rudimentary or the overlooked patterns culled from
routines of daily life, Kate Newby, Kristina Matousch, Edda Renouf’s work
convey fullness, vibrancy, and strength of familiar and reoccurring gestures.
And the hard-edge systems encompassing Ditty Ketting, Dan Walsh, Jan van der
Ploeg, and Lars Wolter reflect rigorous propositions of graphic pattern and
color in which no more can be added and nothing can be subtracted; a balance
between opticality, rhythm and emancipatory undertakings. Yet it is the vast
critical affordances of pattern and form that cut through each of these
artist’s work, regardless of their inventive vocabularies that grips my ethics
and my eyes.
Michelle Grabner
This
exhibition was intended to be installed and opened to the public as of April 2nd.
Because of the current health epidemic, travel restrictions and out of respect
for all people involved, the installation views are only imaginary views of what was planned. We wish you
good health and patience during these difficult times and hope this exhibition
allows you to reflect on the various patterns in your lives, surrounding you
and in the show.
With
sincere thanks to the artists Polly Apfelbaum, Sadie Benning, Ditty Ketting,
Liza Lou, Kristina Matousch, Olivier Mosset, Kate Newby, Jan van der Ploeg, Lars
Wolter, John Zinsser, curator and friend Michelle Grabner, and their galleries,
Cooper Cole Gallery, Frith Street Gallery, Galerie Gisela
Clement, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Rocket Gallery.
Anne
Mosseri-Marlio
