When I saw a listing in Artcards.cc today for Mark Grotjahn, the name seemed very familiar.  Turns out that I saw Mark Grotjahn’s recent solo show at the Whitney Museum, ground floor, last month.  Here’s what I wrote then:

“..The Mark Grotjahn show in the Anne & Joel Eheenkranz Gallery on the first floor was interesting - I passed it on the way out and I see that picture represented on the Whitney’s site is the one I liked the best.

“…on view September 15, 2006 - January 7, 2007
Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Gallery, floor 1
Conceived for this exhibition, Mark Grotjahn’s cycle of “perspective drawings” pulls the viewer into a dynamic interplay between the large-scale works and the gallery space. A sense of space is evoked by the drawings’ multiple vanishing points, a convention used since the Renaissance to create the illusion of depth and volume. These perspectival referents both create the structure for and become the subject of Grotjahn’s art. The works’ formal organization finds a counterpoint in the modulations of color that play against the vanishing points to create vibrant, three-dimensional surfaces.”

I wish I could say the same thing for the Blue Grotjahn paintings at Anton Kern - but I can’t.  I liked the textures of all the paintings and the reflected light from the canvasses.  The main problem I had with the show - most of Mark Grotjahn’s paintings are repeats - he’s doing what appears to be the same exact painting, over and over again.  That part, I don’t like.

All the Grotjahn paintings are handsome, but they feel shallow too - I’m sure the artist  can tell one painting apart from another - but I can only tell a couple of Grotjahn’s paintings apart.

For me, I’d like to see that each painting is a unique experience; I did not get that awareness from this show.

I was over at the Whitney yesterday for about two hours - maybe I’ve seen enough art for now and need to create some of my own.  

The Mark Grotjahn show in the Anne & Joel Eheenkranz Gallery on the first floor was interesting - I passed it on the way out and I see that picture represented on the Whitney’s site is the one I liked the best.

“…on view September 15, 2006 - January 7, 2007
Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Gallery, floor 1
Conceived for this exhibition, Mark Grotjahn’s cycle of “perspective drawings” pulls the viewer into a dynamic interplay between the large-scale works and the gallery space. A sense of space is evoked by the drawings’ multiple vanishing points, a convention used since the Renaissance to create the illusion of depth and volume. These perspectival referents both create the structure for and become the subject of Grotjahn’s art. The works’ formal organization finds a counterpoint in the modulations of color that play against the vanishing points to create vibrant, three-dimensional surfaces.”

The Albers And Moholy-Nagy exhibition was cool - but not really my kind of work - I can’t embrace it as much because it feels to much like a series of exercises or “experiments” that is more illustrative than actual painting (though I liked many of the Albers color field paintings anyway).  It’s sorta like the prevailing beliefs of the day were to experiment with colors and shape fooling the eye and brain into reading depth into totally flat color arrangements.  Fact of the matter - there is an “implied depth” in Joseph Albers paintings - but he does not push it as far he could have (by varying the sharpness of the edges between colors.  To me, if he had done that - his paintings would look less like “exercises” in color mixing and more like an interpretation of space.  But that’s just my opinion.

The Picasso and American Art show I have already seen twice and I briefly walked by but felt a little overpowered yesterday - got slightly dizzy but it all and went off to a different part of the museum and then saw the Hopper paintings on the 5th floor before leaving.

I also saw a few art openings on Thursday - nothing much worth writing about.