De la Nada Muerte A la Nada Vida, 2010

Lush and tactile, the canvases heavy with paint, José Lerma is known for his texturally seductive, semi-abstract paintings that allude to the idea of a formal portrait. Recognized for his abstract, expressively personal paintings, Lerma ventures off the canvas to a conceptual, almost sculptural practice in his latest show, “I am Sorry I am Perry” at Andrea Rosen Gallery. In three parts, the bankers, the curtain, and the keyboards, Lerma references both personal and historical narratives, yet encourages the viewer to create their own.

José Lerma (b. Spain, raised in Puerto Rico) lives and works in New York and Chicago, where he is on faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, he has a solo show at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY. “I am sorry I am Perry” is on view through January 22, 2011. Additionally, “A Person of Color/A Mostly Orange Exhibition” – a group show curated by Lerma, opens at Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, on January 22, 2011.

Amanda Schmitt: Rather than just a showing of new paintings, “I am sorry I am Perry” seems to me to be a very thoughtful exhibition with clear formal and conceptual intentions. Are you both the artist and the curator?

José Lerma: I planned this exhibition around 3 elements that I had worked with in the past.   Curating is a good way of putting it.  Even before I started making art, I loved Mardsen Hartley’s paintings of Von Freyburg. I like the idea of a collection of objects and stories collapsing on each other and becoming, in effect, a portrait.   In that sense, all my shows are a kind of curated self-portrait. However I didn’t want it to feel like discreet parts that were there to be decoded instead I wanted the viewer to arrive at kind of “fourth reading”; I love when clarity devolves into babble and facts become aesthetics. What I mean is that what matters to me is the effect that the parts have on each other and not their individual meanings. Continue Reading More »

Over the course of seven years, photographer Timothy Briner created “Boonville”, taking place in six different towns spread across the U.S. from New York to California. During this unique solitary road trip, his itinerary consisted of New York, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, and California. Importantly, Briner did his best not to be an anonymous traveler just passing through, he chose to ground himself within the communities for weeks and months at a time. He became familiar and close with the locals and was fortunate to get to know the rhythms of their everyday lives. Within the portraits of hunters and smoke stacks, Briner has a clear opinion, which is never condescending or reductive. These images of different zip codes all with the name Boonville form a unique series of the commonalities of small towns in contemporary America, as seen from the inside. Currently, he has a solo show of the work at the Brauer Museum of Art in Valparaiso, Indiana and a trade edition of the book is in progress.

Briner was born in Indiana. He currently lives in Brooklyn, and is represented by Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York. Continue Reading More »

Domestication, 2009

Yarisal & Kublitz is the artist duo Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz from Switzerland and Denmark, respectively. Working with time-based elements, their ideas are often based on intensifying the moment…”a reminder of the unbearable fragility of the moment.”  I was drawn to their deadpan format of storytelling using elements that are stripped down to the core. At the opening to their latest show “Doubter II” at Kunsthalle Galapagos, Ronnie insisted that I must go back to experience the installation without the crowd. He described it as a “happening”, which changes according to the moment. There is certainly a zen quality to their artworks, in which the subject and audience can do nothing but to accept. Continue Reading More »

"603" (detail), 2010

While I was in Miami for art fair week earlier this month I had a chance to catch up with Brooklyn based artist Grayson Revoir, who was showing with West Street Gallery. Considering the thousands of artworks on display at the numerous fairs around Miami, Grayson’s exhibit was a welcome respite from the crowded booths. This is especially true considering where I saw it: his hotel room on the 6th floor of the Deauville – home to the NADA art fair.  For those who may not be familiar with the artist, the recent Cooper Union graduate is perhaps most recognizable for his fusion of woodwork, found object and conceptual underpinnings. For his newest project he invited visitors to his guerrilla style art “booth” to carve, scratch, draw and otherwise impact the surface of a “picnic” table specially constructed on site for the fair. Both the interactivity of the piece and the context of its display formed a welcome contrast to the rest of NADA’s bustling 6 floors below. I met with Grayson serendipitously while foraging for food on the last day of the fair. Our interview was conducted as a result of a discussion we had while eating burritos on his sculpture. Continue Reading More »

Priscilla (from the series The Last Days of W). Courtesy of the artist.

In 2004, visitors to the Whitney were greeted by “Charles,” a large-scale color photograph of a bespectacled man in coveralls standing in the wintry outside beside a house. In each of his gloved hands, he held miniature biplanes, and he did not smile. The image introduced museum-goers to that year’s biennial, but it also heralded the arrival of photographer Alec Soth (pronounced “Sōth”) to a larger public.

The art world welcomed him enthusiastically, heaping praise upon Sleeping by the Mississippi (Steidl, 2004) from which “Charles” was pulled. The book featured 46 photographs taken during a series of road trips along the Mississippi River and which were notable for their sumptuous detail and elegiac documentation of an iconic American byway.  Niagra (Steidl, 2006); Dog Days, Bogota; and Paris/Minnesota followed soon after and, in the jittery election year of 2008, The Last Days of W, which Soth, tongue firmly in cheek, labeled his “Big Political Commentary.”

The young talent doesn’t restrict his work to photography books alone, however. He also shoots for the prestigious agency Magnum Photos, traditionally a photojournalist cooperative, and oversees Little Brown Mushroom (LBM), a blog and small press. (The modest initiative was represented at the New York Art Book Fair at PS1 in November.) Today Soth produces the Continental Picture Show series for the New York Times and is promoting Broken Manual, a collaboration with Lester Morrison that explores the places to which monks, survivalists, and the like retreat. The first U.S. survey of his work is also being shown at the Walker Art Center through January 2, 2011, and on Wednesday, December 8, he travels to New York to speak at FIT. New Yorkers can also catch Soth at The Strand on Thursday, December 9, when he’ll be signing books.

The man is busy, but he graciously took the time to talk to me last month over the phone. I was nervous beforehand, but he’s easy to talk to and we had a good time. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Continue Reading More »

"Wild Child Hand Style" 2010, © Jose Parla

Artists and brothers, Jose and Rey Parla each have unique and recognizable visions. Born into a family of Cuban exiles, they moved to Puerto Rico at very early ages to return to Miami again before they were teenagers. They both currently live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Two weeks ago I had a studio visit with Jose and Rey. Knowing each other since the year 2000 we caught up about their latest projects. It was such a thrill to see all of the work – finished or in progress, their work truly moves me.

Jose’s bodies of work, particularly his paintings, are a combination of memories and experiences, from the many cities he has moved through since childhood and throughout his life. Through these diverse locations, each painting holds the textures, colors and pulse of each place. The walls in which he draws direct inspiration from, hold years of decay and neglect from the layers of paint, to decades of old posters.

"Scratch Graph 1" 2007, © Rey Parla

Rey creates abstract works, which combine film, photography, paint and ink materials. These images are not computer-generated, but are hand-manipulated experimental motion picture based works that create a new kind of a “non-photo” photograph. Continue Reading More »

Reciprocity of Light, 2010

Brandon Lattu’s installations do not give obvious answers. They rather make a statement through more ambiguous gestures, at least on first impressions. Based in Los Angeles, Lattu is an artist with multiple practices including a sculpture that was created from time-based photographic operations, which resulted in an abstraction of physical form. Lattu’s perspective allows us to investigate and pry into our surroundings and current events and is provocative yet slightly understated. I recently saw his solo exhibition “Reciprocity of Light” at Leo Koenig, and was especially drawn to the minimal aesthetics of the “Random Compositions“.  After our brief chat over the telephone and the following answers, I got a better perception of the artist’s theoretical practice. I highly recommend experiencing the unique installation Reciprocity of Light while it is still up.

Seven Projections, 2010

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