re-title.com
03 June 2011
  Painting & Drawing 
GALERIE CHRISTIAN LETHERT, Cologne
JEFF BAILEY GALLERY, New York
KATE MACGARRY, London
GALERIA ESPACIO MINIMO, Madrid
 

 
GALERIE CHRISTIAN LETHERT, Cologne
 
 
Nelleke Beltjens
 
Nelleke Beltjens
Courtesy of Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne
 
 
NELLEKE BELTJENS
THEY DON´T KNOW EITHER
 
4 June 2011 - 30 July 2011
 
With “They don’t know either”, Christian Lethert Gallery is presenting Nelleke Beltjens’ second solo exhibition. Since her first show “Fragments of the Parts” (2009), the artist has been consistently developing her unusual and idiosyncratic approach to drawing. Among the basic principles of her work is the fragmenting of the line, which is questioned as a fundamental drawing element, the artist breaking it up into numerous short marks that stand perpendicular to the extension of the line, thus transforming it into a rhythmic structure. In turn, as a result of the countless superimposed “lines” running parallel and crosswise, structures come about that are difficult to define in terms of concept. They are full of movement, characterized by abrupt changes in direction and different degrees of intensity and density, whereby the positive forms are always confronted with the negative areas of the white drawing paper in a way that attributes both an equal value. It is essential to the artist that her works may not be completely comprehended from any perspective view. Standing further away, the drawings are perceived as being rather vague due to the atmosphere they exude, though from close up they break up into countless individual elements, which we may no longer relate to one another.
 
Added to the abundance of drawing information in the new works of the “CLUSTER (color)” series is a highly complicated system of cuts in the paper, perceptible only from up close. They stem from the artist’s cutting out individual segments from the drawing paper, using them to guide her as she draws the marks, and then inserting them again in their exact original place. This working process, repeated hundreds of times, demands utmost concentration and precision.
 
Another feature of the latest drawings by Nelleke Beltjens is the use of ink pens in assorted colors. Whereas the earlier drawings were mostly rendered in a single color in black, blue, or green, lately the artist has been using combinations of six and more. For the first time, these also consist of warm color tones such as red, orange or dark brown. Due to the polyphonic effects of the colors, the drawn forms become even more intangible, sometimes going up in flying sparks and evoking emotions best described by comparing them with music. Indeed, Nelleke Beltjens’ drawings are closely associated with music. The latest works were drawn while listening to the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner or Mahler (as hinted at in the extremely dynamic, two-part, large-format work “Mahler Double #2”). The music flows into the drawing process as an atmospheric and rhythmic quality, though the works have nothing in common with the “illustration” of musical phenomena.
 
The exhibition’s title “They don’t know either” is open and mysterious. And yet, its tendency derives from the artist’s aspirations to point out, by means of the special structure of her drawings, the complexity of our being and of all living conditions. What is intangible and indeterminable about our reality and our existence is the basic experience from which the drawings come about as a kind of abstract notation. The fact that all the purported experts in the field of politics and economics, philosophy, religion and the natural sciences fail to come up with definitive answers justifies for the artist the necessity of an art, which with its own means endeavors to show precisely what may not be captured in concepts.
 
Nelleke Beltjens, born in the Netherlands in 1974, has been living in the USA for years now. She presently teaches sculpture at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana (USA). The opening will be musically accompanied by cellist Lucio Corrente. The Galerie Christian Lethert will participate at this year’s ART HONG KONG from May 26th to 29th. Furthermore we will again be presenting at VOLTA7 in Basle from June 13th to 18th.
 
 
GALERIE CHRISTIAN LETHERT
Antwerpener Straße 4
Cologne D-50672
Germany
T: +49 (0)221 35 60 590
 
 
 
 

 
JEFF BAILEY GALLERY, New York
 
 
Jim Gaylord, Throne, Overthrown, 2011
 
Jim Gaylord, Throne, Overthrown, 2011
oil on canvas, 55 x 96"
© Jim Gaylord, Courtesy of Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York
 
 
JIM GAYLORD
Spoilers
 
25 May - 1 July 2011
 
Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present Jim Gaylord: Spoilers, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper. This is the artist's second solo exhibition in New York and with the gallery.
 
Gaylord's work draws upon abstracted imagery found within high-speed action sequences in motion pictures. He creates compositions by collecting film stills of fleeting shapes and special effects, using a computer to superimpose several frames together at once. These studies become the source material for paintings, resulting in something like a painted collage.
 
The title of the exhibition, Spoilers, refers to the concept of revealing plot elements in a film or story that give away the outcome, in part or in its entirety. Pitting this idea against itself, Gaylord's work foils the entire narrative format, offering specificity of form, while withholding information that would allow a traditional, linear understanding of the picture.
 
The source films range from period action dramas, such as "Troy" and "Pirates of the Caribbean," to MTV's "Jackass," "The Waterboy" and "World Trade Center." The genres of armed conflict and sports suggest a quasi pun for Spoilers, as in the "spoils" of war.
 
The elongated horizontal format of Gaylord's paintings evokes the shape of a movie screen. This framework sets the stage for tumultuous action and uncanny conflicts. In "Throne, Overthrown," the largest painting in the exhibition (55 x 96 inches), two minaret-like shapes stand against a neutral sky. Upon this backdrop, military regalia, weaponry and human forms tussle and collide.
 
While revealing too much can abruptly halt one's attention to a narrative, Gaylord's work provokes a continual search for visual clues toward understanding. There is no absolute resolution to the story -- it continues to unfold in various directions.
 
Jim Gaylord recently completed an artist residency at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York. He was a 2008 Fellow in Painting for New York Foundation for the Arts and a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2005. He has had solo exhibitions at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco and AMT Gallery, Milan. His work was featured in Art On Paper 2008, at The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina, and is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Progressive Art Collection, Ohio and the West Collection, Pennsylvania. He received his MFA from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Film from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Gaylord lives and works in New York.
 
 
JEFF BAILEY GALLERY
625 W 27th St - Ground Floor
11th & 12 Ave
New York, NY 10001
T: +1 212.989.0156
 
 
 
 

 
KATE MACGARRY, London
 
 
Florian Meisenberg
 
Florian Meisenberg
Installation view
Kate MacGarry, London
 
 
FLORIAN MEISENBERG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90RM07vHQiw
 
18 May - 9 July 2011
 
Florian Meisenberg captures something rare in painting: lightness. Things appear weightless, a motley group of colourful objects tumble around in a crisp, white space and the human body is evoked in a pink line as it weaves across the canvas. In many of the works there is no external frame, the canvas floats unstretched like a flag or banner in the sky.
 
There is nothing superficial about the lightness, it is aspirational and pensive. Meisenberg is deeply aware of the counterpart to lightness: heaviness - the titles of his work, and the words inscribed across his canvases such as I Have Pain, tell of suffering. In Six Memos for the Next Millennium Italo Calvino tells how he strives to express lightness in his writing: 'Wherever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space.'
 
Meisenberg delivers this different space, an open field where tensions are not resolved and different states can co-exist. The colours are radiant and the whole colour spectrum is on display: brilliant blues and sharp, acid yellows play against rosy pinks and muted greys. The surface has a range of textures: letters are dribbled with thick, globular paint, the human body is rendered with broad, rough strokes while the backgrounds are translucent.
 
There is a sense of a natural order: arrangements appear to form freely, heads fall naturally into a pyramid as their shapes fit around each other. In some of his works sexual gymnastics or a feast is going on, as body parts and fluids, merge. The body, sometimes turned inside out, is reminiscent of a Jean Dubuffet’s figure; but unlike the angst ridden Expressionist, Meisenberg is gentle, playful and interested in the mysteriousness of life, in unexplainable forces.
 
FLORIAN MESIENBERG born in Berlin, 1980, lives and works in New York. He graduated from the Düsseldorf Kunstacademie in 2010. Recent exhibitions include Florian Meisenberg at Art Since the Summer of ’69, (Kate MacGarry in residence), New York, 2011; you can leave your hat on, Gallery Hasen Performance at Schmela Haus K20/K21, Düsseldorf; Self-consciousness (curated by Hilton Als & Peter Doig), Veneklasen Werner, Berlin, and Finally! scientists found out that art is just another hobby! (with C. Lohmann), Tanzschule Projects, Munich, all 2010; The artist as a model of change*, the artist as a young clown (*cancelled), Tanja Pol Galerie, Munich, 2009.
The publication If you stare on this painting for 72 hours you will loose 4.5 pounds was published in 2009 and is available from the gallery.
 
 
KATE MACGARRY
27 Old Nichol Street
London E2 7HR
T: +44 (0) 20 7613 0515
 
 
 
 

 
GALERIA ESPACIO MINIMO, Madrid
 
 
Larissa Bates, Dobbs Ferry Ladies Watching Children with Bats. 2011
 
Larissa Bates, Dobbs Ferry Ladies Watching Children with Bats. 2011
Gouache sobre tabla / Gouache on board.
25,4 x 20,3 cm.
Courtesy of Galeria Espacio Minimo, Madrid
 
 
LARISSA BATES
Snap and Go
 
May 19 - July 22, 2011
 
The gallery Espacio Mínimo closes 2010-2011 season with the first solo show in Spain of LARISSA BATES. Titled Snap and Go, the show groups together a representative selection of her latest pictorial works. American born in Costa Rica, Larissa Bates work focuses on the critique of gender roles, particularly the masculine one, and the study of colonial policies, with emphasis on the relations between Costa Rica and the USA.
 
In her paintings a repeating cast of characters play out psychological dramas connected to families, care giving, and power. Investigation of gender roles is a central theme in these works, with a particular emphasis on social constructions of masculinity. The main protagonist of the narrative is the Mother Man character, depicted as a wrestler who embodies qualities that are very nurturing in addition to being athletic, heroic and noble. The Mother Men strive for pacifism, and often engage in wrestling with one another.
 
The topic of colonialism is another theme central to the paintings. Chiquita Banana Girls, who appear of the in her work, are seen carrying fruit through the landscapes. Bates is the great-granddaughter of George P. Chittenden, who was the vice president of the United Fruit Company, which controlled the banana trade in Costa Rica, from 1925 to 1932. The United Fruit Company brought schools, railroads, and industry to Costa Rica. But under complex circumstances. They implemented institutionalized racism, as workers of color were banned from the company. UFC was notorious for abusive labor practices and exploitation of the Costa Rican citizens and their land rights. As a descendant of both the colonized and the colonizers, Bates’ paintings explore the interdependence of these two groups.
 
Influences from diverse sources form these small sized paintings (on panel, canvas or paper) of strange appearance and of great visual appeal. Carried out with impeccable technique the paintings invite to close and detailed observation. The mise-en-scène takes place in symbolic landscapes were formal influences, such as Byzantine iconography and Persian miniatures, are easy to recognize in the use of gold leaf, in the flat and shiny colors –like in an enameled work-, or in the meticulous drawing technique. However, the iconography is ludicrous and disturbing, very eclectic, with influences coming too from contemporary sources such as the Ballet Russe, Paul Cadmus, Trenton-Doyle Hancock or Amy Cutler.
 
LARISSA BATES (Burlington –Vermont-, 1981) lives and Works in New York. BA from the Hampshire College, MA her work is internationally exhibited since 2004 in galleries and art fairs.
 
 
GALERIA ESPACIO MINIMO
Doctor Fourquet, 17 & 24
28012 Madrid
Spain
T: +34 91 4676 156
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
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