Of the various names of beauty we have touched, hozho is the most comprehensive, which we might explain by saying the Navajo way of life is aesthetic at its base. But we also should simply say that beauty is not, for the Navajo, an aesthetic concept: it’s not primarily about the way things appear — though it includes the universe as a whole. It is usually translated into English as “beauty,” though also as “health” or “balance,” “harmony,” “goodness.” It means all of these things and more. It refers above all to the world when it is flourishing; it refers to things we make, which flourish and play a role in the flourishing of other things; and it refers to ourselves, flourishing as makers, as people inhabiting a community that inhabits a world. It is a word for the oneness of all things when they are joined together in a wholesome state.
-Crispin Sartwell, Six Names of Beauty, 2004.

At her memorial service earlier this month I found myself thinking about Jennifer Wynne Reeves and hozho, with its implicit moral imperative. It struck me that Jennifer lived, made and wrote in a state of hozho.  Minutes after I had this thought the woman with the guitar started to sing a Navajo song about peace all around us which became a singalong to close the beautiful and elegant service to this woman’s singular life and work. The nearest English equivalent would be to say that Reeves lived a life bathed in Grace.

Reeves anthropomorphizes abstraction in an ultimately humane way, abstracting emotion in the way Pina Bausch does in her choreography. The Garden of Gethsemane (2014), with its off-white picket fence, and its multicolored abstract striped figure, reminds me that in the suburbs no one can hear you scream.

Jonah (2012) has a series of lumps of an Autumn palette forming a figure with wire arms in a gesture of either helplessness or praying — the two go together — facing away from the gaping red maw of a giant fish. It is archetypal in its appropriately named biblical theme.

Place (1997) drives home the impasto and materiality of Reeves’ work that does not show up in reproduction on Facebook, where I became one of her followers and a commenter on the long threads accompanying her art and her writing. I didn’t understand her work well on Facebook – it was over my head – but when I went to the opening of her memorial show at BravinLee and saw it for the first time in all its material glory, it went straight to my heart.

Place has a heavily impastoed cake form in black with white frosting accompanied by equally dimensional blobs in sky blue and sea green stacked into a figure. Kym Ghee, my Facebook friend who met me at the show, said all of her paintings were delicious and edible with something uncomfortable taking place underneath. No painting illuminates this principle more than Place.

Klee and Arp were designated the humorous painters of the time by art critics. I would add Sonia Delaunay and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. But their humor is not lacking in gravity. People err when they think of life as pure tragedy, for they will become melancholics, or of life as pure comedy, for they will become clowns. Life is both tragic and comic at the same time. Reeves shares with these artists a sense of the tragicomic.

Among her contemporaries she belongs with Thomas Nozkowski, Stephen Mueller and Jonathan Lasker to the genre of narrative abstraction. Mueller and Lasker the most: Mueller for his spirituality and early Lasker for his symbolism. Lasker was the Forrest Bess of the TV Generation. Reeves’ work shares this spirituality and symbolism.

Come walk in hozho with the work and writing that Jennifer Wynne Reeves has left behind.

BravinLee programs is at 526 West 26th Street #211, New York City, 212 462 4404

The post Bathed in Grace: The Life and Work of Jennifer Wynne Reeves appeared first on artcritical.

Stephen Mueller, abstract painter of exquisite poise and art critic of insightful, affirmative precision, died on Friday after a relatively short battle with lung cancer.  He was a week shy of turning 64.

Eight of his sumptuous, at once subtle and exuberant watercolors are currently included in the group exhibition, “Papertails” curated by Kiki Smith and Valerie Hammond, on view at NYU’s 80WSE Gallery on Washington Square.  Last year he was the subject of a well-received solo exhibition at Lennon, Weinberg, where he had shown his work since 2007.  Reviewing that exhibition in these pages, Stephanie Buhmann observed how, with solo shows by Thomas Nozkowski and Brice Marden as neighbors, Mueller’s show was “a wonderful intervention in a gallery-to-gallery symposium concerning the nature and experience of abstract painting.”

Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1947, Mueller had studied at the University of Texas, Austin before taking his masters at Bennington College, Vermont.  Bennington was then a hotbed of a Greenbergian formalism “shoved down your throat” as he told Joe Fyfe in a 2002 Bomb magazine interview.  His subsequent career can almost be defined as a running battle between aesthetic purism and engagement with visual culture. But rather than resulting in tension, this collision course of values seemed to result in a harmony that was all the more sweet and intense for its complexity.

In his mature work – which was characterized by vibrant yet ingeniously modulated color choices and increment-free paint surfaces (or in the case of watercolor, ethereal yet sumptuous stain) – the imagery manages to be at once cosmic and decorative. Typical compositions would see mandalas floating amidst audacious plaids.  The sensibility, however, was not an abrasive one of postmodern incongruence.  Rather, he traded in a kind of tantric gaiety that could collapse the boundaries between kitsch and the sublime.

Mueller brought similar qualities to his art writing as to his painting, most notably a kind of sophisticated naïveté in which he could develop somewhat off-the-wall comparisons and formulations while paying close attention to the mood and intention of the work under review.  His writings were published with some regularity in Art in America magazine, Gay City News and, in seven cherished contributions between 2003 and 2007, here at artcritical.  His writerly tone managed to combine deadpan delivery and almost impish enthusiasm.  His conclusion to a joint review of shows by Deborah Kass and Dana Frankfort from four years ago around this time of year (the post Labor Day rush) is a timely reminder of the purpose of making and seeing art: “The implications and issues raised in both of these shows are far ranging and quickly become quite deep. They are both a lot of fun and offer several fertile fields for painting to grow in. Don’t miss them before the shows come too thick and fast to detect an issue or an implication.”

The resolution of opposites in both his art and his criticism was for some of a piece with Stephen’s deportment, in which a seemingly somber and taciturn manner actually proved a foil for a lust for life and an unfailing generosity of spirit.

Click Here for a complete list of Mueller’s writings at artcritical

The post Mandalas Amidst the Plaids: Stephen Mueller, 1947-2011 appeared first on artcritical.

October 21 – November 27, 2010
514 West 25th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues
New York City, 212 941 0012

Stephen Mueller’s paintings and works on paper radiate colors that sweep us off our feet. Those fearful that a palette that embraces such saturated and domineering purples, pinks, turquoise and yellow could veer towards kitsch, or cause sensory overdose, will be pleasantly surprised by this exhibition. It takes experience and a finely nuanced sense of balance to avoid such pitfalls. Mueller is equipped with both these virtues and, without shying away from spectral indulgence, applies them with exhilarating finesse.

At Lennon, Weinberg, Mueller’s compositions vary considerably and yet, the group is unquestionably cohesive. Like a family, among whose members essential differences exist, recurring signature characteristics assure an unbreakable bond. One such rather ethereal characteristic is atmosphere, the realization of an illusionistic space generated by contrasting opaque shapes with translucent, thinly layered backgrounds. Like a cosmic close up, these crisply delineated forms emerge from —or retreat into— infinite spheres. They are at once floating and fixed. It seems as if Mueller managed to capture them just in time, during a brief moment of pause in an otherwise never-ending state of flux. It is this notion of motion turned into stillness that causes these shapes to assume an iconographic presence.

But what are they exactly? Inspired by art historical references and cultural objects of the past, they function as emblems for hidden truths and tokens of mysterious philosophies. They are symbols for something unknown and possible keys to deeper understanding. One realizes their significance, their inherent urgency and yet, their only immediate importance resides in their physicality, how they are described through color and form. As centers of concentration, these shapes draw much attention, gain personality and hence, rather appear as protagonists than as compositional elements.

In his first New York solo show since 2006 and his first with this gallery, Mueller stresses a sense of theatricality by elaborating on one particular compositional element. In several of his new paintings, side banners of solid color evoke an immense stylized curtain. Pulled to the sides, it is the gateway to all action, allowing a better look at the drama that will unfold on the painter’s stage.

Mueller’s work reflects an array of eclectic interests and influences. There is an evident affinity for the symbolism found in Northern European Romanticism, for example, or the formal structure of Far Eastern mysticism. Mueller’s touch and care in regards to rendition should imply an appreciation of Renaissance masters, while his focus on color alludes to various ethnic decorative patterns. However, the challenge here is not to figure out the ingredients that make up Mueller’s vocabulary or to decipher the dense mélange. What matters is what we see, the composition with all its facets and how it unfolds as our eye travels from element to element and from one section to the overall plane.

Mueller’s exhibition finds itself in great company in Chelsea this November, with Thomas Nozkowski’s newest body of work displayed at Pace Gallery right next door and Brice Marden’s two installations at Matthew Marks on 22nd Street. Mueller’s show is thus a wonderful intervention in a gallery-to-gallery symposium concerning the nature and experience of abstract painting.

The post Cosmic Close-Ups: Stephen Mueller’s infinite spheres appeared first on artcritical.

JEREMY GILBERT-ROLFE
Gray Kapernekas until June 17
526 W. 26th Street, no. 814, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-462-4150

THOMAS NOZKOWSKI: WORKS ON PAPER
BravinLee programs until June 17
526 W. 26th Street, no. 211, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-462-4404

STEPHEN MUELLER
Baumgartner Gallery until June 7
522 W. 24th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-242-4514

Joseph Marioni is a monochromist who seems to be trying to kick the habit. Each of his paintings resonates to the name of a singular hue. Whenother colors lurk beneath the surface and occasionally peep through it is to be the exception that proves the rule.  The first and last impression is of one color.  At least, that is the way things used to be.

Mr. Marioni works in acrylic, applying thick layers of it to big, often square canvases with a housepainter’s roller. The resulting surfaces, mottled and sticky looking, differentiate him from the legion of monochrome painters who prefer complete impersonality and evenness. And the indulgent richness of Mr. Marioni’s colors in their glistening state separates him from those uncompromising conceptual-minimalists like Alan Charlton, for instance, who favors gray house paint precisely for its anonymity.

Mr. Marioni’s surfaces arouse ambivalent responses. Because of the size and association of his chosen tool, we tend not to think of the brushstrokes as “expressive,” yet painting’s busy edges bristle with personal, local, intuitive decisions. The incremental surfaces may seem arbitrary, but combined with the warmth and specificity of his colors, they induce empathy. The eye wants to linger and involve itself with the complexities of the surface.

His new body of work — the inaugural show in Peter Blum’s new Chelsea gallery space — represents a departure for Mr. Marioni. The typical square has given way to a landscape format. And the hovering background colors, which the final surface all but covers, assert themselves with newfound boldness. Mr. Marioni’s trademark strategy has given way to something altogether more imagistic: The singular, top color is now presented as a shape inhabiting a field defined by another color, which achieves some degree of equality, albeit within a figure-ground relationship.

These new works are all obstinately titled “Painting 2006.” In two of them, tree trunk-like forms fill out their base; colored silvery and pinkish white, respectively, they also resemble sheets hanging out to dry, fluttering against very dark, almost black grounds. Such illusionist readings are abetted by the differing degrees of saturation of the strokes that suggest volume.

These veil-like shapes put me in mind of the poured, stained canvases created in the early 1960s by the Abstract Expressionist Morris Louis. Has Mr. Marioni joined the traditionalist fold? The fact that he has recently found an eloquent champion in the veteran formalist critic Michael Fried — in contrast with his more conceptually oriented followers and collectors in Europe — encourages such an impression — as does the sumptuous, resonant lushness of these works.

Although Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, like Mr. Marioni, has emerged in the wake of minimalism, he represents a different tradition of painterly abstraction, connecting to older models (Kandinsky, for instance) while also seeming more *au courant.* His four canvases happily crowd the tight Gray Kapernekasspace , both among themselves and internally. Whereas Mr. Marioni needs the cavernous Blum barn for his grand statements, Mr. Gilbert-Rolfe benefits from the forced intimacy of this gallery.

These paintings, each 70 inches square, are unabashedly pictorial. In them, Mr. Gilbert-Rolfe manages to reconcile the sensibilities of a color-field painter and a miniaturist, exploring a remarkable range of touch, temperature, attitude, and scale.

For Mr. Gilbert-Rolfe, monochrome is a delicate achievement rather than an act of defiance. He is more inclined to closely related hues, or cheeky contrasts, such as the expanse of vermillion and strip of purple in “Step” (2004–05). The bigger areas of color are separated by a ziggurat form — it looks like a skyscraper at its base, then tapers to the right, into the vermillion zone — made up of fastidiously painted strips of color.

“The Chameleon and the Wraith” (2003–04) presents suitably contrasting treatments for the creatures named in the title — though which is which is open to conjecture. One area has neatly dispatched little squares and rectangles, the other a heap of sticks in the process of coalescing into some kind of figure. These contrasting geometric and organic activities cohabit within a pink-and-blue ground into which they sink, or from which they emerge.

Mr. Gilbert-Rolfe’s intimacy of touch, his quizzical scale, and the patient way he builds his picture from abstract shapes and sensations relates him to Thomas Nozkowski, one of the contemporary masters of abstract painting.

Mr. Nozkowski’s latest show is gorgeously installed in BravinLee’s railway-carriage gallery. Two blocks of six drawings face each other in the first room; the next displays the drawings from his recent collaboration with the poet and critic John Yau, the 2005 “Ing Grish Suite;” a luminous set of recent etchings occupies a third room. These works on paper don’t have a traditional relationship to painting — they are neither preparatory, nor a release for tangential interests. And there is nothing tentative about them.  The dozen drawings in the front room fill the page as much as any Nozkowskipainting does its canvas.

These drawings, each approximately 22 inches by 30 inches, are remarkable both for their consistency and for the variety of imagery and palette, The consistency comes from Mr. Nozkowski’s insistence on a strong figure-ground relationship: His quirky forms seem deliberated, as if representing something temptingly specific while obstinately eluding actual figural associations.

“Untitled (Q-14)” (2002) has a flattened, yellow shape resting on a brown mound with what could read as landscape behind (purple surmounted by green.) The yellow shape might almost read as an animal of some sort, lying sidesways to display its breast. And in another cheeky flirtation with literalism, “Untitled (Q-55)” (2004) has two voluptuous shapes in harlequin patterns that want to read like lower, stockinged female legs protruding from behind the picture plane.

Stephen Mueller is a close cousin of both Messrs. Nozkowksi and Gilbert-Rolfe, sharing with the first a penchant for emblems and with the second a cheery palette of lyrical, slightly camp contrasts. But Mr. Mueller has an altogether more whimsical attitude toward figure-ground relationships.

On the one hand, he paints emphatic shapes that float within receding space. On the other, he deploys patterns as a means to frustrate credible readings of volume and depth.

“Mneme” (2006) plays a cosmic game of push-pull, in Hans Hofmann’s sense of the phrase. The background is a melding rainbow of watercolor-like strokes in pinks, purples, and mauves, over which a transparent gray orb floats, as if the shadow of a planet in eclipse. Superimposed are various flat forms: two pink eggs striated in a spectrum from light to dark; a blue rectangle, framed in white and red; and a typical Mueller shape that reads like three vases—joined at the hip—that is internally united by thickly painted, brightly colored stripes.

The smaller canvases are capable of more focused contrasts of flatness and depth. “797 Untitled” (2006) is a gem. Against a red ground, a bright green, pineapple-like mandala shape crescendos toward burgundy at the top. The shape is filled with raining diamonds, in oranges and reds that are hued to the ground. The different sizes of the diamonds denote depth, despite the flatness this pattern simultaneously achieves.

This is gorgeous painting, yoga for the eye.

A version of this article first appeared in the New York Sun, May 25, 2006

The post Joseph Marioni at Peter Blum, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe at Gray Kapernekas, Thomas Nozkowski at BravinLee Programs, Steven Mueller at Baumgartner Gallery appeared first on artcritical.