Karen Rosenberg, 'The Shaped Canvas'

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Karen Rosenberg, ‘The Shaped Canvas’: Luxembourg & Dayan’, The New York Times, June 19, 2014 64 East 77th Street Manhattan Through July 3 Marking the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition “The Shaped Canvas,” this group show takes a lively but ultimately lightweight look at a postwar painting trend making a comeback. Although its catalog includes an edifying interview with Frank Stella, one of the artists in the 1964 show, by the art historian and critic Suzanne Hudson, the exhibition seems less inclined to revisit history than to cast a flattering light on younger artists like Nate Lowman and Jacob Kassay. It begins promisingly enough, with a snazzy installation of Mr. Stella’s V-shaped, gun-metal-gray “Slieve More” (1964) opposite Tom Wesselmann’s seductive “Smoker #11” of 1973 (which takes its billowy form from an exhalation). The juxtaposition reminds you that shaped canvases can be rigorously formalist or fun loving and sensual. The hedonists have the edge in the subsequent galleries, where playfully polymorphous works by Lynda Benglis, Elizabeth Murray and Mary Heilmann outshine an uncharacteristically subdued Kenneth Noland (“Midnight,” 1979)and a puzzlelike arrangement of triangular canvases by Wyatt Kahn. But by the third floor of the exhibition, missed opportunities start to nag at you, especially if you have seen the current shows of Lygia Clark at MoMA or Zilia Sánchez at Galerie Lelong, who have done more with the shaped canvas than many featured here. The presence of a spot painting by Damien Hirst in a trapezoidal frame says it all; this is history as written by the market. A version of this review appears in print on June 20, 2014, on page C25 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘The Shaped Canvas, Revisited’: Luxembourg & Dayan. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/arts/design/the-shaped-canvas-luxembourg-dayan.html .

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Exploring an Art Paradigm and Its Legacy, Luxembourg & Dayan Presents the Shaped Canvas, Revisited with Works from 1959 - 2014
For Immediate Release Media Contact Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc. [email protected], +1 917 371.5023 EXPLORING AN ART PARADIGM AND ITS LEGACY, LUXEMBOURG & DAYAN PRESENTS THE SHAPED CANVAS, REVISITED WITH WORKS FROM 1959 - 2014 THE SHAPED CANVAS, REVISITED Luxembourg & Dayan 64 East 77th Street New York City May 11 – July 3, 2014 Opening Reception: Sunday, May 11th, 6-8PM New York, NY…In the early 1960s, the shaped canvas emerged as a new form of abstract painting that reflected the optimistic spirit of a postwar space-race era when such forms as parallelograms, diamonds, rhomboids, trapezoids, and triangles suggested speed and streamlined stylization. The shaped canvas is frequently described as a hybrid of painting and sculpture, and its appearance on the scene was an outgrowth of central issues of abstract painting; it expressed artists’ desire to delve into real space by rejecting behind-the- frame illusionism. The defining moment for the paradigm occurred in 1964 with The Shaped Canvas, an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, curated by influential critic Lawrence Alloway with works by Paul Feeley, Sven Lukin, Richard Smith, Frank Stella, and Neil Williams. Alloway’s show defined a key feature of abstraction and revealed the participating artists’ desire to overthrow existing aesthetic hierarchies. Half a century later, the shaped canvas remains robust in art, encompassing an array of approaches and provoking questions about the continued relevance of painting. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum’s historic show, Luxembourg & Dayan will present The Shaped Canvas, Revisited, a cross-generational exhibition examining the enduring radicality of the painted shaped canvas and introducing such parallel movements as Pop Art and Arte Povera into discussion of the paradigm’s place in the history of modern art.
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2 THE LONG SIXTIES The Long Sixties Washington Paintings in the Watkins and Corcoran Legacy Collections, 1957 – 1982 February 16 – August 9, 2021 American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC The Long Sixties Washington Paintings in the Watkins and Corcoran Legacy Collections 1957 – 1982 INTRODUCTION The American University Museum recently acquired 9,000 works from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a Washington institution that closed its doors to the public in 2014. Together with our Watkins Collection we have an especially strong cache of works by Wash- ington regional artists. While curating a show of Washington paintings drawn from our growing collections, I became inter- ested in how my memories of a formative time in my life might be affecting my choice of artwork for this exhibition. BY JACK RASMUSSEN Director and Curator American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC THE LONG SIXTIES 3 This most influential time for baby boomers like me has been referred to as “the long sixties” by both National Gallery of Art curator James Meyer, and sixties radical Tom Hayden.1 Meyer references Tom Hayden’s book, The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama (2011), as one source for his use of the term.2 I have identified my personal “long sixties” as the years between 1957 and 1982. My intention is to foreground the effect of my experiences and memories of this important time in my life in my selection and present interpretation of paintings from that period. I hope to add transparency to my curatorial process.
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Download Exhibition Catalogue
This thematic exhibition begins with the fact that geometric shapes Some of the social histories ingrained in the abstract artworks have visual power, but it does not end there. The phrase Power include Frank Stella’s conceptual appropriation of a destroyed Geometry, adapted from globalism studies, is based on the premise Polish synagogue into his monumental shaped canvas for the Polish that artists have the power to maneuver cultural narratives into Village series; John McLaughlin’s inspiration from Zen Buddhism visual form. Geometric abstraction, as a picture-making strategy, is to create minimalist visual statements; and Judy Chicago’s feminist often imbued with histories of social rescue and resistance, under borrowing of a historically male-dominated craft, autobody the cover of symbolic shapes and colors. This exhibition serves to spraypaint, in order to shift gender dynamics in the art world. illuminate the embedded social, political, cultural and historical These and other examples highlight the ways that artists advocate narratives that drive abstract picture structures. for social awareness through their chosen media. Power Geometry draws from the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art –Jason Foumberg, Thoma Foundation curator Foundation’s collection of mid-century abstract painting and contemporary digital art. The foundation’s holdings, diverse and international in scope, provide an opportunity to rethink traditional themes in art. Exhibition runs Fall 2015 through Summer 2016. Sabrina Gschwandtner (American, born 1977) Expanding/Receding Squares, 2014 16mm polyester film and polyester thread on lightbox 32 x 31 7/8 inches This “film quilt” on a lightbox is comprised of 16mm filmstrips sewn into a pattern evoking a quilt motif.
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Sven Lukin GARY SNYDER GALLERY MAY 24–JUNE 30, 2012
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Teaching Art Since 1950
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