Present Tense at SPANIERMAN MODERN

James Kalm rubs shoulders with Manhattan's upper crusties during a trek to visit this early summer exhibition. Curated by Don Christensen and Mary Heilmann, a pair of today's most provocative and cognizant abstractionists, they've selected fourteen artists,"on the basis of their ability to produce instant and visceral responses in the viewer, without the necessity of contextualization." This show presents a current re-evaluation between progressive abstraction and "Outsider Art". Featured in this program are works by Emery Blagdon, John Duff, Hermine Ford, Joe Fyfe, Stephen Mueller, Taro Suzuki, Arlene Shechet, Steven Westfall, Martin Ramirez et al.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• James
• Kalm
• Spanierman
• Modern
• Don
• Chrisiensen
• Mary
• Heilman
• Emery
• Blagdon
• John
• Duff
• Hermine
• Ford
• Joe
• Fyfe
• Stephen
• Mueller

[NatureLoveGirl]

James,

What a great review. I'm away from NYC for the summer and watching your reviews makes me feel not so bad about missing these art shows! I really like Don Christensen's work! Beautiful.

What resource to you use to find out about these shows? (Galleryguide?) How do you decide which ones to go to?

Thanks so much for these reviews. Outstanding.

[jameskalm]

Hey, NatureLoveGirl

I peruse several sites with listing services like art-cal, artcards and David Gibson's articleprojects where you can sign up for his weekly e-mail list. Because of my long time knowledge of the scene and many of the players, I know what I like, and what a lot of my viewers are interested in. Some times I just go out and stumble on interesting shows(hopefully I have my camera). Then it's just word of mouth,

Thanks, JK

[MrWowforever]

that is a smart show....an artist curated show, very inspiring choices....stanley whitney is great......chris martins piece is nice....what was that sculpture that flashed by at the end? thanks for this treat!!!!

[jameskalm]

That was a ceramic piece by Ariene Shechet.

[LawrenceCharlesMille]

Great show-maybe because of its impossible thesis.

The outsider artist aesthetic of necessity evokes an immediate visceral response. The boldness of this association is promising.

Thank you James.

Best -

[MrWowforever]

thanks again:)

[MrWowforever]

i think they were just hoping to show you something not quite expected, not business as usual, whether or not they succeed is another matter. Some interesting claims are made in some of the work, in my opinion; the statements i rarely read.

[seintzeit]

years abroad being educamimated in the british commonwealth where z's are not used in words like contextualise, and medicalise, and yaddaise, has anglosised me...

james read from the statement for the show which made some claims for a more "authentic" experience of the paintings outside of context; paintings and painters are all about context; the spaniermann gallery is a context; abstract paintings and painters are historically constituted...

[MrWowforever]

it's spelled contextualization, what was that about not bright painters?:)

[seintzeit]

gee, is contexualisation ever NOT possible? painters are nice, but sometimes seem so not bright.