The Subject is the Line reviewed in Two Coats of Paint, August 2021

The upstate line

Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / August 20, 2021 2:08pm

“The Subject is The Line” at the Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, New York, is a handsome, beautifully installed exhibition of the work of fourteen established artists. The show, as curator Donna Moylan writes, “brings together a group of artists who have affinities” because they make “The Line the very protagonist of the work, both what it is about and how it is demonstrated – or demonstrates itself.” Most of the work is understandably abstract, and all but three of the artists make paintings (or at least painting-like objects). Almost all the artists have a presence in the Hudson Valley area, New York City, or both.

Chatham may not be Brooklyn or Chelsea, but artwise, it’s by no means a rustic backwater. Nor is it so rural that it has no culture other than the county fair. The town is bustling with shops selling upscale, tasteful items, and the Shaker Museum, located for years in nearby Old Chatham, will soon move to a building on Chatham’s main street. Home to the late Ellsworth Kelly, Chatham has long welcomed part-time New Yorkers and ex-New Yorkers, and the bucolic area is a growing choice for many New York artists wanting a residence outside the city. As Moylan sees it, “Perhaps the ancient intelligence of farmland is especially compatible to art-making, as if the quiet labor, the seasonal rhythm and crop harvesting of farming had a similarity to studio work.” Over the past couple of decades, “outlier” towns like Chatham, Hudson, and North Adams, Massachusetts (with MassMOCA), have become mini-centers of art. They and several other towns in the Northeast – some very small, like Falls Village, Connecticut, which hosts Furnace Art on Paper Archive – now welcome serious art, contributing to the ongoing destabilization of the twentieth-century model whereby New York, LA or Chicago were the only places for serious art.

Although all the artists in this show do use line – some a great deal of it – I found myself wondering whether it is always the major element, or whether any of the art is actually “about” line, especially in a formal sense. De Kooning and Gorky both constantly used line, but is their work about line, or is it about their anxious striving for immediate expression, which line merely suits best?

The best case for the curatorial premise lies in Anne Lindberg’s two large wall pieces, in graphite and colored pencil on mat board. From a distance the works seem to shimmer, but up close one sees a multitude of long, precisely drawn parallel lines that start and end at a small, calculated distance from the edges of the board. They’re reminiscent of the early 1960s line paintings of Robert Irwin, who would spend over a year painting a single horizontal line. In both Irwin’s and Lindberg’s cases, the effect is elegantly simple yet tactile. The most important aspect of this kind of picture, however, is the meditative solace derived from the patience and mindfulness it takes to make such perfect lines.

Ellen Kozak, Barges, Tugs and Tankers No.13, 2020, oil on panel, 13 x 22 inches

Ellen Kozak’s two abstract oil-on-panel pieces, each a small horizontal rectangle, are also made with multiple parallel lines. Her work seems only tenuously “about” line. On her website, the artist herself talks about her work in terms of “observations of nighttime passages; barges, tugs and tankers; reflections, illuminations and moonlight on the Hudson River.” In other words, she sees her paintings as coming from painterly meditations on the light and movement she observes on the Hudson River at night.

Holly Miller, Sway #4, 2021, Acrylic, graphite, thread on canvas, 20 x 20 x 2 inches

In Holly Miller’s thin threads, sewn in parallel fashion into her two small acrylic paintings (Block #1, Sway # 4, both from 2021), the fact that there are sewn elements in the paintings overrides any perception that these elements make pictorial lines. Katharine Umsted’s small pink vessels are made of plaster bandages, newspaper, acrylic, and glitter in such a way that the outer surfaces look as if lines envelop them, yet, as with all three-dimensional forms, the physical shape and presence of the objects predominate. As for Gary Stephan’s small painting MIRROR THREE (2021), it could as readily be included in an exhibition emphatically about shape as one about line.

Katharine Umsted, Fowsio/Success, 2020, plaster bandages, newspaper, acrylic, glitter, 19 x 24 x 10.25 inches

Gary Stephan, MIRROR THREE, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches

I’m happy enough to refrain from asking what constitutes a line (in geometry, it has only one dimension, length; in art, it’s an entirely different matter). But – and maybe it’s the metaphysician in me – I must observe that an artist’s use of line versus shape is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Artists will always reach for what they need to say what they want to say. That said, none of my qualms about the theme of the show should detract from the overall excellence of what’s in it. Moylan has brought together strong work by a group of excellent artists who make a wide range of art, all of it compelling. That’s quite an accomplishment. If you’re anywhere in the area before the show closes on September 5, it’s definitely worth a visit.

“The Subject is The Line,” curated by Donna Moylan. Artists include Agnes Barley, Laura Battle, Julie Evans, Carter Hodgkin, Ellen Kozak, Anne Lindberg, Susan Mastrangelo, Susan Meyer, Holly Miller, Michael Scott, Mark Sheinkman, Gary Stephan, Katharine Umsted, Tamara Zahaykevich. Thompson Giroux Gallery, 57 Main Street, Chatham, NY. Open Thursday through Monday, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. Through September 5, 2021.

About the author: Laurie Fendrich is a painter, writer, and professor emerita of fine arts at Hofstra University. Based in New York City and Lakeville, Connecticut, she is currently working on a new series of abstract paintings.

new representation with Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Houston, TX

I am delighted to announce that I have joined Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, TX.
Please visit Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art for more information.

a new light, solo exhibition at The Landing is open thru August 21, 2021

a new light
solo exhibition
The Landing
5118 West Jefferson Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90016
July 11 - August 21, 2021

The Landing is pleased to present a new light, a solo exhibition of new works by Upstate New York-based multimedia artist Anne Lindberg. The show includes a forty-foot-wide thread-based installation and ten drawings and is the artist’s first solo exhibition on the West Coast.

The exhibition takes its name from the installed work “a new light” (2021), made of thousands of threads that span the gallery from wall to wall, evoking a pillar of light transiting the gallery horizontally, as if the sun’s energy could run as a circuit wall to wall, paused and observable. 

The work itself is a record of the walking required in its creation. To install the piece, Lindberg moves across the gallery again and again, threading and affixing, and the long, repetitive, meditative process of that movement is palpable in the finished work—which carries the feeling of a stillness built of slow, regular movement.

The gallery’s architecture is central to the experience of the installation. Positioned below the gallery’s several skylights, the thread work creates lineated shadows that move throughout the day in relation to the sun. This slow but ever-mobile shadow-transit mirrors the bodies movements used in building the installation. As clouds pass over the gallery, optical dynamics appear and disappear, doubling and undoubling upon themselves to create a constantly changing sequence of phenomena. This immersive lineation is a hovering buoyant drawing with thread in air - considered and experienced with the body.

In 2018, Lindberg had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City where she presented another sun-evoking thread-based piece, “the eye’s level.” Lindberg showed another such work, “the long sun,” at Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) Raleigh. So, “a new light” (2021) is the latest in a series of light-shard explorations by Lindberg. It is the first of Lindberg’s works to follow the pandemic’s quarantine, and the first, therefore, to evoke the question: how is our experience of light changed by its absence, and then its return? 

The consideration of light by way of straight lines continues in the ten drawings that complete the exhibition. Throughout the drawings, color comes and goes, moving in and out of prominence like a kind of weather. This movement mirrors the emergence and disappearance of the changes in chroma within the installed thread work as clouds move over the gallery.

Lindberg’s drawings are built of tightly composed, subtly shifting lines in graphite and colored pencil that are oriented horizontally or vertically across white mat board. Using an extruded gesture, Lindberg varies pressure and speed, as well as the tilt and posture of her hand, to create each of the thousands of lines in her drawings. The sharpness and dullness of the pencil lead and the line-by-line choice of color establishes an ever-present gradient of lights and darks. Mixes of colors, from subtle to electric, are inserted into this field suggesting protean states of mind and a visual acknowledgement of the constancy of change.

In the drawing “flash: verdant” (2020), a pale field of vertical lines appears along the left side where it is met suddenly by a flash of vivid color – oranges and greens – that resolves into blues and blacks as the eye journeys to the right edge of the drawing. The darkening and condensing atmosphere is subtle, nearly imperceptible, when viewed up close, yet dramatic when viewed from several paces away.

Each line in Lindberg’s drawings ends at a slightly different place, creating an organic edge that presents each line as a singular element carefully laid into position within the matrix. While the straightness of the lines implies the use of a ruler, the free expression at either end gives prominence to the maker’s hand—just as the thread-based installation is an indexical register of the maker’s project of installing her work. 

A new series of drawings called “roots of how we measure” take a new turn. Sequences of lines gain momentum and then subside, with color acting a catalyst that heightens the language of surprise, interruption, and contrast. In “root of how we measure 06,” a tilting black bar of acrylic paint partially obscures a brilliant fluorescent wedge of orange. Whereas earlier drawings reflect the physical passage of the body within its environment, the pronounced shifts and tilts within “roots of how we measure” articulate an internal psychological restlessness, and in so doing, ground us in a quieter space. 

All of Lindberg’s drawings carry an emotional weight within an overall atmosphere of ethereality. The drawings seem to be asking us to attend to both the internal and the external challenges of our time. It seems only natural that works made in 2020 and 2021, during a pandemic, explore repetition, pattern, the paced and regular walking of lines, transitions in and out of density, and the experience of light’s brilliance after the palpable heaviness of its absence. 

all photographs by Joshua White Photography

Light and Shadow at Shelter in Place Gallery - June 18-20, 2021

saffron fog
solo exhibition
part of Light and Shadow curated by Caroline Kipp, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.
Shelter in Place Gallery
June 18-20, 2021

Sun spilling through morning mist inspired Anne Lindberg’s “saffron fog,” a light-filled installation where color is suspended in a glowing atmosphere. Made with fine pastel rubbed and brushed into the surface of the paper, these wall drawings were slowly built, pass by pass to reach their intensity and variations.

With its sense of clarity and connection to the sun, yellow has symbolized wisdom, imagination, intellect, and life-affirming hope across religions, continents, and eras.Yet yellow’s ability to grab attention can also serve as a warning; veering into hazards, mania, illness, deceit, and decay. Lindberg reflects that “throughout the pandemic, our collective responses of hope and despair, science and contradiction, seem to make yellow a fitting color for the moment.

Light and Shadow, curated by Caroline Kipp is a fundraiser for CERF+ (The Artists Safety Net). Artists included in Light and Shadow: Inga Adda, Nathaniel Bearg, Christina Bothwell, Yétúndé Olagbaju, Walker Roman, Leigh Suggs with prints by Amos Kennedy, Jr.

Christina Bothwell has generously donated her exhibition work for auction to benefit CERF+. All proceeds from this auction will be matched by an anonymous donor, and added to the COVID-19 Response Fund at CERF+, the Artists Safety Net. The auction will end on June 28th, and is being jointly organized with the James Renwick Alliance for Craft.

In life and in art, you can’t have light without the dark. In every imaginable medium, artists throughout history have explored the themes of light and dark visually, or in the content of the work itself. The radiance of light has expressed spiritual illumination, and the thirst for transcendence. Darkness, the unknowable and frightening within ourselves and the world. In Light & Shadow, the featured artworks bridge the dichotomy, and rest in that generative space between. 

Throughout the exhibition a concurrent print sale and an auction will fundraise for CERF+, to help those who need some light in the dark. CERF+ was started by artists for artists in the craft community as a grassroots mutual aid effort in 1985 and has since emerged as the leading nonprofit organization that uniquely focuses on safeguarding artists’ livelihoods nationwide. Funds raised from the print sale will be matched by an anonymous donor, and added to the COVID-19 Response Fund at CERF+, to support their continued valuable work. If the past year has taught us anything, it is that without one another, there is no light.

Everyday opens at Haw Contemporary, Kansas City - June 18 - August 6, 2021

Anne Lindberg, flash: moon, 2021, graphite and colored pencil on mat board, 24 by 26 inches

Haw Contemporary is pleased to announce three exhibitions opening at the Stockyards location, opening June 18 through August 6,m 2021.

The artists in Everyday (Archie Scott Gobber, Anne Lindberg, Mike Sinclair) share deep connections and decades of friendship and experience. And while the artists and their work have evolved over the years, these exhibitions exude a palpable sense of familiarity, history, and place that feels so, so right as we emerge from this long, strange period.

The first serious photographs I remember taking were of a white birch tree in our front yard in Westwood. My mother had just planted it. She was very proud of it. It was the only white birch on our block. I felt her pride and wanted to somehow capture it in my pictures: close-ups of the paper-like bark, the heart shaped leaves. The pictures that came back from the camera store were small, 2-1/4 by 3-1/4, black and white, and mostly out of focus because our family camera's fixed focus lens was not designed for subjects closer than four or five feet. Still, they felt special to me, different from the family pictures we would take by the Christmas tree, at birthday parties, or dressed up for Easter Sunday and posed in front of that same white birch tree. These small pictures were my first efforts at making something serious, something that held a feeling, something that was like art. - Mike Sinclair

I grew up in a household filled with color and light -- folk art objects, farm auction furniture, colorful fabrics and candles reflected my parents’ Scandinavian and Welsh heritages. It was a magical place full of wonder and history. My mother fueled her life by color, from the contents of the dinner plate to the scenes and patterns she painted on floors and walls. My father met the world thoughtfully through science -- geography, geology, and economics -- and a deep commitment to living gently on the land. He rode his bike down a big hill, across the river, and up another hill to the university every day of his 50+ year teaching life. He also rode home for lunch and back each day except Wednesdays. Over the last year, I have made many drawings. They are symphonic passages of graphite and colored pencil that carry the spirit of my childhood. Surprises are tucked into the detailed spaces of the drawings. They are also daily observations of the environment surrounding and within my current home and studio. This new work reflects the constantly fluid circumstances of weather, skylight, psychological states, agrarian cycles, and daily news of despair and hope. These drawings are registers of protean days as they knit together my past and present. - Anne Lindberg

In considering the title of this show “Everyday”, I think of my everyday routine and how it was altered in the first few months of COVID 19. I still got up and made coffee, although not at 6am as before. I got The NY Times app because I needed immediate news. It’s what I did while the coffee was brewing. Everyday the news was worrying and confusing to me. During my 2 week quarantine it seemed as though my world had returned to a romantic version of my childhood. Neighbors I’d never seen walked down the street, waved and we sometimes talked. Maybe I’ll do yard work or take a nap. There was really nothing to worry about, other than the future or dying. Suddenly there were no demands of me, no deadlines and no expectations. I really liked this new routine that was so different and freeing. “Is this what retirement is?”, I thought.  As an artist, I was not productive. I made, maybe, 3 pieces over the year. I worried I’d regret not taking advantage of this time. Lately, I find myself trying to maintain some of the things I liked about the COVID days. But as everyday passes, fewer neighbors walk by, yard work is a chore, naps are rare, demands, deadlines and expectations are returning, and everyday I make coffee.  - Archie Scott Gobber

Lost and Proud exhibition catalog is available!

Exhibition catalogs for last summer’s Lost and Proud show with the River Valley Arts Collective are now available in print! Thanks to Nori Pao for a beautiful digital design that is now available via the LuLu bookstore.

Lost and Proud was an exhibition featuring work by Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg, and Laurel Sparks that took place in Newburgh in May 2020. The exhibition was inspired by the historical great Lenore Tawney. We hoped to gather people together for a symposium. This publication became the alternative means for sharing ideas when events were not possible.

Featuring texts by Allyson Baker, Candice Madey, Jennie Goldstein, Shannon Stratton and Karen Patterson.

Thank you to the artists and writers and to the Lenore Tawney Foundation for making this possible!

#rivervalleyartscollective

Only Connect PDF exhibition catalog is out!

The exhibition catalog for Only Connect can be viewed here.

Only Connect, at Carrie Secrist Gallery is inspired by a short epigraph found on the title page of E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End as an essential reminder of the power of connection. In essence, this “connection” moves beyond the moral and social importance of the relationship between individuals and their backgrounds, and is something more private and essential: the personal and necessary value of connection and mutual understanding, regardless of time.  

This is an exhibition about the connections artists forge, the conversations they have, and the ways in which they lift each other up. The show presents ten pairings of artists who have connected in variety of diverse ways that express a desire to inspire and be inspired by each other. Some of these connections include a shared studio practice, material consciousness, conceptual underpinnings, sense of community or ethos, explorations outside the visual arts and educational connections.

This curated grouping composed of artists involved with Carrie Secrist Gallery presently and over the years examines connections and art that were made primarily during the disconnected time of 2020. With each collaborative effort, gender plays a role in their creative process but is not the basis on which the work should be considered. Only Connect aspires to present an art world that feeds off of shared inspiration, dialogue and support for each other’s creative evolution.

Click here to view a walk-thru of the exhibition with Carrie Secrist.

Only Connect opens at Carrie Secrist Gallery Saturday, November 21, 2020

ONLY CONNECT

November 21, 2020—February 20, 2021 

Heather Becker / Jeanne Gang
Whitney Bedford / Anna Schachte
Antonia Contro / Clara Lyon/Hannah Collins
Megan Greene / Thalia Agosto
Diana Guerrero-Maciá / Jesse Harrod
Anne Lindberg / Ginny Threefoot
Carolyn Ottmers / Earth Art Creatives
Liliana Porter / Ana Tiscornia
Lisa Solar / Liz Nielsen
Dannielle Tegeder / Sharmistha Ray

Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition Only Connect. This exhibition opens November 14 and continues through February 13, 2021. It will be viewable in person and by appointment at our gallery space located at 900 W. Washington BLVD, Chicago, IL post city-mandated lockdown. It will also be viewable in our online viewing room, opening to the public Saturday, November 14 at 10AM (CST). To make an appointment in person, please visit the Reservation page on our website.

Inspired by a short epigraph found on the title page of E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End, Only Connect  is an essential reminder of the power of connection. In essence, this “connection” moves beyond the moral and social importance of the relationship between individuals and their backgrounds, and is something more private and essential: the personal and necessary value of connection and mutual understanding, regardless of time.  

Only Connect  is an exhibition about the connections artists forge, the conversations they have, and the ways in which they lift each other up. The show presents ten pairings of artists who have connected in variety of diverse ways that express a desire to inspire and be inspired by each other. Some of these connections include a shared studio practice, material consciousness, conceptual underpinnings, sense of community or ethos, explorations outside the visual arts and educational connections.

This curated grouping composed exclusively of women artists attempts to imagine a world where such an exhibition is not an anomaly or even noteworthy for its gender makeup. Only Connect  aspires to present an art world where sexism no longer exists. Just as Ruth Bader Ginsberg responded “when there are nine” when asked “when will there be enough women on the supreme court,” Only Connect  sees an art world where no one bats an eye at a show of all women.

Glenn Adamson and Anne Lindberg In Conversation with Manitoga - September 30, 2020 at 5pm EST

Date Time: Sep 30, 2020 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 
Topic: Glenn Adamson and Anne Lindberg In Conversation | September 30, 2020 at 5PM EST 

CLICK HERE to watch recording of the conversation event.

Join us for a conversation between 2020 resident artist Anne Lindberg and Glenn Adamson, an independent curator / writer and host of Design in Dialogue, an online interview series co-presented with Friedman Benda Gallery. Lindberg’s work through images of her intricate drawings and site-specific installations made with fine chromatic threads and her two-step drawing intervention cycles of seeing at Manitoga.

https://www.visitmanitoga.org/2020-artist-residency-anne-lindberg

Studio Distancing Studio Visit with Textile Museum Curator of Contemporary Art Caroline Kipp - August 2020

Link to the Studio Distancing Studio Visit - with full set of images

ANNE LINDBERG. ANCRAMDALE, NY

August 6, 2020

Anne Lindberg makes immersive installations and drawings that tap a non-verbal physiological landscape of body and space. Her work has been in solo and group exhibitions at such places as The Drawing Center (NYC), Tegnerforbundet (Norway), SESC Bom Retiro (Sao Paulo), The Mattress Factory, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Arts and Design NYC, CAM Raleigh, US Embassy in Rangoon Burma, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Akron Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, and the Omi International Art Center, among others. Lindberg is a recipient of awards including a 2011 Painters & Sculptors Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Charlotte Street Foundation Fellowship, Lighton International Artists Exchange, Art Omi International Artists Residency, and a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Lindberg earned an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

For more information, please see: http://www.annelindberg.com and on Instagram @annelindbergstudio.

First, and most importantly, how are you doing? How are you navigating the highs and lows?

I am trying really hard to see this time for what is gained rather than what is lost, both in terms of my studio life within the coronavirus crisis and with national voices speaking out against racial injustices. I have hope that global protests can bring about positive structural change. Artists have always played an important role in moments like these and I am encouraged by the power of art to awaken change. However, I am definitely experiencing swings between relative clarity and complete lack of focus, and near immobility. These states of mind seem to shift frequently and arrive unannounced. It is terribly difficult to keep from sinking into deep despair for the struggles of so many due to COVID-19 and the complete lack of leadership around a unified clear strategy. 

Development of flash drawings in progress for, vivid messengers, an online solo exhibition at Carrie Secrist Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

It's my experience that most artists engage with some level of self-isolation in their day to day art practice. Has this been your experience? And if so, have you found these innate rhythms to be helpful during this larger, world-wide experience of isolation?

I am grateful that my studio rhythm has been essentially the same. I have always worked in my studio multiple days without much social contact and relish long uninterrupted days drawing, reading, conceptualizing. Now, consecutive quiet days have stretched to weeks, now months, as the pandemic continues to rage worldwide. I live in a rural agricultural region of New York state, so I am quite a distance from our neighbors, and grateful for the ability to find nourishing food at local farms.

View of models of several projects that are postponed; the gradient of blue thread in foreground (including indigo-dyed) is for an immersive installation at the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, MA; this project, originally set to open at the end of May 2020, has now been re-scheduled for next summer; the exhibition is called By Design, curated by Sarah Margolis-Pineo, and will celebrate the 60th anniversary of this Shaker museum.

Has any of your imagery shifted in a reflection to what's currently happening? 

During March, I completed a series of two-panel drawings for a drawing intervention at Manitoga, Russell Wright’s home and studio in Garrison, NY, called cycles of seeing. The project is opening a bit later than planned on July 10 with scheduled tours for social distancing. I also had four drawings in a group exhibition called Lost and Proud, curated by Candice Madey with the River Valley Arts Collective at Thornwillow in Newburgh, NY. I am grateful to RVA for moving forward with an “in real life” exhibition and for creating a beautiful catalog. The catalog can be downloaded on the RVA website. The show includes four contemporary arts whose work finds connection to the legacy of Lenore Tawney - Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Laurel Sparks, and myself.

This year was planned to be very full for me with a medley of some six exhibitions and installation projects that are now either postponed or will exist online. My worktable is crowded with scale models of concepts & plans waiting to be realized. One solo museum exhibition was re-scheduled for Fall 2022! That’s seems like a lifetime from now. The likelihood of postponed exhibitions was quickly apparent to me, so when shelter-in-place began, I instinctively turned to a series of new drawings. What has evolved are fairly small in scale and hold something of my psychological state -- colors are more intense; gestures are more pronounced; emotions are more palpable; shifts are more sudden. This new work just opened in vivid messengers, an online exhibition at Carrie Secrist Gallery along with a group of drawings I was making just before COVID-19 arrived. It will be interesting to see, as time goes on, how this intense time influences future work. I have always understood the evolution of my work as incremental, each work leads to the next and the next in a long string of ideas.

It would be great if you could briefly talk us through your practice. Understanding it is integral to appreciating the multivalence of your work. 

In broad terms, my work is created through the fundamental gesture of pulling lines: from point to point, across surfaces, through three-dimensional spaces. The colorful fields and volumes I build register my physicality and psychology—the pressure of my hand, the pace of my step, the rhythm and speed of individual accumulating actions, the tenor of my perceptions. It is process intensive work that is emphatically material, yet also elusive and phenomenological. My intent is to create abstract works that feel lit from within and tap a non-verbal place, inducing physiological responses and evincing a sense of alchemy.

For over thirty years, I have been working within a broad definition of drawing, pushing conventions of scale, context, and format. My installations are composed of fine chromatic threads pulled tautly between points: luminous “drawings in space” that cut across rooms, swarm corners, or hover overhead. Carefully planned while also incorporating on-site improvisation, they respond to and amplify attributes of their environments to directly engage the body and effect how space is navigated and perceived. Produced through an incremental, labor-intensive process, this work is strongly informed by my background in textiles, while also pushing definitions of drawing, sculpture and craft. 

Composed incrementally of thousands of hand-drawn lines, my 2D drawings are intimate and indexical, embodying time, labor, the presence of my hand, and the movement of my body. Increasingly, they are optically complex, and often architectural in scale, with forms emerging and disappearing within and across fields that imply three-dimensional spaces. I am interested in creating works that vibrate between states and modes of understanding—intensely visual but perceptually mysterious; affecting in a manner that exceeds language.

What do you think or hope will be different after this crisis has passed?

I fear an increasing divide or isolation between rich and poor. As we move toward the fall elections, I hope this contracted & terrifying time will awaken an understanding of the intertwined relationships between social inequities and human health as this moment vividly exposes our unpreparedness for climate change. Just as we need smart global coordination to confront the climate crisis, we need universal health care and selfless effective leadership. COVID-19 is a vivid messenger standing at our doorstep right now, amplifying our challenges. 

What is bringing you solace, or even joy, in this moment?

I have found myself reading for a bit longer in the morning and spending long periods of time in the garden, looking, weeding, staking, trimming and harvesting.  We built 16” tall raised beds last fall, so my back is faring better than last year, ha! Those who know me are well aware that I love stacking wood. I moved a massive stack that was out in the garden into the covered woodshed for next year, and my husband and I have cleared brush and stacked stones along the edge of the wetland. Doing hard physical work has been a much-needed tonic.

Are you reading anything at the moment?

When shelter-in-place first began in early March in New York state, I quickly picked up the new biography These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Marking of Emily Dickinsonby Martha Ackmann. It’s such an important contribution to scholarship on Dickinson. Dickinson seemed just the right person to read about since she composed some of the most extraordinary poignant powerful creative work, nearly 2,000 poems found tucked into her drawers, all from her bedroom. I also read The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruinsby Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. The New York Timesand CNNMorning Briefingsarrive daily by email and have been manageable sources of news on COVID-19. In more recent weeks, I have been reading everything I can find of James Baldwin; I just started a biography of Frederick Douglas, and really enjoyed Vermeer in Bosnia, a collection of writings by Lawrence Weschler – he is such a great writer! The title essay brings together his observations of the Hague’s Yugoslav War Tribunals with the luminously serene paintings of Vermeer that were made in an equally violent time in Holland. It’s a profound and poignant piece of writing, that to me, suggests a way to find a sense of exile within a brutalist regime. It’s one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time.

___________________________________

Caroline Kipp is a curator, artist, and a textile and decorative arts historian. She holds a BFA in fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and an MA in museum studies from Harvard University. She is currently the Curator of Contemporary Art at the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C.

Previously, she was the Curatorial Associate in the Department of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston where she was responsible for the contemporary decorative arts collection, including the Daphne Farago collection. She curated the Farago gallery rotations, Jack Bush: Radiant Abstraction, Community Arts Initiative: Mindful Mandalas, and Community Arts Initiative: Endless Feast, co-curated Beyond the Loom: Fiber as Sculpture/Subversive Threads as part of Women Take the Floor and Perception is the Medium. Kipp served as the assistant and project manager on Cecilia Vicuna: Disappeared Quipu, Sheila Hicks, Nan Goldin, Lorraine O’Grady: Family Gained, Candice Breitz: Love Story, Maia Lynch: In Between, and Monuments to Us.

Prior to this she was part of the MFA Boston’s Textile and Fashion Arts Department where she contributed research to the exhibition Gender Bending Fashion.

Her areas of research include modern and contemporary textile arts, craftivism, jacquard weaving, French
kashmere shawls, and color field painting.

Anne Lindberg and Candice Madey in Conversation - July 2020

On the occasion of “vivid messengers,” an online exhibition of new work by Anne Lindberg at Carrie Secrist Gallery, Candice Madey joined Anne in conversation. Here is a recording.

Candice Madey is the owner of Stellar Projects, an art consulting firm that specializes in strategic plans and cultural programming for private foundations and collections. She is also curator for River Valley Arts Collective, a Hudson-Valley-based non-profit for the visual arts. She founded the pioneering Lower East Side gallery called On Stellar Rays in 2008 and, recently has been living in the Catskills region of the Hudson Valley. 

"cycles of seeing" drawing intervention opens to public July 10 at Manitoga, Garrison, NY

2020 ARTIST RESIDENCY - ANNE LINDBERG

The Artist Residency program was initiated in 2014 to foster creative responses to Manitoga that invoke Russel Wright's legacy of creative experimentation and celebration of place.Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center is pleased to announce year seven with presentations of work by New York based artist Anne Lindberg and British composer Pete M. Wyer. Anne Lindberg’s luminous large-scale drawings cycles of seeing will be installed in the main House beginning July 4 while Wyer will create an immersive sound installation in the landscape this summer as part of his evocative iForest series through September 26. Both works find inspiration in and community with Nature at Manitoga as Russel Wright did from the moment he took stewardship of this sacred land.

cycles of seeing by Anne Lindberg

On view with Tour Participation through November 9, 2020 and during special programs and events. Purchase Tickets at BrownPaperTickets.com beginning June 15, 2020.

At Manitoga, Wright was keenly aware of the seasonal cycle and rhythms of nature, of the daily and often barely perceptible changes in color and light in the landscape and within the house. Nature was the inspiration for Manitoga’s design, and it framed the rituals of every day life here as woodland footpaths followed the arc of the sun and the home’s furnishings and wall panels changed with the turn of season.

In her two-part drawing series cycles of seeing, Lindberg’s palette of thousands of colored parallel lines will transition from cool to warm as summer becomes fall at Manitoga, reflecting concerns of time, sequence and causality. Lindberg’s works unfold at the pace of her step as she pulls lines across a pliant mat board, and she finds context for her work within a long tradition of other “walking artists” including William Wordsworth, Rebecca Solnit, and Virginia Woolf. “Like these artists, philosophers and writers, I use walking as time to encourage a fluid state of perceptions, to contemplate place, and to affect change and adaptation as it informs incremental, moment-to-moment decisions in the making of my work.

”To Lindberg’s list of walking artists, we might add Russel Wright who routinely walked his seventy-five acres of woodlands over many years, observing, mapping and refining Manitoga’s footpaths and trails and placing his house and studio as part of a mindful and orchestrated movement through and dialogue with nature. Lindberg’s deliberate and measured pace informs the scale of her work as Wright’s was the measure of Manitoga. 

vivid messengers, opens online June 27, 2020 with Carrie Secrist Gallery

Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to present gallery artist Anne Lindberg’s vivid messenger, a virtual exhibition of new work made in her Hudson Valley studio between late 2019 and May 2020.

Created during the first weeks of lock down due to COVID-19, and presented at a time of social upheaval, Lindberg’s small mostly square drawings, made with graphite and colored pencil, respond to this moment in our history. Advancing her use of abstraction and emotive fields of lines, these drawings continue to explore atmospheric, rhythmic layers of luminous colors. The new drawings have a visceral quality that reflects Lindberg’s experience in these uncertain times.  

At the end of 2019, Lindberg made a series of small drawings called something clear. In each one, a shadow enters the space of the drawing, a distinct shape arriving from an ambiguous source. There’s a certain prescience to the work, for just a couple of months later, the world came under a viral shadow and suddenly became uncertain, uneasy, and so unclear. COVID-19 is a vivid messenger standing at our door, laying bare the intertwined relationships between social inequities and human health while squarely exposing our unpreparedness for climate change.

After the state of New York began sheltering-in-place in early March, Lindberg was moved to respond through drawing. What emerged is a series of flash drawings -- tonal fields of graphite and colored pencil with interruptions, disturbances, and flashes of errant color – a rendering of this messenger. These new drawings, richly layered with striking passages of reds, chartreuse, orange, and fuchsia represent Lindberg’s psychological state. They are expressions of captivation and despair, at once rhythmic and jarring, attempting a response to this critical moment. 

https://www.secristgallery.com/exhibitions/2020/anne-lindberg-vivid-messenger/ 

Lost and Proud is open at the Thornwillow Institute in Newburgh, NY - curated by Candice Madey

Lost and Proud

Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg & Laurel Sparks

Download publication →

open by appointment through River Valley Arts Collective from May 23 - June 21, 2020
Thornwillow Institute
7 Lander Street
Newburgh, NY 12550

River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to announce Lost and Proud, an exhibition of painting, drawing and photography by Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg, and Laurel Sparks, artists who integrate techniques traditionally employed in weaving and fiber art in to their studio practices. This exhibition and related activities will take place at The Thornwillow Institute in Newburgh, New York, an organization committed to promoting and perpetuating the art of craftsmanship in all its forms.
The exhibition’s title Lost and Proud cites a seminal work by pioneering fiber artist Lenore Tawney (1907-2007). Tawney challenged the technical conventions of weaving that she had been taught at the Penland School of Crafts in the early fifties, inventing a process she named “open warp,” in which erratic-weft threads illustrate a strong relationship to drawing.
Here, we explore various approaches to process and gesture through the lens of Tawney’s legacy of proficient materiality and innovation in the work of four Hudson Valley artists—Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg, and Laurel Sparks. Like in Tawney’s open warp tapestries, these artists rarely adhere to rigid expressions of the grid, embracing instead more fluid and improvisational compositions. The exhibition also considers the relationship between line and thread, with works on paper that relate to the qualities of textile. The title Lost and Proud suggests a confident and experimental mode of working, typified by each of these artist’s inquisitive and open-minded approach to their practice.
In conjunction with the exhibition, River Valley Arts Collective has produced a digital publication that explores Lenore Tawney’s legacy alongside the contemporary art practices of the exhibition’s artists, with newly commissioned texts by Karen Patterson, Curator, Fabric Workshop and Museum; Jennie Goldstein, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; and Shannon Stratton, Executive Director, Ox-Bow School of Art.
River Valley Arts Collective was founded by Alyson Baker in January of 2019, and is currently presenting itinerant programming in the Hudson Valley while working to secure and equip a permanent location. As goals are fully realized in the coming years, it will provide artists with the resources to create and present their work and host programs that connect and foster the creative community of our region. Central to River Valley Arts Collective will be an exhibition venue alongside three expansive communal studio spaces outfitted with tools and equipment for work in fiber, wood and clay, available to artists of the Hudson Valley and artists who are participating in area residencies.
River Valley Arts Collective is grateful for generous support from: The Al Held Foundation, Athena Foundation, Atlas Studios, Mark Dion, Kristen Dodge, John B. Koegel, Esq., The O’Grady Foundation, Clay Rockefeller, Richard Salomon Family Foundation, and The Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, and Luke Ives Pontifell, The Thornwillow Institute.

Lost and Proud is curated by Candice Madey. For more information, please contact info@RVACollective.org.

Anne Lindberg, insomnia 21, 2008 ink on vellum pressure-adhered to archival pigmented print, 28 by 34 inches

By Design 60th Anniversary exhibition at Hancock Shaker Village - re-scheduled for Summer 2021

By Design: The Enduring Shaker Legacy

re-scheduled for Summer 2021

Cynthia Alberto ▪ Thomas Barger ▪ Ladies & Gentlemen Studio ▪ Gary Graham 
Anne Lindberg ▪ Heide Martin ▪ Mary Mattingly ▪ Gregg Moore 
Nakashima Woodworkers ▪ Laura Sansone / New York Textile Lab ▪  Ian Stell 
Studio Gorm ▪ Christopher Specce ▪ Swamp Press ▪ Emmet Van Drieche

Commemorating its 60th anniversary, Hancock Shaker Village presents By Design: The Enduring Shaker Legacy (May 24 – October 31, 2020), a multifaceted exhibition highlighting the finest examples of Shaker craftsmanship alongside works by contemporary designers and makers whose practices speak to Shaker aesthetics and ideals. Shaker design is defined by purposeful concept and perfect execution—an aesthetic crafted by human hands intended for the divine. Since the eighteenth century, the Shakers have produced architecture, furniture, domestic and utilitarian tools, garments, and other objects of material culture that continue to serve as a touchstone of American vernacular design.

At its essence, this project asks: what is the enduring legacy of the Shakers, and how are Shaker ideals reflected through twentieth- and twenty-first-century design? 

Consider a Shaker ladderback chair, comprised of four posts, three slats, and a basket-woven wool seat. It could not be a more simple, functional object; yet, it represents the work of generations of master craftsmen who designed, refined, and passed on the skill to produce a chair with an intent—both functional and spiritual—that manifests through the object itself. In the mid-twentieth century, “good design,” the idea that nothing can be added or taken away, became a guiding principle for designers that combined the technology of industrial production with the dream of a simpler, more meaningful way of life, and designers created minimialist, stripped-down furniture that resonated with the formal and conceptual properties of Shaker design.

Today, confronted with a precarious environment and a political and economic landscape in distress, designers are once again rethinking the ways our material landscape is designed, produced, and used. There is a growing movement to consume less and value the objects more, and a new generation of hybrid designer-maker-artists producing works that, again, speak to the intention, respect for materials, and exceptional craft embodied by Shaker design. Particularly in the northeast where there is a longstanding culture of craftsmanship, designers are becoming worldmakers—like the Shakers, envisioning and designing the spaces, objects, and systems in which they want to live. 

Many works featured in By Design will come from Hancock Shaker Village’s 22,000-object collection and will represent exceptional examples of Shaker design—from iconic trestle tables, candle stands, and built-in cupboards to lesser-known tools, domestic objects, and goods for sale manufactured by Shaker industries. Each object will be selected for its significance within the Shaker design canon, as well as for its ability to reveal insights into the lives and beliefs of the Shakers. As a dialogical counterpoint, these iconic works created by the Shakers will be viewed alongside featured projects by a selection of established contemporary designer-makers whose diverse practices challenge disciplinary boundaries to envision alternative ways of giving shape to the world through design. The goal of this exhibition is to explore Shaker design on a continuum, addressing the significance of the Shaker aesthetic, ideals, and approach to craft yesterday, today, and in the future. 

Each designer selected for By Design has a creative practice that is in some way resonant with the Shaker legacy. These connections range from more formal iterations of contemporary Shaker design—such as Heide Martin’s splint woven cabinets and indigo-dyed inlayed tables, and Studio Gorm’s Enfield Swivel Chair and Shaker Baskets—to very ideological associations that delve into the spiritual, agricultural, domestic, and utopian ideas that were the foundation of Shaker life. For example, Mary Mattingly, an artist interested in food security and community agriculture, will be creating a seed library and soil sanctuary that will allow visitors to consider and, indeed, participate in the system of regenerative agriculture practiced by the Shakers. Christopher Specce will be showing a redesigned suite of everyday household tools that, through material and construction, evoke the Shaker ideal of “hands to work,” or reaching a mindful state through mundane acts. 

In tandem with the exhibition, we will present a robust suite of public programs to appeal to all ages, abilities, and interests. Among these will be a three-day Shaker Design Summit, October 23-25, 2020, intended to distill the central theme of the exhibition: the lasting impact of Shaker ideology and its effect on contemporary craft and design for the next generation of artists, designers, scholars, museum professionals, and Shaker enthusiasts. In lieu of a formal exhibition catalogue, conversations and workshops from the Summit, as well as interviews, texts, documentation, and other materials created over the course of the exhibition, will be captured and shared in a web archive that we hope will further encourage discussion of the exhibition and its main ideas. 

There will be five featured makers-in-residence who will use the exhibition, collection, and landscape of Hancock Shaker Village as a source of inspiration for their work. Co-organized by the Furniture Society, the Village will host two furniture makers who will use the historic woodshop in the Village’s tannery building. New York designer Thomas Barger will be in residence this spring to create a one-of-a-kind work merging sculpture with an iconic piece of American design—in this case, a Shaker chair. One completed, Barger’s object will be on view in By Design. Lily Cox-Richard of Richmond, VA, has been selected for a residency as well. She will be working with makers of traditional Shaker brooms to craft a twenty-five-foot-long Shaker-style broom made from upcycled industrial materials. In August, New Orleans-based blacksmith Rachel David will immerse herself in Hancock Shaker Village’s architecture, collection, and archives to explore the idea of communal furniture and the social life of objects. Each maker-in-residence will have open studio time as a way to engage visitors in the process of their work.

In addition, there will be workshops on indigo dying and spoon carving; platforms for public participation within the exhibition itself; public performances; and symposia, lectures, and panels. An online archive will ensure that the conversations and events happening at Hancock Shaker Village reach a wide audience and have a life that extends past the close of the show.

This will be the first exhibition at a historic Shaker site to explore the continued legacy of Shaker design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is a story we are uniquely positioned to tell, given the breadth and quality of Hancock Shaker Village’s collection and the overwhelming interest of contemporary designers to engage directly with Shaker material at an authentic Shaker site. The impact of Shaker aesthetics on contemporary designers is profound, but this connection has not yet been fully and explicitly explored. We expect that this exhibition will contribute to a better understanding of the enduring and immutable legacy of Shaker design and its implications in the design world of today.

Lost and Proud exhibition with River Valley Arts Collective - postponed

Lost and Proud 

Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg and Laurel Sparks
opening POSTPONED
Pubic Program POSTPONED
check back for new schedule
https://rvacollective.org

River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to announce Lost and Proud, an exhibition of painting, drawing, photography, and sculptural work by Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg, and Laurel Sparks, artists who integrate techniques traditionally employed in weaving and fiber art in to their studio practices. 

The exhibition’s title Lost and Proud cites a seminal work by pioneering fiber artist Lenore Tawney (1907-2007). The work was created in 1957—the year that Tawney relocated her studio from Chicago to New York’s Coenties Slip—and represents a period of important experimentation. Tawney challenged the technical conventions of weaving that she had been taught at the Penland School of Crafts in the early fifties, inventing a process she named “open warp.” This technique is evident in Lost and Proud, within which the vertical lines of the warp remain visible and the thread of the weft, which would normally follow a rigid horizontal path, adopts free-form linear patterns. Tawney’s open warp tapestries purport a strong relationship to drawing, visible in two distinct versions of Lost and Proud’s composition–in the tapestry, a bird’s form is primarily illustrated with erratic-weft threads, whereas the same form can also be found in a drawing journal from the same period, faithfully replicated in ink.

Here, we explore various approaches to process and gesture through the lens of Tawney’s legacy of proficient materiality and innovation in the work of four Hudson Valley artists—Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg and Laurel Sparks. Like in Tawney’s open warp tapestries, these artists rarely adhere to rigid expressions of the grid, embracing instead more fluid and improvisational compositions. The exhibition also considers the relationship between line and thread, with works on paper that relate to the qualities of textile. The title Lost and Proud suggests a confident and experimental mode of working, typified by each of these artist’s inquisitive and open-minded approach to their practice.

In conjunction with the exhibition, River Valley Arts Collective will publish a downloadable publication exploring Lenore Tawney’s legacy and her recent retrospective, Mirror of the Universe, on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in 2019. Texts by curators Karen Patterson of the Fabric Workshop, Jennie Goldstein of the Whitney Museum, curator Shannon Stratton of OxBow, and artists Anne Lindberg and Julia Bland will explore multivalent uses of fiber in contemporary artistic practices. A short documentary on Lenore Tawney produced by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center will also be shared.

River Valley Arts Collective was founded by Alyson Baker in January of 2019, and is currently presenting itinerant programming in the Hudson Valley while working to secure and equip a permanent location. As goals are fully realized in the coming years, it will provide artists with the resources to create and present their work and host programs that connect and foster the creative community of our region. Central to River Valley Arts Collective will be an exhibition venue alongside three expansive communal studio spaces outfitted with tools and equipment for work in fiber, wood, and clay, available to artists of the Hudson Valley and artists who are participating in area residencies.

cycles of seeing, a two-step drawing installation, opens at Manitoga June 5 for the season

MANITOGA 2020 Artist Residency Program

Anne Lindberg: cycles of seeing
June 5 - November 9

Pete M. Wyer: iForest
June 27 - September 26

Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center is pleased to announce this year's Artist Residency Program with presentations of work by New York based artist Anne Lindberg and British composer Pete M. Wyer. 

Anne Lindberg's luminous large-scale drawings cycles of seeing will be installed in the main House beginning June 5 while Wyer will create an immersive sound installation in the landscape this summer as part of his evocative iForest series. Both works find inspiration in and celebrate Nature at Manitoga.

In her two-part drawing series cycles of seeing, Lindberg's palette of thousands of colored parallel lines will transition from cool to warm as summer becomes fall at Manitoga, reflecting concerns of time, sequence and causality. Lindberg's works unfold at the pace of her step as she pulls lines across a pliant mat board, and she finds context for her work within a long tradition of other "walking artists" including William Wordsworth, Rebecca Solnit, and Virginia Woolf. "Like these artists, philosophers and writers, I use walking as time to encourage a fluid state of perceptions, to contemplate place, and to affect change and adaptation as it informs incremental, moment-to-moment decisions in the making of my work."

To Lindberg's list of walking artists, we might add Russel Wright who routinely walked his seventy-five acres of woodlands over many years, observing, mapping and refining Manitoga's footpaths and trails and placing his house and studio as part of a mindful and orchestrated movement through and dialogue with nature. Lindberg's deliberate and measured pace informs the scale of her work as Wright's was the measure of Manitoga. 

Near the House and Studio, Wright designed the Winter Walk to lead east through a woodland bathed in morning light. An offshoot of the path brings us to Pete M. Wyer's iForest within Wright's theatrical setting of towering boulders and framed views of the Hudson River Valley. Over twenty-four audio speakers will feature a 72-voice choir singing primarily in the indigenous Mohawk language a western response to the Mohawk Thanksgiving Ceremony. Originally created for a forest in the Adirondacks, Wyer's composition I Walk Towards Myself tells a story though music, echoing voices from thousands of years past who thanked every part of Nature. "Each person will experience the work differently depending on where they are walking, the weather, and the time of day. My hope in creating this piece is that people will have a deeper sense of connection to nature, to themselves, and to others because we are all part of nature. When we have that empathy, there is no longer us and them because they are us. This matters greatly because it affects the way we make decisions and how we view the world." 

https://www.visitmanitoga.org/artist-residency-installation

https://www.visitmanitoga.org/2020-artist-residency-anne-lindberg

https://www.visitmanitoga.org/x5cjjhph6yug4bbijy92brb74t6pmc

Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe, co-published by John Michael Kohler Art Center and University of Chicago Press

Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe, by Karen Patterson with essays by Glenn Adamson, Kathleen Nugent Mangan, Mary Savig, Shannon Stratton and Florica Zaharia, copublished with John Michael Kohler Art Center and University of Chicago Press, 2019

I’m pleased to have work included in this beautiful book published on the occasion of the multi-exhibition project at the John Michael Kohler Art Center called Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe.

My work was included in Even thread (has) a speech, a group curated by Shannon Stratton. Artists included: Indira Allegra, Julia Bland, Jesse Harod, kg, Judith Leeman, Anne Lindberg, Michael Milano, and Sheila Pepe.

Anne Lindberg, At first the visible obscures., 2019, thread and staples, 9 by 26 by 2 feet, title is from Theodore Roethke’s poem Unfold! Unfold!, photograph by Derek Porter

Anne Lindberg, At first the visible obscures., 2019, thread and staples, 9 by 26 by 2 feet, title is from Theodore Roethke’s poem Unfold! Unfold!, photograph by Derek Porter

SĪMURĞ, curated by Muriel Quancard at Josee Bienvenu Gallery opens Thursday Nov. 20, 2019 through Jan. 18, 2020

SĪMURĞ

curated by Muriel Quancard
Artists: Hope Atherton, Nicolas Baier, Frank Dufour, Gonzalo Lebrija, Anne Lindberg

A new life flow towards them from that bright

Celestial and ever-living light -

Their souls rose free of all they had been before;

The past and all its actions were no more.

There in the Simorgh 's radiant face they saw

Themselves, the Simorgh of the world - with awe

They gazed, and dared at last to comprehend

They were the Simorgh and at the journey's end.

- The Conference of the Birds, Farîd-ud-Dîn Attâr

 Can a 12th century Sufi poem coexist with a group of contemporary artworks and heighten the perception of Western art forms? The experiment attempted here is an overlay of literary references, traditional techniques, various media and technologies. Four bodies of works —by Hope Atherton, Nicolas Baier, Gonzalo Lebrija, and Anne Lindberg—resonate with Farîd-ud-Dîn Attâr’s epic allegory of Islamic Sufi mysticism, The Conference of the Birds. Each body of work forms a unique cosmography that chimes with aspects of this allegorical tale. An auditory experience, conceived by Frank Dufour of the collective Agence 5970, compels the visitor to delve into their mysteries.

Attâr’s poem is an esoteric quest for truth following the birds of the world on a journey as they seek the king of birds, the Simorgh. The hoopoe offers to lead them to Mount Qaf, a green emerald mountain surrounding the earth, where the Simorgh live. The birds fly across seven valleys: quest, love, knowledge, detachment, unity, wonderment, and annihilation. After various trials, just thirty birds overcome suffering and reach spiritual enlightenment; When they arrive at Mount Qaf, the exhausted and depleted birds, realize that the Simorgh, which in old Persian means thirty (si) birds (morgh), is a reflection of themselves. The powerful bird is hidden in each of them and they all together, in unity, are the Simorgh.

In his “Veladuras Nocturnas” paintings, Gonzalo Lebrija achieves spatial depth with a traditional glazing technique involving the application of multiple layers of translucent and iridescent paint over an opaque underlayer. The painting’s geometric shapes are based on origami paper planes reminiscent of childhood memories. Evocative of cones of light, they recall the cosmic landscape of Mount Qaf, where the invisible is revealed.

Anne Lindberg’s diaphanous installation also summons a dimension in which the corporal becomes ethereal. The artist has stretched a multitude of threads across a corner of the gallery which brings to mind a flock of birds. The aggregation of lines seems to dissolve the space while creating a sense of velocity, reminding us that space and time are embedded in a continuum. Presented on another wall, her “insomnia drawings” evoke landscapes from a bird’s-eye view. The artist drew serpentine lines on vellum that is laid atop photographs of her bed taken each morning upon waking; a process that resulted in subtle topographical reliefs.

Nicolas Baier’s bas-reliefs from the “Constellation” series depict arbitrary connections between the stars from a non-terrestrial vantage point. He creates cartographies based on coordinates issued by astronomical databases such as the Bright Star Catalogue. The stars connected via an algorithm form random constellations. These topographies are carved in high-density foam with a CNC (computer numeric control) machine and coated with brass or with meteorite graphite.

Hope Atherton resorts to ancestral techniques to create sculptures that point toward nontraditional temporalities. Due to their elemental qualities, they occupy a site of possibility between the past and future. Two birds coalesce in an enigmatic posture so as to form one mass. Their vulnerability recalls the trials encountered by the birds in Attar’s poem and the ultimate transformation that followed.

Translated by Dick Davis and Afkham Darbandi

The Beginning of Everything: An Exhibition of Drawings opens Jan 25 at Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota Regis Center for Art

The Beginning of Everything : An Exhibition of Drawings
Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota
Regis Center for Art, January 21 - March 28, 2020
Public Reception and Program : January 25, 6 - 10pm

When I see a white piece of paper, I feel I’ve got to draw. And drawing, for me, is the beginning of everything. - Ellsworth Kelly

Drawing is, in many ways, the most versatile of all artistic mediums. It can serve as the beginning of an idea, the beginning of a more ambitious project, or the beginning of a completed artwork unto itself. Because drawing is so elemental, so direct, such a primary means of expression, it is cherished for its immediate and intimate access to the possibilities of creative expression.

This group exhibition will survey a broad range of approaches to drawing, and include works from a wide variety of geographies, time periods, and esthetic perspectives. It will include works by Edgar Arcenaux, Leslie Barlow, Circle of Federico Barocci, Hannelore Baron, Harriet Bart, Robert Bechtle, Kim Beck, Hazel Belvo, Sadie Benning, Melissa Cooke Benson, Frank Big Bear, Judith Bernstein, Rachel Breen, James Boyd Brent, Andrea Carlson, Rebecca Clark, Robert Cottingham, J.M. Culver, Stephanie DeArmond, Jim Denomie, Mary Esch, Jacob El Hanani, David Feinberg, Sheila Ghidini, Michela Griffo, Carmen Herrera, Jim Hittinger, Larassa Kabel, Shana Kaplow, Imi Knoebel, Anne Lindberg, Kristen Lowe, Joyce Lyon, Kevin Martin, Henri Matisse, Ana Mendieta, Lynda Monick-Isenberg, Clarence Morgan, Stuart Nielsen, Lamar Peterson, Sonja Peterson, Raymond Pettibon, Zilia Sánchez, Kristen Sanders, Megan Scheffer, John Schuerman, Lauren Seiden, Amy Sillman, Joe Sinness, Laura Stack, Nancy Spero, Priya Thoreson, Tonja Torgerson, Jonathan Thunder, Jack Tworkov, Amanda Valdez, Aaron van Dyke, Megan Vossler, Russ White, Dyani White Hawk, Cosmo Whyte, Francis Yellow, Jack Youngerman, Mathew Zefeldt, and others to be announced.

The exhibition is curated by Howard Oransky, Director, and Teréz Iacovino, Assistant Curator of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery.