the spring of Jack Youngerman

at The Drawing Room: Jack Youngerman  works on paper  1951-2012, above: Blue Delfina,1961

JACK YOUNGERMAN

The Drawing Room

Washburn Gallery

Parrish Art Museum

and LongHouse Reserve

In one of those rare alignments that sometimes takes place in the art world, this spring Jack Youngerman is popping up all over New York. With four concurrent installations shedding light on this esteemed artist, the complexities of Youngerman's vision, the arch of his prodigious studio practice and the depth of his ongoing research begin to crystallize, inviting reflection on and examination of a career that spans some six decades.

Yellow/Black, 1958, gouache on paper, 5 1/8 x 5 1/8"

Youngerman's artistic prelude dates to post-war Paris and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he became friends with the artists Cesar, Eduardo Paolozzi and Ellsworth Kelly, all of whom were also students there. Inspired by the use of organic form in School of Paris masters such as Matisse, Brancusi and Arp, his early interest in the flatness and frontality of geometric abstraction gradually morphed into a signature alphabet of invented shapes that came to characterize much of his mature work. 

A selection of these early works is on view at The Drawing Room, providing a window into the incisive groundwork laid down by the young artist early on. 

Then and now, in the studio Youngerman assiduously researches structure and content through small works on paper, and at The Drawing Room dozens of works wind through decades of the artist's insights into form and color. It's a must see.

  

 

At Betty Parson's urging, in 1956 Youngerman moved to New York, settling at Coenties Slip alongside fellow artists Kelly, Agnes Martin, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist and Lenore Tawney. Rauschenberg and Johns lived nearby, and while the group did not so much form a "movement," they did, in some profound ways, mount a visual insurgence in reaction to the Abstract Expressionists uptown.

Black/Red, 1959, oil on canvas

Youngerman's paintings from this era have a fierce physicality, and though they elucidate and encompass organic, biomorphic -- even lyrical -- form, the works employ a bracing palette and pigment so thick it's sculptural -- as if he was wrangling the paint into objecthood. The works on paper revel in this budding sense of form and motion, hugging the edges of paper rectangles as if a mere square could not contain their content. 

The invented shape emerged here, defined by pitch blacks and mustard yellow, pungent reds and bright orange pigmentation that coalesce into imagery as it pushes between the boundaries of foreground and background. 

Orange/Black Ink, 1959,  gouache and ink on paper, 4 7/8 x 4 3/8" 

These articulated shapes would be a keystone -- the backbone of a visual language Youngerman has continually refined and redressed as he has calibrated the edges of each form and the contour of every line with rigorous focus, as layers of pictorial syntax emerge. 

Seeing them now, one has a sense of the iconic in the making. Movement, convergence, eruption, ease, touching and pulling away -- the shapes address myriad contingencies -- they became, over time and focus, an arsenal of component parts.

The new work -- a selection of oil paintings on shaped wood currently on view at Washburn Gallery -- is optical, sharply frontal, and so brilliant the paintings are almost incandescent. 

at Washburn Gallery: Jack Youngerman  Tondos Triads Foils, above: Whitefoil, 2011

                                                                           

The paintings are heraldic and resolute, reading like the armorial facade of medieval escutcheons and sharing the symmetry and otherworldliness of Tibetan thangkas as well as more esoteric visual systems such as those found in cuneiform tablets or Islamic maps. 

From this perspective, Youngerman's keen and longstanding interest in non-Western art is especially noteworthy.

Where the early paintings are muscular in paint application and structure, the recent works possess a muscularity that is cerebral, labyrinthine and migratory -- as if they are connected to, or en route to, a higher concept. The paint is directional, slathered on in textured rivulets that lead the eye as if an invisible map is contained within each color bar. 

detail of Suspensus, 2010, oil on Baltic birch plywood, photo courtesy Washburn Gallery

Pancarte, 1951, ink on paper

If one assembled pictures of 
Youngerman's entire output into 
a gigantic flip-book (what a ride 
that would be...), to me, the
most recent work would stand 
eyeball to eyeball with the 1950s,
almost full circle.

The intent, of course, is different. 
But the level of intricacy that 
reverberates throughout both 
bodies of work is striking, with
both having a marked and
indelible effect on the 
optic nerve.

 




You really can't experience these paintings unless you're standing in front of them -- they are both cool and hot -- and at Washburn, they bounce between one another like ziggurats in a reflecting pool. 

on view at Washburn Gallery through June 28

Washburn Gallery window in Chelsea

Jack Youngerman, also appearing in Chelsea
courtesy Washburn Gallery:



















Finally, on view at the Parrish Art Museum -- animated, ebullient and downright explosive -- Conflux II, 2003 (below), is a testament to Youngerman's expansive and ever advancing oeuvre.

at The Parrish: Conflux II, 2003; collection Parrish Art Museum

Don't miss these insightful exhibitions both on Long Island's East End and in midtown Manhattan. 

at The Drawing Room: Yellow/Black, 1960

check back next week: 

Jack Youngerman, Black & White 
at LongHouse Reserve

at LongHouse Reserve: Jack Youngerman, Black & White, an installation of 7 fiberglass sculptures

  

THE DRAWING ROOM

66 Newtown Lane

East Hampton, NY 11937

631.324.5016 

on view through June 3rd

WASHBURN GALLERY

20 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10019

212.397.6780

on view through June 28

PARRISH ART MUSEUM

279 Montauk Highway

Water Mill, NY 11976

631.283.2118

ongoing 

LONGHOUSE RESERVE

133 Hands Creek Road

East Hampton, NY 11937

631.329.3568

on view through October

world within a world

Unknown Control Over Country's Horse Power, 2010, hand ground mineral pigments w/gum arabic, 8 x 6"

Raja Ram Sharma
Contemporary Paintings from Rajasthan

at The Drawing Room 

One of the best things about the age we live in is its cross culturalism. In the arts, the world is wider -- more egalitarian -- and infinitely more interesting than it was 20 years ago. Fingertip communication has changed everything, with smartphones and the internet helping to level the playing field across the globe. We stand more shoulder to shoulder now, and our perception of contemporary art is that much more broad, allowing cultural exchange that inspires a new sort of camaraderie, appreciation and awe. 

Enter Raja Ram Sharma, master temple painter and contemporary artist whose intimate, sacred, fantastical works are currently on view at The Drawing Room in East Hampton. Whether you're a painter, collector, art world devotee or simple phenomenologist, you must see this exhibition. Bring your readers, because the level of intrigue in these small works requires observation skills of the keenest order.

Independent, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 x 8 1/8"

Raja Ram Sharma lives in Udaipur, Rajasthan in northwest India, a sumptuous lake city filled with 16th century temple complexes, palaces and elaborate gardens. Sharma's aptitude for drawing was exhibited so early that by age 7 he was sent to live with a renowned Indian painter. There he studied the traditions of the Nathdwara school, and learned to paint pichwai, the cloth paintings that hang behind Krisha in Hindu temples across Asia. Now a master temple painter, Sharma presides over a pichwai workshop where apprentices work to his specifications. 

Before the Storm, 2012, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 1/8 x 8 5/8"

In his free time, Sharma paints in the tradition of the Indian miniature typical of works developed in the Mughal empire. He applies mineral pigments to recycled paper, transforming each stroke as if it were a precious jewel. The marvelous detail is owed both to a lifetime of study as well as the single-hair brushes he makes from squirrel hair. (Single-hair is a bit of a misnomer -- it's not literally a single hair -- it's a tuft of hair from the tail of a squirrel that is shaped to allow a single hair to ascend to the tip). The bounce and flexibility of each brush is key to its use. The detail below measures less than one square inch of the painting above. 

detail: Before the Storm

Sharma's representative, Navneet Raman, curator and owner of Kriti Gallery in Benares, was kind enough to share some insights on the contemporary miniature with me last week.

The origins of the Persian miniature date back to 16th century. Typical of these paintings then, and not so different now, were the depictions of court life, historic battles, hunting scenes, landscape and wildlife. Today the art itself, while popular, is considered by the cultural elite as a part of the craft tradition, existing outside of the fine arts. It's not uncommon for contemporary artists in India eschew this magical tradition in spite of its delicate beauty. In fact, the ubiquitous miniatures found in local bazaars and tourist venues are often copies painted by teams of artisans, frequently falsely aged to have the appearance of antiquity. And throughout history -- even at the highest levels -- the subject matter in these particular paintings has been determined by patronage, not by individual expression. In this regard Sharma's new work, driven solely by his own artistic vision, is something of a revolution.

Flight to Freedom, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments w/gum arabic, 12 1/4 x 7 3/8"

For Raja Ram Sharma, a commitment to practice, a large following, and a new found independence has armed him with the will to exercise his voice well beyond the existing conventions. 

When Victoria Munroe (co-owner of The Drawing Room, with Emily Goldstein) met the artist in 2003, he was at the cusp of artistic liberation. She wanted to exhibit his work and offered him an extraordinary creative outlet by saying, "paint what you want." A revelation for any artist -- to be sure -- but in this case, unprecedented.

Study I, 2001, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 x 8 1/8"

Raja Ram Sharma's first exhibition at the former Victoria Munroe Fine Arts in Boston garnered reviews in Art in America, Arts of Asia and The New York Times. Two of Sharma's paintings now hang between 16th and 17th century miniatures at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. 

There have been moments of dazzling balance between the representational and the abstract -- for example, Byzantine mosaics; pre-Columbian and American Indian textiles and ceramics; Japanese screens; Mughal painting; and post-Impressionism.

Roberta Smith, New York Times, March 28, 2010 

"Until it's on exhibit," said Navneet, "no one sees this work other than Raja and his wife. In fact, this work has not been shown in India -- it's the first time I've even seen it framed."

Navneet Raman, owner and curator of Kriti Gallery

"These exhibitions -- in Boston and here -- they have allowed him to buy a house for his family, and it's big enough for him to work," said Navneet. "But more than that, it's the acceptance he feels. That is tremendous."

"When we exhibited his paintings in 2005
(in India), it was the first time miniature paintings were shown in a stand-alone exhibition outside a museum. Every piece sold on opening night. He has many followers now. In October he will exhibit at Kriti (in Benares) -- we anticipate a successful event."

The Udaipur region suffers tremendous annual droughts that are followed by drenching monsoons, and in this way the region bounces from the inhospitable to the luscious, and then back again. Its undulating landscape provides little agricultural terrain and the area is constantly imperiled by a diminishing underground water table. Sharma locates this vulnerability in the sun-burnt hillsides and empty palace grounds of his paintings, everywhere devoid of humans. And then, it is transformed into a verdant Shangri-La, cycling just as it might in the natural world.

photo Cary Wolinsky, National Geographic

Mineral pigments are just what they sound like -- actual nuggets of agate, pearl, lapus lazuli, gold and the like, that are pulverized into powder, using gum arabic as a binder, much like egg is to tempera. 

Sharma's wife hand grinds pigment for 10 to 12 days straight -- yes, every day for a week and a half -- using a mortar and pestle. Each mineral exhibits singular qualities that require varied applications, assorted brushes and specific treatments. A lifetime of preparation stands at the foreground of the use of these pigments.

And, in case you're wondering, in Udaipur and other parts of India you don't get your studio materials at 1-800-mineralpigments. Sources for the best pigments are tricky to locate and complicated to maintain, requiring assiduous research and frequent updates. 

"The average person, if they got a bag of mineral pigments," said Navneet, "they would have absolutely no idea what to make of them."

So, after forty some years of painting what other people dictate, what's an artist to do?

Freedom on the Move, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 7 3/8 x 12 1/2"

Sharma's recent works depict a world in which humanity is represented only by its architecture, its articulated landscapes and the wildlife by which it is surrounded. Boats drift without passengers, horses without riders and empty windows, loggias and bridges abound. It is the artist's personal testament to humankind's lurking dissociation to the natural world. In this regard, Sharma's paintings possess a sense of longing, stillness and solitude and a reverence for the depth of this rich cultural landscape.

The Signs of Change with the Advent of the Monsoon, 2010

Raja Ram Sharma, Contemporary Paintings from Rajasthan is on view through October 29. Don't miss this wonderful show.



 

Another interesting note: currently on view at the Museum of Art and Design, selections from the extraordinary collection of Doris Duke's Shangri-La in Hawaii are on view in the exhibit Doris Duke's Shangri-La: Architecture, Landscape and Islamic Art.  

This marks the first time any of the foundation's 3,500 works of art have been exhibited off site, and includes works by six contemporary artists who were recently in residence there. The Gods must be speaking...

new on newtown

Matt Rich, Ampersand, 2012, acrylic on cut paper with linen tape, 54 x 48 1/2 inches

Matt Rich, Patriot and Hatchet

Halsey McKay

Cambridge-based artist Matt Rich exhibits wall-hugging paper paintings at Halsey McKay through July 17. Painterly, economical, and scrappy at the same time, Rich's works seem to defy painting conventions. Incidents of color and structured slices of cut paper weave into delicate geometric abstractions. 

Aspects of the works feel as though they've been sampled from a larger network of found imagery, like splices of graffiti or other paintings. They command the wall with remarkable clarity, but if you find yourself in a jam you can easily slip one under a door.

Matt Rich, Six, 2012, acrylic on cut paper with linen tape, 40 x 24 inches

Hilary Pecis, In Accordance

Upstairs at Halsey McKay, the San Francisco artist Hilary Pecis weds psychedelia, mass media, and assemblage in a body of work that is as crisp as broken glass. 

Hilary Pecis, Ice, 2012, archival inkjet print, edition of 5, 20 x 24 inches

In her current show, In Accordance, Pecis slices and dices into images of natural phenomena torquing space with kaleidoscopic results. Dissonant and apocalyptic, the image field suggests a rejiggering of contemporary vision.

 

Hilary Pecis, Beach, 2012, cut paper collage, 11 x 15 inches

  Reed Krakoff, One Chair   

at Harper's Books

Designer Reed Krakoff, known for his collections in structural, post-modern women's wear, is stretching out. First exhibited earlier this year at Salon 94, on view at Harper's are one hundred chairs, identical except for the color of felt sheathing, designed by the artist's wife, Delphine. 

A somewhat Beuysian experience, here Krakoff poised the simple geometry of the chair with the sensuousness of felt, arranging each unit in distinctly non-utilitarian fashion. The chairs range in scale and color -- from real life to Barbie sized, and from simple grey to eye-popping pinks and acid green. 

Paula Hayes at Glenn Horowitz

Currently at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, the New York artist and acclaimed landscape designer, Paula Hayes exhibits hand-blown glass terrariums, rarely seen large scale drawings, and an intriguing sound installation.

Hayes, whose 2010 exhibit of gigantic terrariums at MoMA, Nocturne of the Limax Maximus, brought the natural world inside the venerated halls of that institution, creates delicate, often life-sustaining environments filled with exotic plants, gems and minerals, and other intrigues. 

Donald Sultan at The Drawing Room

Donald Sultan, Rouge Poppies April 25 2012, conte on paper, 22 1/2 x 30 1/4 inches

On view at The Drawing Room, works on paper by Donald Sultan that range from toothy explorations in charcoal and velvet flocking to buoyant gouaches that celebrate the flowers he cultivates in his Sag Harbor garden.

Skyflowers Blue Green May 31 1997, tempera on Somerset

Sultan, whose iconic images have been a part of the contemporary art vernacular for some four decades, here articulates poppies, oranges, mimosa in a variety of media, and in his series, Wallflowers, the rich botanical imagery of blossoming wisteria, bluebells, and other species spill across white backgrounds with poetic elegance.

As Sultan handily ricochets between the industrial and the bucolic, dazzling color and effervescent blacks and whites, he traverses a language all his own, redefining the traditional still-life, botanical painting, and nature's plenty.

  

Andrew Schoultz at Eric Firestone Gallery

detail, Andrew Schoultz, Ex Uno Plura

And just up the street, on view at Eric Firestone Gallery -- don't miss Andrew Schoultz, Ex Uno Plura, an eye-popping installation of painted vintage flags along with the artist's signature wall painting, on view through July 7th. 

Schoultz's paintings and site-specific works draw on cultural themes and an appreciation of civic, military, and world history. The show, which sparked a bit of controversy among East Hampton's locals, is more of an ode to the American flag than an indictment of it. The installation, an extravaganza of dizzying proportion, absolutely reflects the restlessness and clamor of contemporary living.

Summer in East Hampton is happening on Newtown Lane.