Thursz and the Radical Painting Group

I've been doing some snooping around the net and recently came across a cache of photos of Thursz and his paintings. I was even lucky enough to find a photo of the Radical Painting group of the late 70's and early 80's.

Which included (L-R) Erik Saxon, Phil Sims, Merrill Wagner, Dale Henry, Doug Sanderson, Susanna Tanger, Anders Knutsson, Marcia Hafif, Jerry Zeniuk, Frederic Matys Thursz.

Missing from the photo is Joseph Marioni and Olivier Mosset . I really don't know why they were missing from the photo. Seeing as how much a part of the group they were.



There was a lot more to this group than meets the eye. They were a group of people who were looking to begin painting again. Hence the term RADICAL. With it's meanings in the word ROOT. They were looking to get to the root of painting, which is simply color and it's surface, it's objectivity. Most of them just took different means and techniques to get to where they wanted to be with their paintings.

The group itself was begun with Olivier Mosset and Marcia Hafif, and grew from there. Until around 1984 when the group all but disbanded.



I wanted to share this great photo I also found of Thursz' studio in Ossining New York. What height to that ceiling which allowed for so much light to reach those paintings, there was probably almost no reason to even have artificial light in the room.

Studio Photo by E. Tulchin.

I also wanted to share some other photos of his work here.



Orison 1 and 2. 1990-1992 221X74cm each.



#4 1974 74.5 X 74.5 cm

Enjoy the wonderful paintings.

A Sanctuary for Light

Just wanted to show some photos I received from my friend Alan Ebnother and the people at Art:Basel who took the last two pics of the installation from Joseph Marioni's Sanctuary for Light at this years Art:Basel. I'm looking forward to getting more photos from Joe of the installation, which should be in my inbox in a few days. Then I'll be happy to share these pics with everyone on here.



Pic courtesy of Alan Ebnother.



Pics courtesy of Art:Basel.



Included here is a press release for the show.
___________________________________________

This is a unique opportunity to see a major work installed to his specification. The room is 750 meters square and part of the presentation of a four part work designed for the room as one piece, each working in transition to each other within the scaled environment that he designed.

"Marioni has conceived this special project as a model for painting environments that he proposes to create in specific public and private spaces. The unique element in Marioni’s vision is that his paintings will be created on site and in an encounter with the natural light of each location. Each Marioni ‘Contemplation Room’ will belong to its special environment. My sense is that this initiative represents something innovative, and I am confident that you will want to discover this experience for yourself in Basel.

Mindful of Rothko’s thoughts on how his paintings should be grouped together, which culminated in his celebrated chapel at the de Menil Foundation, and embracing later notions of site specificity from Minimalism, Marioni envisages an exploration of the encounter between color, local natural light and specific architecture. Where Rothko’s paintings look inward and seek seclusion, Marioni’s vision leads painting into a distinct relationship with the global environment of the future."

Enjoy and have a wonderful week.

J

My week in PA

Been spending a few days reflecting on my past week with my friend and painter Joseph Marioni. It seems like everytime I talk to Joe, in person or on the phone, I learn a ton of new things. About painting, about life. The guy just seems to know a ton of fantastic information. So much so that when I'm around him I don't wanna ask too much to tick him off from this young'un asking too many questions.



I remember him telling me about his space in PA and how nice it was. I never got the idea in my head about how it was until I saw it. It just made me wonder if I have any depth to my imagination, as I seem to not be able to do much for visualization of spaces and the scale of paintings. It could very well come from the scale of my paintings being so much smaller than those of the painters whom I admire.



I took a few photos while I was there. I never did ask Joe to take a photo with me, I don't know why I did that, could come from my desire to not impose myself onto people, but sometimes I do need to be a bit more on the pushy side.

Anyway here are some of the various pics I took.



Here's a photo of the first floor gallery space with Joe's paintings and some of mine that I brought to show with him. He had only seen my work in reproduction, like so many other people.



Here's the wall with one of Joe's stretchers. A friend remarked that this stretcher is more Art than most people's art...which I agree. If only you could see this magnificent piece of woodwork.



I got to help Joe uncrate this painting after Joe, Stephen and I spent some time moving the crates around. Man those things are built like a tank.

I also got to meet another great painter while I was there. Stephen Bennett, the Portrait Painter. An amazing painter who travels the world painting indigenous people of the land. Along with his many commissions. A truly nice guy who has a love for life and a love of music. The guy is really into House music, so I gave him a few cd's of my mixes, to which he remarked that they were better than a bunch of the cd's he had actually bought. So THANKS Stephen!

If you are going to Basel this year and the Art:Basel. Make a point to check out the Joseph Marioni exhibition there with 4 of his large format paintings. They really are tremendous and I can only wish I too was going there to see those paintings.

Have a wonderful week. J