Stanley Whitney / Alice Cattaneo
dal 11/11/2009 al 18/12/2009
Segnalato da
11/11/2009
Stanley Whitney / Alice Cattaneo
Christine Konig Galerie, Wien
In the work of Whitney, color and structure, two fundamental aspects of abstract painting, become color as structure. Blocks of green, yellow, light and dark red, orange and blue, line up and pack together, at times slightly overlapping, while piling up in four or five vertical levels. Cattaneo's sculptures skilfully play with stability, challenging the equilibrium of her structures to an extreme limit. The use of light materials such as plastic, foamboard, or thin wooden sticks, make them appear fragile. The final construction is an attempt to hold instability in time and space. Her videos explore space with small and essential gestures, which create concise compositional rebuses.
Stanley Whitney - I remember Clifford, still
Christine König Galerie is pleased to present I remember Clifford, still; Stanley Whitney's 3rd solo show in the gallery, first introduced by David Hammons in the course of the exhibition Quiet As It's Kept in 2002.
In the work of Stanley Whitney, color and structure, two fundamental aspects of abstract painting, become color as structure. Blocks of green, yellow, light and dark red, orange and blue, line up and pack together, at times slightly overlapping, while piling up in four or five vertical levels. Horizontal lines run between one row and another, uniting, dividing, as well as serving other, more mysterious functions. In the lower levels the blocks, square or rectangular, are usually smaller: they seem to have settled, crushed under the weight of the others, as happens in the deep geological layers of the earth. The square becomes the quintessence of the work: a founding-archetypal biology, an immediate and concrete contribution to a concept of pure visibility.
Where color and movement are concerned, Whitney's visual „call-and-response“ has a musical counterpoint. The colors create rhythm and thus sound: counterpoint, cadences both regular and syncopated, related to jazz. Whitney arrives at a synthesis of dissonance and harmony without ever repeating himself, creating a visual polyrhythm. (quot. Bob Nickas, Annemarie Sauzeau)
Stanley Whitney was born in Philadelphia in 1946, he lives and works in New York and Parma. Studies at Columbus College of Art & Design, Kansas City Art Institute, and Yale University. In 1996 he received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2002 the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Fellowship. New book by Bob Nickas: Painting Abstraction. New Elements in Abstract Painting, Phaidon Press, London, 2009.
Selected Exhibitions: 2009 Cave Painting, Gresham's Ghost, New York; Einarsson, Rhodes, Whitney, Team Gallery, New York; Infinite Patience, Haunch of Venison, New York; 2008 The Color Line, curated by Odili Donald Odita, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa; 2007 The Color Line, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; The Color Line, CIEL, Centre International d'Exposition de Larouche, Canada; Something About Mary, Orange County Museum of Art, O.C. California; bluetopic, Christine König Galerie, Vienna; 2006 LAC, Brescia, Italy; David Krut Projects, New York; 2005 Big Band, Galerie Les filles du calvaire, Paris and Brussels; text/image, GASP, Boston; 2004 A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna, Rome; Masters of the Obvious, University of Massachussetts (together with Mary Heilman, Jill Mosser and Tony Feher); 2003 Christine König Galerie, Vienna; Utopia Station, Zerynthia, Rome, Venice Biennale; Jack Tilton Gallery, New York; 2002 Quiet As It's Kept, Christine König Galerie, Vienna (curated by David Hammons); 2001 Bill Maynes Gallery, New York; 2000 Drawings, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City
.......................................
Third Room: Alice Cattaneo - One or more frames were dropped during playback
Alice Cattaneo was born in Milan in 1976, she lives and works in Milan. In 2009 she received the New York prize, in 2004 she had a teaching assistantship at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she also graduated. In Alice Cattaneo's work, space determines all subsequent interventions. Her works offer a lightness of touch and approach, a formal modesty and an economy of means.
Cattaneo's sculptures skilfully play with stability, challenging the equilibrium of her structures to an extreme limit. The use of light materials such as plastic, foamboard, or thin wooden sticks, make them appear fragile. The final construction is an attempt to hold instability in time and space.
Her videos explore space with small and essential gestures, which create concise compositional rebuses. Placing a first element, she composes by adding or taking away others. Using balances and counterbalances, the artist develops carefully formulated alternations of solids and voids. (exhibition in collaboration with Galleria Suzy Shammah, Milan)
Image: Stanley Whitney, I remember Clifford, still, 2007, Öl auf Leinwand, 183 x 183 cm
Courtesy Christine König Galerie, Wien
Opening: Thursday, November 12, 2009, 7 - 9 pm
together with the galleries Georg Kargl, Engholm Engelhorn, Gabriele Senn, and Momentum.
Christine Konig Galerie.
Schleifmühlgasse 1A, Vienna