Mark Moore Fine Art Blog

With work in the provocatively titled “softcore / HARD EDGE,” Tim Bavington will show alongside Billy Al Bengston, Alexander Caldwell, Karl Benjamin, Monique Prieto and thirteen other established contemporary artists selected by Los Angeles Times’ art critic, David Pagel, and The Art Gallery of Calgary’s Senior Art Curator, Marianne Elder.

Traveling from Elder’s institution, the exhibition will open at Claremont Graduate University’s East and Peggy Phelps Galleries  on August 30, 6-9pm, and evaluate similarities of tone, palette, and brushstroke in contemporary painting between Los Angeles and Calgary. “softcore / HARD EDGE” will ultimately bring together sixty artworks that question similarities of contemporary art practice created in these two very different cities, not to mention some of the most distinctive voices of modern abstraction.

The show will remain on view through September 23, 2011.

After its opening reception on Thursday, June 23, Kim Dorland‘s For Lori (at Mike Weiss Gallery in NYC) has received rave reviews from critics and bloggers alike. In addition to making the “10 Must-See Painting Shows in the US” list for Summer 2011 (as named by the Huffington Post), the show has also been featured by the AOL Artists blog, NY Arts Magazine, and Art Daily – which praises the show for its “raw and unapologetic” edge.

The exhibition’s gritty textures and experimental color palette will be on view for one more month, closing August 27. More information can be found at the gallery’s website.

Opening August 13 at the SFMOMA is Artists in Dialogue: Andrew Schoultz and Paul Klee, curated by John Zarobell. For the exhibition, Schoultz worked with Zarobell to choose 19 pieces from the MOMA’s 200-something large Klee collection, then produced ten of his own drawings in response.

Says Andrew, “The result, theoretically, is that the works I created would be in dialogue with the works of Klee and perhaps viewing the works side-by-side would create some kind of a new entry point and conversation for a viewer about both of our works. Ideally, it would be awesome for someone to see my work differently next to his, and his work differently next to mine.”

The exhibition will be on view through February 26, 2012.

Opening August 4th, 2011, MMG artist Chad Person explores the concepts of heroism, manifest destiny and apathy in A Hero Never Fails at Freight + Volume Gallery (NY). Using his signature repertoire techniques of inflatable sculpture, currency collage, and video Person’s objects ask the viewer: what is heroism and why do we care?

This is Person’s first solo show in New York. The centerpiece of the exhibit, is a defeated caricature of the 50’s cartoon character U…nderdog titled Hero. The goofball “hero who never fails” has resigned to abject apathy. Hero is rendered as a gigantic inflatable (a la used car dealership gorilla). Strung out on the “super vitamin pills” that provide his super powers, he sits slumped forward, meditating on his iPhone.

Person describes the work as three parts culture, one part self portrait. “In a political state dominated by an agenda of ‘distract the public and rob what’s left,’ with two endless wars draining the last of my great grand-children’s hope for prosperity, why be anything but apathetic to injustice? Hero is a metaphor for my own vocational and economic struggle, my country’s role on the global stage and whatever is left of my American dream. Has the time come for heroism? Or should we just give up, sit back and have a good laugh?”

A Hero Never Fails is on view through September 10th, 2011.

Currently on view at Joshua Liner Gallery in New York is Jeremy Fish‘s latest batch of bold, mythical creations, Listen and Learn. Known for his renderings of folkloric and narrative creatures, this grouping of thirty new works takes storytelling to a very literal level. Each piece has been based upon tales from prominent rappers, artists, skateboarders and athletes, such as Snoop Dogg, DJ Big Wiz and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols. Their original accounts can be heard through accompanying headphones and MP3 players paired with each piece in the exhibition. Says Jeremy Fish, “In this era of email, texting and blogging, we are losing a grasp on the concept of sitting around the campfire and exchanging life experience through the telling of tall tales. I want to remind people of the importance of storytelling.”

The exhibition also debuts Fish’s animation work and includes a large site-specific installation. More information can be found at the gallery’s website, and in the exhibition’s preview video. The show will run through July 16.

Kim Dorland‘s latest exhibition, For Lori, opens Thursday at Mike Weiss Gallery in New York, presenting eleven pieces depicting the artist’s wife and muse, Lori. Illustrating what has become a recurring oeuvre for the Canadian painter, the series explores his expressionist manner of representing the interpersonal love and intimacy that has served as both artistic inspiration and subject matter throughout his career. Dorland also demonstrates ideas of the muse or the stand-in through his distinct, energy-infused impasto. Spanning the time period from 2008 to 2011, the show reveals the artist’s progression from initial discovery of the portrait, raw and de Kooning-esque in form, to his more recent and painterly portrayals. More information can be found on the gallery’s website. The exhibition will run through August 27.