The David Richard Gallery is currently running another new exhibition (see here for other current exhibition by Beverly Fishman at David Richard Gallery) by celebrated Op Artist Richard Anuszkiewicz.  The gallery is located at 544 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, NM 87501, USA.  The exhibition is called ‘VARIATIONS: EVOLUTION OF THE ARTIST’S MEDIA 1986 – 2012‘ and runs May 10 2013 to June 15 2013.  Given that there are 2 superb Op Art related exhibitions at the David Richard Gallery, we strongly recommend that if you live anywhere near there or are going to be in the area you drop in and take a look.

Anuszkiewicz – Translumina Blue Tinted Red

“Featuring sculptural works accompanied by drawings and paintings, the exhibition maps the evolution of Richard Anuszkiewicz’s art from 1986 through 2012 as he moves out of the purely two-dimensional plane and explores visual perception and three-dimensional space with the greatest economy of means, using only thin strips of wood or metal that are painted with just two or three carefully selected hues. Creating reductive structures, he takes advantage of a well known phenomenon in which the viewer’s mind completes the minimal constructs, envisioning a whole from the fragments by filling in the suggested flat surfaces or layers of overlapping planes. These structures are not only more architectural, but much simpler than his paintings, relying less on painting methods to create optical illusions and more on a literal approach aided by pure color. 

In the Translumina series, the painted wooden strips on wall reliefs or pedestal sculptures create open structures that read as solid three-dimensional shapes. In the wall reliefs, the distances between the wood strips are graduated, which in combination with alternating hues model the rectangular shapes and create the illusion of rounded columns. Thus, he creates and maintains a tension between painting and sculpture to create the illusion of solid three-dimensional overlapping shapes. Another series of sculptures is still more reductive, whereby Anuszkiewicz uses only thin strips of metal constructed in a two-dimensional plane painted with one to four colors—mostly primary—such that they appear as line drawings. These sculptures are so open and transparent, they seem to float like boxes and cruciform structures in space. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by John Yau of New York.”

Anuszkiewicz – Inner Red on Yellow

The gallery is open 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday.  Entrance is free.

A new exhibition by Beverly Fishman is on now at the David Richard Gallery, 544 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, NM 87501, USA.  The exhibition is called ‘Wavelength’ and runs May 10 2013 to June 15 2013.  The exhibition is the second solo exhibition for Beverly Fishman at the gallery and features new works painted on stainless steel.

“Fishman’s latest work focuses on wavelengths that are used in medicine, such as EKGs and EEG and other diagnostic tests. While these wavelengths are a physical representation of specific bodily functions, in Fishman’s work she uses them to comment on how medical data becomes a more important representation of the patient than the actual person in our high tech, data driven, fast paced world. Icons of pharmaceuticals subtly collaged among the data along with bright and fluorescent colored stripes of barcodes reference the temptation of marketing and a consumer-driven culture that believes in and expects a cure for every disease and discomfort. All painted on polished reflective stainless steel, allows the viewers to glean a hint of themselves through the data and decide if there really is a pill to cure their ill.

Inspired early in her career by Gene Davis, Richard Anuszkiewicz and Mel Bochner, her artwork is rooted in color and hard edge painting, Op Art and Pop Art. However, Fishman has created her own language that imbues her paintings, wall reliefs and sculptures with a conceptual underpinning that challenges the viewer visually and intellectually. The exhibition also features one of Fishman’s latest Pill Spill sculptures, consisting of many blown glass elements that are larger scale replicas of pharmaceuticals clustered together as though just poured from a bottle by someone scrambling in search of the right drug for that particular moment.”

The gallery is open 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday.  Entrance is free.

I’m a bit late on this one for various reasons, but Tom Martinelli is currently exhibiting at the David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.  The exhibition features work from the period 1993-1998 and runs until 4th May 2013.

“Martinelli, a New York City–based artist now lives and works in New Mexico. His art-making practice has largely focused on abstract painting, but more recently has incorporated elements of photography. Martinelli has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York and his artwork included in numerous group exhibitions in New York, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, among other cities. His paintings have been exhibited internationally in Vienna, Austria, London and Manchester, England. Martinelli has received many grants and fellowships, including the distinguished Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award twice. His artwork has been reviewed in numerous publications including New York Magazine, ARTnews Modern Painters, New York Times, Art + Auction, Review Magazine and THE Magazine.”

The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm.  Entrance is free.

David Richard Gallery
Railyard Arts District
544 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Tel: 505-983-9555

Currently on at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France is a major retrospective of the work of Julio le Parc.

The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and installations from the Argentinian-born artist from the 1950s to the present day.  This is the largest exhibition in France for Le Parc’s work since the 1980s (NB – Le Parc was expelled from France in May 1968, after participating in the Atelier Populaire and its protests against major institutions but now lives and works in Cachan, Paris).

Serie 14 5E
Julio le Parc

Julio le Parc is a very important figure in the development of Op Art.  He was a founding member of G.R.A.V. (English version is the Visual Art Research Group) which was a pre-cursor to kinetic and Op Art.  Born in 1928, Julio is now 84 and is still as relevant today as he was in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The exhibition takes up over 2,000 square metres of space in the Palais de Tokyo and runs from February 27 to May 13, 2013.  Entrance to the Palais de Tokyo is €10 (concessions pay less).  The Palais is open from 12 noon to 12 midnight every day except Tuesday.

PALAIS DE TOKYO
13, avenue du Président Wilson,
75 116 Paris

The annual Kinetica Art Fair 2013 is currently underway at Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road, London NE1 5LS.  Amongst other artists, the exhibition will feature some of the works of Italian Op Artists Alberto Biassi and Paolo Scirpa.  They are to be found on stand no.2 and are represented by maab studio d’arte.

The Kinetica Art Fair is only on for the next couple of days (runs 28th February 2013 to 3rd March 2013) so you will need to be quick.

Kinetica Art Fair

“Kinetica Art Fair, one of London’s annual landmark art exhibitions and a permanent fixture in the Art Fair calendar, brings together galleries, art organisations and curatorial groups from around the world who focus on kinetic, electronic, robotic, sound, light, time-based and multi-disciplinary new media art, science and technology.

For 2013 Kinetica is hosting the work of over 40 galleries and art organisations nationally and internationally, with representatives from UK, France, Russia, USA, Poland, Holland, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Indonesia and Japan, collectively showing over 400 works of art.”

As the Daily Telegraph has said of a previous exhibition: “If you can’t find something to excite you at Kinetica you probably don’t have a pulse“