BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.- The Rotunda Gallery, at 33 Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, opens their 2003-2004 exhibition season with Clear Intentions, an exhibition of artists exploring abstraction, organized by guest curator Robert C. Morgan. Clear Intentions remains on view through October 18, 2003.
The notion of having an "intention" in art was crystallized during the conceptual art movement in the early seventies. In those days to have an intention provided a kind of justification for what an artist was doing or hoped to do. But it was soon apparent that not all abstract art required a verbal intention; rather the intention was embedded within the material process of the work. Robert C. Morgan has assembled a diverse group of artists who work in conventional media; abstract painters, sculptors and one photographer. Each of them, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity and gender, has constructed a pictorial language independent of theoretical rhetoric.
In Bill Jensen’s oil paintings Ape Herd I (Eye for an Eye) and Ape Herd IV (The Carnivores Devoured Themselves), the dark, scraped surfaces conjure near-imagery, while Margrit Lewczuk’s fluorescent works on paper evoke floating spheres in bright grids. Painters Chris Martin and Pierre Louaver both find their inspiration in bold colors and dynamic shapes; Martin’s rippling forms and Louaver’s repeating angular constructs seem to float on the surface of their paintings. Sang Nam Lee’s paintings frame subtle, mechanical forms on fields of white. René Pierre Allain creates formal, linear designs in mixed media, defined by steel frameworks, while Gwenaël Kerlidou’s globular canvases are filled with whimsical colors and patterns. Phong Bui builds up light and dark lines into shimmering masses covering a canvas edge to edge. Jacques Roch’s sculptures are riots of color and shape in plaster, resin and acrylic. Penelope Umbrico’s series of digital photographs lifts the ubiquitous ocean views from honeymoon brochures to create an effect not unlike color field painting.
Guest curator Robert C. Morgan is a writer, art critic, curator and art historian. He has authored over twelve hundred articles and reviews and writes for ArtNews, Sculpture, New York Arts, and Tema Celeste. He has authored numerous books, catalogues and monographs. Recent books include: Bruce Nauman (2002), The End of the Art World (1998)), and Art into Ideas: Essays on Conceptual Art (1996). He has curated more than twenty exhibitions and currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts and at Pratt Institute; and is a founding board member of Art/Omi International Artists Workshop.
On Wednesday, September 10, 2003, the Rotunda Gallery will present Ask Robert Morgan, the latest in our series of free interpretive events. The curator will lead an evocative discussion about Clear Intentions and his intentions for the exhibition.
