Painting to Survive Proposal

Pain%ng to Survive, 1985-1995 Curated by Jonathan Weinberg, ar%st and art historian The Brooklyn Waterfront Ar%sts Coali%on, April 2018 Jane Bauman Lee Jaffe John Bradford Stephen Lack Suzan Courtney Marc Lida Jean Foos Michael O@ersen Joel Handorff Jonathan WeinBerg Richard Hofmann Pain&ng to Survive focuses on a group of painters who responded in complex ways to the AIDS epidemic and the Culture Wars of the Reagan and Bush years. The children of the so-called “Greatest GeneraNon,” these arNsts either grew up in New York City, or came to the Metropolitan area with a sense of great opNmism. Although the city was undergoing enormous economic upheaval in the 1970s, rents were cheap and there was an explosion of possiBiliNes in Lower Manha@an for young arNsts to make and show work. But the collapse of the East Village art scene and the devastaNon of the AIDS epidemic cast a pale over many of their careers. In the case of Hofmann and Lida, AIDS ended their life too early. The loss of so many friends, family and colleagues to the disease traumaNzed those who lived on, even as it Became more and more difficult to jusNfy large scale emoNve painNng in an art world that increasingly valued parody, appropriaNon and minimalism over expressionism. Yet these arNsts kept painNng with marvelous results. This exhiBiNon provides a chance to reassess this work Both in terms of its formal qualiNes and as a form of sanctuary in hard Nmes. For all of these arNsts painNng was a means of expressing anger and mourning, But also qualiNes of Beauty and harmony; a generosity of form to comBat a society that seemed at Nmes heartless and indifferent. In the post-modern, post- minimalist late 20th Century, there was a tendency to distrust anything that might seem senNmental, favoring the ready-made over the hand-made, the dead-pan over the emoNonal. These arNsts however had li@le paNence for the cool detached quality of so much of the art of their contemporaries. Vigorous Brush stroke and passionate color was a way to respond to disease and death: painNng as life and feeling. As we face a new period in American history of intense anxiety, the ways in which these arNsts found in painNng Both a form of resistance and a means of salvaNon has renewed resonance. For all the emphasis on individual expression, there is a sense in which this work speaks of community—a deep need to communicate not only suffering and anger, But also the possiBility of redempNon in the generosity of paint. 1 Ar%st Biographies Jane Bauman Jane Bauman received a B.A. from Santa Clara University, California, in 1973 and an M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art InsNtute in 1980. She then moved to New York and Became acNve in the East Village art movement. She was represented By the Civilian Warfare Gallery, New York, and exhiBited her painNngs extensively in the U.S. and Europe—including at the American GraffiN Gallery, Amsterdam; André Emmerich Gallery, New York and Zurich; and Anna FrieBe Gallery, Cologne. Her art is in numerous collecNons including the Thomas Armann FoundaNon, Cooper Hewi@ Museum of American Art, New York, and Musée de Cloitre des Cordeliers, Paris. In 1987 Bauman moved to California where she is a professor and the chair of the Visual and Performing Art Department at Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley and conNnues to work as an arNst. She now is represented By Jamie Brooks Fine Arts in Costa Mesa, California, where she had a solo exhiBiNon in OctoBer 2016. John Bradford John Bradford moved to New York in 1967 to a@end the Cooper Union. In 1969, he Became a founding memBer of the Bowery Gallery and, in the 70’s, was a program director for the FiguraNve ArNst’s Alliance. In the mid-1970s he a@ained a MFA in painNng from Yale. In the 1980s he exhiBited at Harry Zirlin’s Gallery 120, which was associated with the BiBlical Painters Group. Recently he rejoined the Bowery Gallery ajer many years with 55 Mercer Gallery. He was awarded the Academy Award for Visual Arts By the American Academy of Arts and Le@ers in 2011. His work is represented in the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in St. Louis. At numerous venues in and around New York City, he conNnues to exhiBit BiBlical and historical suBjects, portraits, drawings from the model, and prints. Suzan Courtney Suzan Courtney received a diploma in art and design from Kingston Upon Hull College of Art, London and an MFA from the Yale School of Art. She was selected to Be in the Whitney Independent Study Program, The Skowhegan School of PainNng and Sculpture and the Edward AlBee FoundaNon. She has exhiBited her painNngs in New York, New Orleans, Savannah, Paris, France and Hull, England. Her work is in the collecNon of the Gasperi Gallery, Galerie Gordon Pym Et Fils, INA CorporaNon, Ericson Gallery CollecNon, MoBile Museum of Art and the Sol LeWi@ CollecNon. She has taught painNng and drawing at Rutgers University; New York University; and the Rhode Island School of Design. Suzan Courtney lives in New York City where she has her studio and is working on a series of painNngs for a show in New Orleans in the Fall of 2017. Jean Foos Jean Foos is an New York–based visual arNst. Primarily an abstract painter, she is currently developing ceramic pieces that play with the grid structure and tacNle qualiNes of her painNngs. Foos also has a passion for design that archives and elevates the work of her fellow arNsts— poets, painters, photographers, and performers. In 2014 Ragged Sky Press puBlished Cannonball Lagoon, a Book of her postcard drawings made on gallery invitaNons. Her graphic work has recently appeared in BOMB Magazine and in the Brooklyn Museum’s “Agitprop!” exhiBiNon. 2 Joel Handorff Joel Handorff was Born in Chelsea, MA But has worked and lived in the East Village for over forty years. He has a MFA from City College of City University of New York. He is the recipient of the RauschenBerg Award for teaching children with learning disabiliNes. He was an adjunct lecturer, art history at several insNtuNons including City College and Fordham University. He taught art at the celeBrated, Central Park Secondary School, under the tutelage of MacArthur Award recipient DeBorah Meier where he developed curriculum as well as instrucNon in art. Most recently he was awarded a Joan Mitchell award. Richard Hofmann Richard Francis Hofmann, painter, muralist and mixed media arNst, was Born in Newark, NJ. Ajer earning a BFA at Pra@ InsNtute, he lived and painted in the East Village. His murals decorated such cluBs as Danceteria, Pyramid, The Saint, Roxy and LimBo Lounge. He exhiBited at such venues as ABC NO RIO, Fashion Moda, LimBo Gallery, Steven Adams and others. His work tackled the larger quesNons of sin and redempNon, religion and homosexuality, suffering and ecstasy with fervid Brushstrokes and layers of intense color. Ajer a Brief stay in California, he returned to NYC where he died of AIDs in 1994 at the age of 39. Lee Jaffe Jaffe grew up in New York City. At the age of sixteen Jaffe lej New York to a@end Penn State University. Jaffe lej Penn State at the age of 19 and moved to Brazil. There he directed such films as the 16 mm film Nine Ways of Dying. When Jaffe returned in New York in 1971, he conNnued making films, such as Impact, with the conceptual arNst Vito Acconci, and Brooklyn Bridge, with Gordon Ma@a-Clark. In 1971 he also parNcipated in the landmark conceptual exhiBiNon “Projects: Pier 18” for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated By WilloughBy Sharp. In 1972, while working with Island Records, he met BoB Marley. Jaffe lived with Marley, managing the Wailers, playing harmonica on the alBum NaFy Dread, and organizing their North American tour. In 1983 Jaffe turned to painNng. His works have Been characterized as “large scale, mulN-media historical assemBlage.” Jaffe has exhiBited at major museums worldwide, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, DuBlin; and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England. Stephen Lack One of the seminal arNsts of the East Village Gracie Mansion gallery, Stephen Lack sources his suBject ma@er from a vast swath of media input and personal experiences. Educated in Psychology at McGill University, Montreal, and earning an MFA from the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico, Lack has conNnuously exhiBited his films and painNngs internaNonally. Two of his independent film projects, Montreal Main and THe Rubber Gun, opened in New York in the 1970s as part of the New Directors Series at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. He has a solo show of oil-sNck drawings in fall 2016 at the Castor Gallery, New York. A retrospecNve of his work is scheduled for 2016–17 at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana. 3 Marc Lida Marc Lida was Born in New York City in 1957. A painter and illustrator, he studied at SUNY Purchase, and at Parsons School of Design with Maurice Sendak. His drawings were puBlished in THe New York Times, The New York Na&ve, The Village Voice, and THe WasHington Post. He had exhiBiNons of his work at PS 1, in New York City, and at the Yale Art School in New Haven. In 1991 he was a recipient of a grant from the Pollock-Krasner FoundaNon. Among his favorite suBjects were the dance cluBs and gay Bars of Lower Manha@an.

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