June 20 to July 27, 2012
1 Rivington Street at Bowery
New York City, 212-358-8767

The first clue as to what is going on here is the deliberately quirky off-kilter hang of Martha Diamond’s new paintings. Small oils on board – more then two dozen of them, all created in the last two years –are hung in hypnotic groupings that mirror her startlingly original and lyrical imagery.

This new body of work has been painted with the flat, square-headed shorthaired brushes known as brights. A change from her usual choice, the Bright’s spatulate marks transmute to jazzy checkerboards, shadowy figures and shaggy lines. Best known for her neo-expressionist cityscapes, Diamond has always rigorously explored the nexus of abstraction and representation in her work. But her architectural sources are no longer immediately identifiable.

The abbreviated brushstrokes she’s now using create gestural markings and simplified imagery, leaping from the austere though under-painted Pentimento to the linear brevity used to playfully depict weather in Blue 1. A platform built of flat marks provides a pedestal for the enigmatic figures of Philosophe. The bright’s bristles are also responsible for the densely patterned surface of Conversation. Look closely and you can see two pixilated pugilists engaged in a digitalized punch-out.

This show represents the efflorescence of an artist who has always been passionate about paint, interested in brush stoke, color, image. But instead of the iconic wet on wet technique that has long characterized her work, Diamond has made what she describes as “the big-time change” to direct painting, beginning with white background and black paint. “I love black and white, and almost always start with black and white,” she has said. When she occasionally includes color, it is partly a result of seeing “what was under the painting”, and experimenting with “another kind of venture,” the artist has told me.

Diamond, who installed the show, views the Church series as a “sequence developed as a set.” Her methodology is both apparent and intriguing, beginning with a transparent wash in Church I, proceeding to thickly painted and brush-carved lines in Church III, and culminating with the elegant purity of Church VI, the last in the series.

The insouciance of the stripes began “as a torso seated on a swing.” The thick stripes provide a voluminous counterbalance to the obsidian foreground, using black as a note of emphasis and white as an outline. Radio City, with its brushy monolithic totem, heralds the bygone romance of the original skyscrapers and echoes the magical aura of her earlier large building paintings.

I have always loved Diamond’s direct, sinuous touch, the wet-on-wet technique that results in an urban immediacy. Portraying her native city, Diamond celebrates an ever-changing skyline.  In these small works, she has sought out other architectures investigating new landscapes. This is the work of a mature and masterful artist whose technical virtuosity and highly personal vision reinvigorate the act of painting.

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David Brody, Karen Gover, and Ara Merjian join David Cohen to discuss Nan Goldin at Matthew Marks, Jim Lambie at Anton Kern, Suzanne McClelland at Sue Scott, and Katia Santibañez at Morgan Lehman.

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Lush Life is an exhibition curated by Franklin Evans and Omar Lopez-Chahoud which takes place at nine Lower East Side (LES) galleries: Collette Blanchard Gallery, Eleven Rivington, Invisible-Exports, Lehmann Maupin, On Stellar Rays, Salon 94, Scaramouche, Sue Scott Gallery, and Y Gallery.  Lush Life adopts Richard Price’s 2008 novel to title and organize the exhibition.  The novel is set in the contemporary LES and through a murder investigation exposes the dynamically changing community of the neighborhood, which despite its evolution retains a ghostly and vital link to its layered past.  The deep and varied history of the LES now includes the LES galleries as new community members, and the premise of community is reflected in the cooperative nature of the galleries’ and artists’ participation in the exhibition which uses Price’s novel to critically consider concepts of neighborhood and change.  Each gallery will be a sub-exhibition reflecting the idea of one of the nine chapters in the book.

Sue Scott Gallery – Chapter One: Whistle.  June 19 to July 31
On Stellar Rays – Chapter Two: Liar. June 23 to August 3
Invisible-Exports – Chapter Three: First Bird (A Few Butterflies). June 25 to July 31
Lehmann Maupin – Chapter Four: Let It Die. July 8 to August 13
Y Gallery – Chapter Five: Want Cards. July 8 to July 25
Collette Blanchard Gallery – Chapter Six: The Devil You Know
Salon 94 – Chapter Seven: Wolf Tickets. June 29 to July 30
Scaramouche – Chapter Eight: 17 Plus 25 Is 32. July 8 to August 7
Eleven Rivington – Chapter Nine: She’ll Be Apples

Artists: Christopher Drager, Claudia Weber, Coco Fusco, Dana Frankfort, Dana Levy, Dani Leventhal, David Shapiro, Derrick Adams, Elisabeth Subrin, Erik Benson, Ezra Johnson, Ishmael Randall Weeks, Jackie Gendel, Jackie Saccoccio, Jayson Keeling, Jessica Dickinson, Joanne Greenbaum, Jose Lerma, Judi Werthein, Justen Ladda, Kai Schiemenz/ Iris Fluegel, Karina Skvirsky, La Toya Fraizer, Leslie Hewitt, Manuel Acevedo, Mario Ybarra Jr, Matthew Weinstein, Melissa Gordon, Nana Debois Buhl, Nicolas Di Genova, Nina Lola Bachhuber, Oliver Babin, Patrick Lee, Paul Gabrielli, Paul Pagk, Robert Beck, Robert Melee, Rudy Shepherd, Scott Hug, Tim Davis, Tommy Hartung, Xaviera Simmons, among others.

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