Mark Moore Fine Art Blog

The gallery is proud to announce its inclusion in the upcoming Dallas Art Fair, which takes place April 9-12, 2015, at the Fashion Industry Gallery (Dallas, TX). Visitors to the fair can find us in Booth #G14, on the first floor.

The fair is adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the revitalized downtown Arts District. This year, the Dallas Art Fair will feature over 90 prominent national and international art dealers and galleries exhibiting painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, video, and installation by modern and contemporary artists. This will be the gallery’s third year participating in the show; the booth will feature new work by Vernon Fisher, David Klamen, David Maisel, Ryan Wallace, Penelope Umbrico, Ben Weiner, Julie Oppermann, Christopher Russell, Kim Rugg, and Lester Monzon, among others.

Booth previews will be available after March 1, by request. For additional information about special events, fair access, day passes, and featured artists, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is very proud to announce the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires‘ acquisition of “518 Beats” (2011) by Tim Bavington for its permanent collection. In addition to being a part of this public collection, the painting will also be featured in the upcoming exhibition, “Geometric Obsession – American School 1965 – 2015,” curated by Robert C. Morgan. Says the museum:

Fifty years ago curator William Seitz presented an op art exhibition titled The responsive eye at MoMa. With this proposal he deployed a scope of contemporary pieces that belonged to this movement, and brought together works of international artists and groups of artists from the United States, Argentina, Italy, England, Poland, amongst others. With the collaboration of one of the most important experts in geometric art of the period, the gallerist Denise René, the show featured the investigations on perception and pieces the generated an optical effect, associated to pure shapes, color and lines.

MACBA’s proposal for 2015 honors this iconic exhibition in its fiftieth anniversary, an initiative essential to the conception of its collection, which contains many of the artists who participated of The responsive eye. The Geometric Obsession. American School 1965-2015 project aims at bringing together forty works by these artists of the American school of abstraction with contemporary artists that have carried their legacy into the present.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an outreach program made up of a symposia of local and American specialists, which will bring forward the importance of these groups and their impact in art history until the present day. It is also expected that in 2016 the exhibition will itinerate in different institutions in Argentina and the South American region.

In addition to Bavington, the show will also include works by Josef Albers, Karl Benjamin, Gene Davis, John McLaughlin, Kenneth Noland, and many others. The exhibition will open on September 26, 2015, at 12pm – and will be accompanied by an in-depth catalogue with essays by critics such as Donald Kuspi, which will be presented in both English and Spanish.

We congratulate Tim on this major milestone!

Gallery artist Julie Oppermann will give an artist talk (alongside fellow Berlin-based artist, Michael Pohl) at the Weisman Museum of Art (CA) on Thursday, February 12, 5-6pm. Says the museum:

Julie Oppermann’s work pushes the limits of visual perception.  Scintillating effects arise through stacked layers of offset line patterns through which contrasting colors are juxtaposed, eliciting fluttering afterimages, optical flicker, disorienting spatial effects, and destabilizing sensations of movement.

In anticipation of her upcoming solo show at Mark Moore Gallery – which opens the following Thursday, February 19th, 7-9pm – this artist talk will include details pertaining to her new body of work, “Counterpoint,” as well as her studio technique and process. Admission to the artist talk is free and open to the public.

Julie Oppermann lives and works in Berlin. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union, and a Master’s in Neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2012 she completed a residency at FAAP in São Paulo, an academic exchange with Professor Robert Lucander at the Berlin University of the Arts, and completed her M.F.A. at Hunter College. In 2013 she had solo exhibitions at Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles, and Galeria Árnes y Roepke in Madrid, and in 2014 she had a solo exhibition at Galerie Roepke in Cologne. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (TX), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA).

For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com

The gallery is proud to announce Christopher Russell‘s upcoming solo exhibition at Morgan Lehman Gallery (NY), opening next Thursday, February 12.

On view through March 21, 2015, the exhibition will feature new photographs altered by the artist’s signature razor blade etchings. Says Russell of his work:

Traditionally, photographers have obsessed over dust and scratches, manipulating errant lighting in the darkroom to create an image as flawless as the smooth surface of coated paper. However, I’ve come to think of photography as a medium that accepts the blunt line of the hand as a shock to this surface uniformity, creating interplay between the immediacy of the hand and that of photography.

Individual photographs are understood primarily as narrative. Relationships between figures or objects are understood by speculating on what might have brought them together in the camera’s frame or what might have happened in the moments after. It is this secondary interpretation, photography’s malleable narrative life, that I’m calling attention to with my razor-drawings.

I use an action that is undesirable to photographers. In defacing the photograph, it becomes a Postmodern substrate for Romantic thought. I identify as a photographer, however, I explore the medium through fictional texts, drawings and photographs. I mess up the clean reproducibility of the mechanically reproduced image with an X-acto blade, scratching elaborate patterns into the surface of my photographs. The razor-drawings appear delicate from a distance, but upon closer inspection become textured marks of controlled yet violent motions.

We congratulate Christopher on this major exhibition milestone, and encourage you to see his show at Morgan Lehman if you are in New York within the next several weeks. For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to share ArtScene‘s most glowing review of Meghan Smtyhe‘s current exhibition – which remains on view through February 14th, 2015:

In “A Swollen Light Behind the Eye” Megan Smythe’s life-sized glazed sculptural forms take the tropes of the genre — the reclining nude, the portrait bust, entwined figures — and put them through the ringer. In “Sardoni” she drips vividly colored plasticine over a sculpted head, gleefully obfuscating facial features.  “A Light Culture” features a nude figure casually sitting atop a colorful glazed table; one arm rests on a knee, another arm is cut off at the shoulder, and extra hands and arms grip a large phallus or are jumbled at the figure’s side. Similarly, “Young Unbecoming” is all messy orgiastic drama, with mutilated and half-formed heads and body parts emerging from raw material. These grotesque but compelling works reveal an artist not only interested in universal themes of sex, violence, and creation, but also reveling in the sheer physicality of art-making. Body parts come in varying textures, sometimes smooth, rough, or cracked. The painted flesh is subtly multihued, with soft pink mottling the natural tones. Small ceramic objects are scattered next to the larger works, their lovingly handmade appearance rejecting labels of detritus. Smythe’s work equates the stimulating and visceral processes of art-making with those of the human body (Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City).

We congratulate Meghan on this lovely second review, and encourage you to see the show before it closes next month! For information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to announce Penelope Umbrico‘s inclusion in “Out There #2,” a group exhibition by Viewmaster Projects in Rotterdam. Says the venue:

The two-part exhibition Out There with venues in Maastricht (October 2014) and Rotterdam (February 2015), is showing present-day landscape images by contemporary artists who work with various media such as video, photography and ‘net art’. Distributed over two exhibition zones and two cities 50 artworks are put on display that are part of the 500-year-old tradition of landscape art and at the same time stretch and make current the traditional frames of meaning through new techniques and views.

On view through March, 8, 2015 – the exhibition also features work by an ambitious list of emerging and mid-career new media artists. Works will take place throughout the city – please click here for an interactive map detailing each project’s location.

The gallery is pleased to announce the Museum of Fine Arts: Houston‘s acquisition of “BMX Channel” (2013), by gallery artist Shaun Gladwell.

The MFAH is founded on one simple belief: Art is for everyone. The mission of the education department is to offer programs, tours, resources, and materials that teach and engage adults, children, educators, and students in the world of art. The goal is to create experiences that embrace the importance of art and the Museum; to position art and the Museum as a meaningful part of a well-rounded life; and to work with partners who support the community through shared values and interests. Since 1900, when the MFAH opened as an art education project in the public schools, the institution has maintained its mission of bringing art to people wherever they live, play, and learn. This commitment has established the MFAH as A Place for All People, an initiative that began in the 1990s with the support of the Wallace Foundation. It has amassed impressive collections focusing on Contemporary Art, International and Regional Art, and Photography.

Gladwell’s “BMX Channel” (2013) is a large-scale video projection. Set within a picturesque British seaside, this single-channel work demonstrates the artist’s signature uses of filmic devices such as slow motion and long pans to capture both a tightly choreographed and improvised performance. Described by the artist as “performance landscapes” Gladwell’s videos present a juxtaposition of culturally specific athleticism against a visually discursive environment.

Shaun Gladwell (b.1972, Australia) is based in Sydney and London. He completed Associate Research at Goldsmiths College, London in 2001 and has since undertaken numerous international residencies and commissions. He has exhibited prodigiously in Europe, North and South America, and in the Asia Pacific Region. Shaun Gladwell represented Australia at the 53rd Venice Biennale and traveled to Afghanistan as the official Australian War Artist in 2009. His work is held in significant public and private collections nationally and internationally, including: Wadsworth Atheneum, CT; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Progressive Art Collection, USA; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

We congratulate Shaun on this major milestone. For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artist Joshua Dildine will have new works featured in “Photo Shop,” a group exhibition at Claremont Graduate University curated by critic David Pagel. Dealing with the presence of the digital image in contemporary painting and sculpture, the show delves into many topical issues of art-making in a technology-driven era.

Opening tonight, January 20 from 6-9pm, this exhibition will remain on view through February 6, 2015 at the East & Peggy Phelps Galleries. The exhibition will feature art by Kutay Alkin, Polly Apfelbaum, Joshua Dildine, Katie Grinnan, Samuel Kyser, Damaris Rivera, and Evan Trine.

We congratulate Joshua on his inclusion in this show! For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to share Leah Ollman’s Los Angeles Times review of Meghan Smythe’s current solo exhibition, “A Swollen Light Behind The Eye.” Please find the article below in its entirety:

“Coupling” is the eye of the storm that is Meghan Smythe’s remarkable first solo show, at Mark Moore. The two slightly oversized right hands, sculpted in clay and sheathed in milky white glaze, rest on a pedestal, their gently cupped palms facing up. The thumb of one hand makes the barest contact with one of the fingers of the other. This is coupling of a spiritual as much as a physical sort.

Smythe is a sculptor of struggle. Primal forces contend in the work, as do various aesthetic and formal dispositions. The sobriety of the relic is countered by the whimsy of glass and resin follies. Figures pallid and cadaverous lie upon a surface oozing with puddles in the happy hues of Easter eggs. The friction between generation and decay, elegance and entropy, is what makes Smythe’s work so alive and also so tough to digest. It doesn’t go down easy, or at all. Stubborn, sensual, visceral — it sticks.

This exhibition remains on view through 6pm on Saturday, February 14th.

Smythe (b. 1984, Kingston, ON) received her MFA from the Alfred University School of Art and Design (NY). She is the winner of the 5790projects’ 2013 Moore Family Trust Prize, through which this exhibition was made possible. Her work has been shown at the Arizona State University Art Museum (AZ) and the Gardiner Museum, Toronto (ON). She was the Visiting Artist in Residence at California State University, Long Beach (CA) from 2012-2014, where she continues to teach Ceramic Arts. The artist lives and works in Long Beach, CA.

For more information about the exhibition artist, or available work, please feel free to contact the gallery, and we will accommodate your needs.

Mark Moore Gallery is proud to announce the Orange County Museum of Art‘s acquisition of David Maisel‘s “The Lake Project #22” (2001).

The Orange County Museum of Art is the premier visual arts organization in Orange County, California. Critically acclaimed exhibitions such as Birth of the Cool: Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone, Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterpieces from the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, andRichard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, draw more than 40,000 visitors annually. More than 15,000 children and adults participate in award-winning education programs. The museum’s collection comprises nearly 2,500 objects of modern and contemporary art, with a concentration on the art of California from the early 20th century to works by local, national, and international artists working today.

David Maisel is a visual artist based in San Francisco, CA. His large-scaled, surreal photographs chronicle the complex relationships between natural systems and human culture. His research-based practice has been the subject of five monographs, including “The Lake Project” (Nazraeli Press, 2004), “Oblivion” (Nazraeli Press, 2006), “Library of Dust” (Chronicle Books, 2008), “History’s Shadow” (Nazraeli Press, 2011), and “Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime” (Steidl, 2013). Maisel’s images of radically altered terrain have transformed the practice of contemporary landscape photography. His hallucinatory worldview encompasses both stark documentary and tragic metaphor, and explores the relationship between nature and humanity today.

Maisel is the recipient of a 2011 grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, a 2008 Artist Residency from the Headlands Center for the Arts, and a 2007 Scholar/Artist Residency from the Getty Research Institute. Maisel has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Opsis Foundation. He was appointed a Trustee of the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2011. His work has been shown globally, including in such prestigious institutions as the California Museum of Photography (CA), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (AZ), Portland Art Museum (OR), Fotografie Forum International (Frankfurt), American Academy (Rome), Musee des Beaux Artes (Bordeaux), and Seoul Arts Center (Seoul) among many other venues. Maisel’s works are in major public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Getty Museum (CA), the National Gallery of Art (D.C.), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among many other institutions. He received his BA from Princeton University, studied at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and received his MFA from California College of the Arts. The artist lives and works in Sausalito (CA).

We congratulate David on this milestone. For information about the arist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.