 |
| Howardena Pindell, Untitled #98, 1977, Mixed media mounted on board, 10 x 9 inches. Image via garthgreenan.com. |
Howardena Pindell: Paintings, 1974 – 1980
April
10 – May 17, 2014
529 West 20th Street
New York, NY
From press release posted on garthgreenan.com:
Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to
announce, Howardena Pindell: Paintings,
1974–1980, an exhibition of paintings, collages, and drawings. The
exhibition is the first presentation of Pindell’s work in a New York gallery in
nearly a decade. Eight of the artist’s large-scale, abstract paintings will be
on view, most of which have never before been exhibited. A fully illustrated
catalogue—Pindell’s first since 1992—will accompany the exhibition, with an
essay by Barry Schwabsky.
The exhibition and its accompanying publication provide an
overview of Pindell’s work from 1974 to 1980, an incredibly innovative and
unique period for the artist. During this time, Pindell began a metaphorical
process of destruction/reconstruction in her work, often cutting the canvas in
strips and sewing them back together, then building up the surface in elaborate
stages: painting or drawing onto a sheet of paper, punching out dots from it,
dropping the dots onto her canvas, finally squeegeeing paint through the
“stencil” left in the paper from which she had punched the dots. By the late
1970s, sequins, glitter, powder, string, hair, and even perfume had become a
part of her labor-intensive, process-oriented approach to painting. Invariably,
her constructed canvases are installed unstretched, held to the wall merely by
the strength of a few finishing nails.
Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Howardena Pindell studied
painting at Boston University and Yale University. After graduating, she
accepted a job in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books at the Museum
of Modern Art, where she remained for 12 years (1967–1979). In 1979, she began
teaching at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where she is now a
full professor. Throughout her career, Pindell has exhibited extensively.
Notable solo-exhibitions include: Spelman College (1971, Atlanta), A.I.R.
Gallery (1973, 1983, New York), Just Above Midtown (1977, New York),
Lerner-Heller Gallery (1980, 1981, New York), The Studio Museum in Harlem (1986,
New York), the Wadsworth Atheneum (1989, Hartford), Cyrus Gallery (1989, New
York), and G.R. N’Namdi Gallery (1992, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, Chicago,
Detroit, and New York).
Her work has also been featured in many landmark museum
exhibitions, such as: Contemporary Black
Artists in America (1971, Whitney Museum of American Art), Rooms (1976, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art
Center), Another Generation (1979,
The Studio Museum in Harlem), Afro-American
Abstraction (1980, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center), The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s (1990, New
Museum of Contemporary Art), and Bearing
Witness: Contemporary Works by African-American Women Artists (1996,
Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta).
Most recently, Pindell's work appeared in: Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and
Abstraction, 1964–1980 (2006, The Studio Museum in Harlem), High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting,
1967–1975 (2006, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina,
Greensboro), WACK! Art and the Feminist
Revolution (2007, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Target Practice: Painting Under Attack,
1949–1978 (2009, Seattle Art Museum), and Black in the Abstract: Part I, Epistrophy (2013, Contemporary Arts
Museum, Houston).
Pindell's work is in the permanent collections of major
museums internationally, including: the Fogg Museum, Harvard University; the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art; the National
Gallery of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem;
the Wadsworth Atheneum; the Walker Art Center; and the Whitney Museum of
American Art.
Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to represent Howardena
Pindell.
No comments:
Post a Comment