Sculpture 1967-68. This body of work was created in New York at the start of Jenney’s career. Most of the works belong to a series called Linear Piecesand were included in exhibitions such as Arp to Artschwager II and III at Richard Bellamy/Noah Goldowsky Gallery, New York in 1967-68.
Neil Jenney will exhibit sculpture from 1967-68 at Alexander and Bonin beginning January 19th. This body of work was created in New
York at the start of Jenney’s career. Most of the works belong to a
series called Linear Piecesand were included in exhibitions such as
Arp to Artschwager II and III at Richard Bellamy/Noah Goldowsky
Gallery, New York in 1967-68.
The Linear Pieces are diptychs comprised of two sections of
aluminum alloy bent by hand. Each half appear to follow the same
design but, like Rauschenberg’s paintings Factum I and II (1957),
they comment on the artist’s touch by showing how, even with
repeated imagery, a handmade or hand-painted work is always unique.
Larger and smaller Linear Pieces will be exhibited as will both
painted (with silicone rubber) and unpainted variations. All of
these works emphasize the serial quality of Minimalist sculpture
and, in their bends and pigmentation, the humanizing or
personalized quality implicit in Post-Minimalism. They share many
characteristics of work created by a slightly older group of
artists. Jenney was 22 at the time, yet the works seem at home with
the late 60s and early 70s work of Eva Hesse, Barry LeVa, Keith
Sonnier and Richard Tuttle.
This exhibition will also include The Joanne Duffy Piece (1968),
made of corrugated tin sheeting and fluorescent fixtures. This is
one of several sculptures named after art dealers of the 1960s such
as The Richard Bellamy Piece; The David Whitney Piece and The Noah
Goldowsky Piece. Jenney’s subsequent body of work, the Unconcerned
or Bad paintings, were extensively exhibited in the 1970s and 80s.
In 1981-82 a traveling survey of painting and sculpture from 1967 -
1980 was organized by Mark Rosenthal for University Art Museum,
Berkeley.
Neil Jenney was born in Torrington, CT in 1945 and is self-taught.
His work has been exhibited in several important group exhibitions
including three Whitney Biennials, Dokumenta 5, New Image Painting,
Bad Painting, and the 40th Biennale di Venezia. It is also included
in more than twenty permanent museum collections such as the Art
Institute of Chicago; Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Guggenheim
Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia
Museum of Art; Museu Serralves, Porto and the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York.
Image: Neil Jenney, "The Joanne Duffy Piece" 1968
Alexander and Bonin, 132 Tenth Avenue New York 10011
Hourd: Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
For further information or photographs please contact Claudine Nuetzel or Laura Weinstein at 212/367-7474 or by e-mail