Disconnected: Bishop/Hantai/Marioni @ Paul Rodgers 9W NYC

After my time at Petzel. I headed over to Hauser & Wirth to witness the Thomas Houseago exhibition. Than it was onto Zwirner to see what they had, which turned out to be a Serra work on paper show. Unfortunately they were doing work downstairs and the smell from whatever chemicals they were using was ruining my enjoyment of Serra's work. I had to get out of there quick.

Right beside Zwirner is the legendary gallery building at 529 W. 20th Street. There were two exhibitions I knew I didn't want to miss in that building this time around. This is the first one.

Paul Rodgers 9W is, as you can tell, on the 9th floor, West side. It is a gallery that usually flies under the radar of most gallery hoppers. Which is unfortunate, especially when people are talking about a Simon Hantai or James Bishop show at one of the majors, or a show of Joseph Marioni and no one is mentioning the better exhibition at Rodgers' gallery. Paul is an incredible historian and very keen on making grand exhibitions that keep the notion of space to a maximum. This particular exhibition up now is titled DISCONNECTED: Bishop/Hantai/Marioni and is quite a minimal exhibition with one painting per painter. Each from a distinct period in the artists oeuvre. Especially with the painting from Bishop, who doesn't work very much in dark paintings such as the one on view.

To your left when you walk in is a wonderful mid period Hantai, if you get the chance to when you visit, ask the gentleman behind the desk to tell you a bit about Hantai, or if Paul is there, he can really tell you a lot about this genius, and I don't use that word often.

Hantai is the originator of a technique called Pliage. It's a method of folding a canvas, crumpling it up sometimes, but mostly concentrated folding, painting on what is left after all the folds have been brought together, and then releasing the fold and seeing the result. It is known as the next great technique for painting after Jackson Pollock.

The first time I saw Hantai's work was at the Wexner Center exhibition AS/Painting, curated by Philip Armstrong, Laura Lisbon, and Stephen Melville, which ran May 11-August 12, 2001. They made sure to include an early Hantai where he was beginning his development of the pliage method, up to the late paintings. So it was a major eye opener for someone like me that was just in the beginning stages of my own development with the uses of texture and color.

Any of you that know me, know of my deep appreciation for the paintings of Joseph Marioni. I was surprised to learn that after looking at the painting included in the exhibition, a gorgeous orange painting from 1977 that it was the one recently sold at auction. This just showed me how much contact he has with his collectors, they purchased the painting and immediately had it brought to Paul Rodgers' gallery for this exhibition. I was blown away by the swiftness of them getting it there. I think it was sweetest because I remember wishing I could have seen the preview, because most of these works sold at auction hardly ever go into public view, or at least not that I've seen. I felt I was given a second chance to see it, I was glad. 

The James Bishop painting was something I never thought i'd see either. Especially a dark painting of his, because there aren't many. I tell ya this one is a feast for the eyes of the painter who admires it. It's like a volcano is going off in the interior of the paint. It just sits on the wall still glowing from it's birth.

These are the best photos my iphone 4 could get. There are some really nice ones online, but I wanted to get views that only I took. Most galleries won't take photos of the side of the painting, but we painters love seeing things like that.

Until next time.