 |
Email PageBrian Calvin 2006
September 7, 2006- October 14, 2006
Brian Calvin
Anton Kern Gallery
532 W 20th St Brian Calvin Heads See (2006) |
It has been said that Brian Calvin’s paintings explore the physiognomy of slackerdom, that they are populated with androgynous bohemians, skinnies in groups and trippy teenage characters coolly detached and aimlessly gazing at the spirit of melancholia (just to paraphrase a few noteworthy classifications). However, after biting into the reality of pausing-as-an-activity, or as the elders used to say the vita contemplativa, something else has come jotting into the foreground, namely the question of what is really at stake in these paintings. Perhaps it is, as critic Bruce Hainley pointed out, that “Calvin’s paintings oddly come to be about the figure as the appearance of the non-figurative, narrative as the appearance of the non-narrative” thereby recalling a conundrum of Greenbergian proportion namely the representation/non-representation struggle in which Calvin’s protagonists truly test the limits of their own existence.
In these new, seemingly simpler paintings the figure “as the appearance of the non-figurative” has clearly won over the narrative; gone are the vague descriptors of a generation apparently drenched in ennui. In reality, which means the reality of the viewer looking at the painting, the works have become more demanding since they refuse to offer a narrative structure. But at the same token they are physically deeply rewarding, portraying, by means of, say two heads in a complex formal entanglement, the presence of unrelenting beauty and real tenderness, or simply the splendor of truth.
Calvin’s work has been shown in numerous solo exhibition in U.S. and European galleries, and was included in group shows such as the California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2004) and Dear Painter, paint me..., at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, (2003).
Concurrently, an exhibition in the back gallery entitled “Byrds” will present a group of new sculptures by Glaswegian artist Jim Lambie. The works consist of manipulated, large-scale ceramic birds.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
|
 | |||||||||||||||
|
© 2005-2008 chelseaartgalleries.com | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
| Site Map |
