Editor's Note: As of press time in mid-March, most venues had cancelled events through early May due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19. We decided to leave the listings of art shows in the April print issue as way to highlight and underline the vitality and importance of the community of artists, galleries, and museums to the region. In this time of general disruption, it's important for to support the arts so that we'll still have galleries to visit and artists' work to admire when this is all over.
Connect with your favorite artists via their websites. Many artists have work for sale on their sites that can be purchased digitally and shipped to you.
Arts Mid-Hudson has emergency funding resources for artists and arts organizations, as well as links to other arts-related resources on its website: Artsmidhudson.org/covid19-resources.
"Lost and Proud" at Atlas Studios in Newburgh
Lenore Tawney was a highly innovative fiber artist who broke through the grid of warp and weft that had traditionally defined/confined the structure of weaving with a process she called "open warp." Her seminal 1957 piece Lost and Proud is the source of the title for this exhibition in which River Valley Arts Collective's team of Alyson Baker and Candice Madey present the work of four Hudson Valley artists: Liz Collins, Katie Ford, Anne Lindberg, and Laurel Sparks, all of whom explore various approaches to process and gesture though rarely adhering to rigid expressions of the grid. Sparks, for example, works diagonal magic with water-based paint, paper pulp, and glitter on woven canvas strips while Ford uses fabric and a moving blanket to create a concatenation of rectangles and diagonals in her work Preparedness Blanket (Refraction). (Previously scheduled to run April 11–May 3)
Jenny Morgan: "To Bathe the World in a Strange Light" at Mother Gallery in Beacon.
In a recent interview in Juxtapoz, Jenny Morgan stated that if she had not become an artist she would have studied psychology. Raised in Utah, now living and working in Brooklyn, Morgan is well known for her self-portraits which are revealing not so much because she painted herself nude, but because of what they express about the mysteries she examined within her psyche in the process. The paintings at Mother are from an emergent new phase of Morgan's work, surfacing now after a three-year retreat from the limelight cast by her mid-career MCA Denver Museum survey. Morgan's quirky use of color, which is the primary vehicle for transmitting her inner world, remains important, but now the subject is not herself but a doppelganger (a friend) who happens to own a pet snake. Morgan, who works from her own photographs, also has introduced compositing and displacement into the mix. The results are (inner) eye opening. (Previously scheduled to run through April 19)
"Michael D'Antuono: Democracy's Last Stand" at Hudson Underground Gallery
Sly irony is not Michael D'Antuono's thing. Think gut punch instead. That said, given the current state of affairs, his very direct approach may be appropriate. D'Antuono certainly has a following; none other than cable news stalwart and best-selling author Malcom Nance is hyping the show, and a look at the artist's website will reveal several celebrity fans: Susan Saradon for example. Though dubbed the "Norman Rockwell of the Resistance," by Pop artist Ron English, D'Antuono probably wouldn't have been invited to the idealized Thanksgiving Dinner that Rockwell famously painted for the Saturday Evening Post back in the day. D'Antuono's style owes a debt to the great illustrator, but his message is definitely reflective of the cable news stridency of our times. (Previously scheduled for April 4–May 4)
"Read to Me" at 11 Jane Street Art Center in Saugerties
A heady mix of sculpture, poetry, and performance celebrating International Sculpture Day and National Poetry Month dedicated to "words, image, and sound," Read to Me brings together the work of Robert Hite, Melinda Stickney-Gibson, Michael Pope, Traci Horgen, Joseph Zito, Tracey Cockrell, Jillian Rose, Scott Fellows, David Wagner, Jennifer Hicks,and William Greenwood, as well as poetry by Will Nixon. (Previously scheduled for April 3–May 3)
"Monotype Modern" at Pinkwater Gallery in Kingston
Unlike most prints, monotypes are, as the name suggests, unique. Monotypes are often made by applying printers' ink or oil paint to a non-porous plate and then pressing the plate onto a piece of paper by hand or with an etching press. Other elements such as stencils, natural materials, and found objects can be added to the mix. Three skilled practitioners of the monotype are showing their prints at Pinkwater: Joan Ffolliott, Susanna Ronner, and Wendy Stefanelli. One of Ronner's abstract works on view is a free-form approach to theme and variations, conveying a musical sense of timbre and texture activated by a percussive jolt or two of gesture. Ffolliott's figurations dance through layers of subtle translucency while Stefanelli's works evolve through process with the play of color, shape, and texture serving as her inspiration. (Previously scheduled to run through April 26)
Mariah Reading "Watershed: The Footprints That Lead to the Sea" at Locust Grove Estate's Transverse Gallery
A flipflop left behind forgetfully in a beautiful National Park is repurposed as the substrate for a deft painting of one the park's transcendent vistas by Mariah Reading. She then photographs her transformative work in situ held by her own hand, so that illusion piles upon illusion all in service of a wake-up call to our threatening ecological reality. In the exhibit at Locust Grove, the flipflop is displayed next to the framed photo tripling down on the conceptual play. Hubcaps, crushed plastic water bottles and other detritus of human thoughtlessness are handled with equal skill and seriousness of purpose in the 20 works on display. (Previously scheduled to run through April 26)
"David Eddy" at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck
David Eddy is a self-taught artist who recently turned 70. Over the years he has developed a distinctly personal semi-abstract approach to making paintings which, though not devoid of humor and a certain naiveté, delve seriously into the mysteries of personhood. His figures and faces evolve through a process of layering pigment—he often distresses the accumulating surfaces—until the composition manifests itself and reveals its narrative implications. Shahinian notes the Eddy's "images are both self-revelatory and broadly human." He has selected over 45 of Eddy's paintings for this celebratory exhibition including recent works as well as older pieces never before publicly exhibited. (Through April 26)
"The Power of Ten" at Kleinert/James Center for the Arts in Woodstock
Guest curator Jane Hart of Lemon Sky: Projects and Editions, who recently moved to Saugerties, has assembled the work of 10 artists who live in our region and are, "internationally recognized and at the peak of their powers." Among them are Amanda Church whose pop-ish oil Split nails the inflection point between representation and abstraction; Elisabeth Condon, whose White Piping takes a painterly approach to visual duality (paint as object/paint as a means for representation); and the late Jennifer Wynne Reeves, whose multimedia work Place seems to summon up a location where a rainbow and a fire contemplate stars. (April 9–May 31)
Carl Craig: "Party/After-Party" at Dia:Beacon
Techno has arrived at Dia:Beacon in a big way. Detroit techno veteran DJ and producer Carl Craig has brought a sound installation commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation to Dia:Beacon's cavernous lower level. Party/After-Party is the fruit of a five year collaboration between Craig and Dia founded upon a convergence between techno and Minimalist sound—which Dia has a long history of supporting. Another synergy is that Dia:Beacon was once a Nabisco packaging factory and techno has a history of repurposing industrial audio. Says Craig: "I make music to satisfy my soul, and when I perform, I invite others into my world. Similarly, when you step into this vast space, it is like stepping into a reflection of my own mind." (Through September 7)
