Shirley Jaffe at TIBOR DE NAGY Federico Herrero at JAMES COHAN RED TELEPHONE at FIERMAN jameskalmroughcut 2024-10-23 | Shirley Jaffe at TIBOR DE NAGY Federico Herrero at JAMES COHAN RED TELEPHONE at FIERMAN
Peter Halley at KARMA Denzil Hurley at CANADA jameskalmroughcut 2023-07-04 | James Kalm is a dropout. Although only a few credits short of receiving a bachelor's degree, your correspondent was in too big a hurry to get to New York and actually start trying to be an artist, so he never completed his college studies. This situation has led to a certain skepticism regarding the importance of a “diploma” or institutional education. With that in mind, it has been noted recently that the concept of artistic legacy, or influence, is a major vector of artistic momentum. This tendency as propounded by Harold Bloom in in his 1973, book “The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry”. “Peter Halley Paintings and Drawings 1980-1981 at Karma” presents works from a crucial period of the artist’s early career. Having studied at Yale and returned decades later to head its painting and print programs, there’s a vector of Modern Formalism that is apparent in his work, which came through this university’s heritage, and the essential presence there of Joseph Albers, linking it to the historic Bauhaus.“Denzil Hurley: To be pained is to have lived through feeling” brings forth works from a parallel aesthetic. Hurley was also a Yale alumnus, studying in the painting department, and then relocating to Seattle to teach and work for his last two decades. This artist developed his own unique take on the Formalist approach, and lead to some of this tendency’s most sensitive and “hand-crafted” examples. A musical introduction is provided by Simpleton. This program was recorded June 17 and June 30, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
The Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation With Michael Brenson jameskalmroughcut 2023-06-14 | James Kalm, has over the course of the last two decades, established a reputation as an art history enthusiast, specializing in the local New York creative community. When your correspondent was invited by Brooklyn Rail publisher Phong Bui to stop in and partake in a walkthrough tour of the Johnathan and Barbara Silver Foundation, he had no hesitation. Michael Brenson delivers a twenty-minute spontaneous discourse in Jonathan’s life and work. Brenson met Silver in the late 1960s and over the next twenty years developed a deep acquaintance with the artist. As an art critic for the New York Times, and other publications, Brenson interviewed, and revied, the artist over the course of his emerging career. He thus established a basic critical archive through which scholarship could proceed. Brenson now promotes the study and legacy of Silver through his association with the Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation. Jonathan Silver was a figurative sculptor emerging during the period of Minimalism, and Conceptualism. His deep appreciation of forbearers like Alberto Giacometti and Auguste Rodin, along with the psychological insights of Sigmund Freud, put him at ideological odds with many of his contemporaries. The time has now arrived for a more thoughtful reevaluation of this sculptor, who died too young, leaving viewers with only inklings of how the work might have developed. This program was recorded June 10, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunkFor more information about The Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation, please contact: jonathanandbarbarasilverfoundation.org/foundation
Joan Brown at MATTHEW MARKS Yvonne Jacquette at DC MOORE jameskalmroughcut 2023-06-03 | James Kalm has been involved with the art scene long enough to realize that sometimes the forces of the cosmos align, and one should take note. During a recent cruses through Chelsea, your correspondent noticed a pair of shows that present an extremely interesting contrast between the cultural (painting) production on the West Coast, versus that on the East Coast. Joan Brown was a fierce artist who attained major critical attention at the age of twenty-two. Within the Bay Area art scene, she developed a unique oeuvre employing her experiences as a marathon swimmer. These works were a seminal component of the “Bay Area Figurative School” and “Funk Art”.Yvonne Jacquette was an important member of the “Main School” a loose group of artists who summered in Down-State Main. Better known for her aerial views of cities, this exhibition presents the early works, sternly observed fragments of her environs, reduced and cropped to compositionally abstract designs. A musical introduction is provided by Gabriel Mayers. This program was recorded May 23, and June 1, 2023.. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
John Walker at ALEXANDRE Francisco Tavoni at ATM GALLERY NYC jameskalmroughcut 2023-05-15 | James Kalm has been deeply engaged in studio work, and so, has been unable to post as many Reports as he’d like. But, with the arrival of summer weather, he finds himself pedaling around downtown, and decides to record a pair of shows that, by their contrasts, have a unique resonance with contemporary art production. John Walker has been showing work in New York for over forty years. Well respected by members of the painting community, the “New Works” have all the delicious qualities the artist is known for, and present a yet more distilled version of his oeuvre, that combines a freshness of watercolor drawings with the rich brushwork of classic Abstract Expressionism. Francisco Tavoni, while experimenting in the studio, accidentally discovered a means of transforming color photographs into abstract images. By manipulation the film negatives using filters and lenses Tavoni transforms his subject into ghostly vails of color that recall “television spirits”. The artist accompanies your reporter for a spontaneous chat and an explanation of his process. This program was recorded May 12 and 14th 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Winfred Rembert at HAUSER & WIRTH Dial Hammons Rauschenberg at DAVID LEWIS jameskalmroughcut 2023-05-02 | James Kalm has been aware of the leather works of Winfred Rembert for several years now. Since his first viewing, your correspondent has been fascinated with Rembert’s ability to evoke images and narratives from such an unexpected medium as tooled leather. “All of Me” is a career spanning retrospective of this unique artist, in which viewers can see the artistic development from a masterly depictions of characters (both good and evil) to later works that cast his pictorial stories into abstract designs of color, contrast and form.“Dial Hammons Rauschenberg” at David Richards draws out comparisons of technique, materials and aesthetics from three masters of the abject. Robert Rauschenberg is one of the icons of American art of the late twentieth century. His pioneering work with assemblage and found objects set a course for what eventually emerged as “Neo-Dada” and Pop Art. In harmony with Thornton Dial and David Hammons it becomes apparent that Rauschenberg, the Southerner, was influenced by, and recast works of the “Southern Vernacular” by rural African American artists. He thereby puts a home-grown spin on the “readymade” object, the cornerstone idea of conceptual art espoused by Marcel Duchamp.This program was recorded March 21, and April 1 2023. A musical introduction is provided by Flat Iron Charlie Guitar. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Bob Thompson: Agony & Ecstasy at MICHAEL ROSENFELD GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2023-04-18 | James Kalm has, since the late 1970’s, been an avid fan of the work of Bob Thompson (1937-1966). During that span of time, your correspondent has witnessed a revival and reassessment of the significance of Thompson and his approach to Figurative Expressionism. Thompson has an undeniable sensitivity to color, and the unique ability to create spatial and harmonic levels of rich surface chromatics. “…[In] a twisted sort of way I’m doomed to be buried alive in cadmium orange, red, yellow light with flowers on my grave of magenta violet, and my casket being the canvas for forcefully having to wrap, walk and slide into it every day like the wan Prussian blue shore”- Bob Thompson. A painter’s painter “Agony & Ecstasy” presents major works from every year of the artist’s mature practice 1958-1966. A musical introduction is provided by NYC Jazz. This program was recorded April 13, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Martin Kippenberger at SKARSTEDT Markus Lüpertz at MICHAEL jameskalmroughcut 2023-04-12 | James Kalm has recently taken a brief hiatus from regularly posting video programs to his YouTube channels so he could up-grade some of his camera equipment and skills…(Cameras, gimbals, stabilizing and video editing programs etc.) While scanning upcoming and open exhibitions throughout the city, your correspondent noticed an alignment of a couple of shows by significant German painters. This motivated him to pedal to the Upper East Side for the first time this year. Martin Kippenberger Paintings 1984-1996 at Skarstedt is a brief yet potent reminder of why this artist is considered one of the most talented and witty painters of the late twentieth century. Although tragic in his life story, Kippenberger created a body if work that exposes his own weaknesses, presents challenges to iconic artists like Picasso, and demonstrates his formal skill as a mischievous provocateur as well as a designer.Markus Lüpertz has been recognized as a founder of the Neue Wilden, and a Neo-Avantguardist since the mid-1970s. Ironically since then, this “New Beast” has progressed into the past, to present works that meld the most advanced notions of the present state of painting with a distinct sense its own history. This program was recorded April 1, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Socko at LONG STORY SHORT David Baskin at FREIGHT+VOLUME jameskalmroughcut 2023-03-25 | James Kalm takes note of similarities and shared sympathies as he ambles through the cultural neighborhoods of New York. For this episode your tour guide pastes together video from a pair of shows that present a “light and happy” first impression, but may portend levels containing the darker more complex recesses of aesthetic disposition.Socko’s “My Playground” at Long Story Short, is a selection of works that seem aimed at the pre-adolescent. Rendered in color keyed sunny pastels, with sections of thick impasto, these “big eyed” characters are all smiley and jolly. Depicted frontally, while preforming rudimentary tasks, they could be the logos for corporations looking to tap the juvenal market, but is there subversion in their seeming complicity? David Baskin has been creating work that plays in the realm of “consumer codes” and “Post-Postmodern” aesthetics for decades. With “Store-Bought” at Freight+Volume Baskin proffers a folding back of the Duchampian notion of the “readymade”. If Duchamp could buy a wine bottle rack at a hardware store, and present it as a “work of art,” then what are the implications of an anonymous “work of art” that is bought at a big box store like Home Depot, reformulated by an “authentic artist,” and presented as a commodity in a fine art gallery? Both these shows have a cheery palette cartoon references and a nostalgic mood, but really? A musical introduction is provided by Chanpan @chanpanmusic. This program was recorded March 19-24 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
David Humphrey at FREDRICKS & FREISER Helen Frankenthaler at GAGOSIAN Franz West at DAVID ZWIRNER jameskalmroughcut 2023-03-18 | James Kalm is slipping up and down the streets of West Chelsea, on a late winter afternoon/evening, when he decides to check out some shows, and bring viewers along for the ride. “Ass Backwards” at Fredericks & Freiser is Dave Humphrey’s sixth show with the gallery. Your correspondent has been keeping an eye on this artist’s work since meeting him in the early 1980s, and is always surprised. Melding a sardonic sense of humor with references to historic modes of painting, Humphrey creates “…the language of contemporary art: postmodernism, post-postmodernism, and the aporia of hyper-pluralism.”With just minutes before closing, we run across West 24th Street, and dip into “Drawing within Nature: Paintings from the 1990s” an impressive exhibition of late works by Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian. Since the publication of “Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art” the hunger for works by these pioneer painters has become insatiable. Finally, we visit David Zwirner for the opening of “Franz West Echolalia, 2010 Paper-mȃché, foam, gauze, cardboard, wood, steel, acrylic paint, foam and linen” an installation of seven over life sized whimsical sculptures.This program was recorded March 9-11 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Don Doe at 490 ATLANTIC Jaxon Demme at NO GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2023-03-01 | James Kalm is out on a “rough cuts” road trip, wheeling between downtown Brooklyn and the bottom of the Lower East Side, to catch some of the current presentations at these avant venues. Don Doe’s “I’ll Have What They’re Having” is a mash-up of images the artist has curated from Renaissance masters, Sears and Roebuck catalogues, and 1950s softcore erotica. The collaged figurative elements create multilevels of identity, gender, and narrative. In this spontaneous strolling chat, Doe states, “This is about acknowledging the gender interest of our current times.”Across the Brooklyn Bridge and down to the “lowest of the Lower East Side” your reporter drops in to No Gallery for a gander at Jaxon Demme and “Celestial Cues”. This show is grounded by a pair of large rugged painting on panel that combine numerous medias, approaches and techniques with a kind of “bad girl” attitude. The scruffy abjectness of the paintings and drawings are enhanced by an installation of 72 “concrete butterflies”. A musical introduction is provided by Naga Ecstasy. This program was recorded February 18, and 26, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Rob de Oude Unison at McKENZIE Paul Pagk at MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2023-02-09 | James Kalm has noticed a slight shift in the style of works commonly being shown by some of the city’s most engaged galleries. Over the last several years a plethora of figurative work has saturated much of the commercial gallery space. Whether it’s “bad” painting, Pop Surrealism, naïve naturalism, or versions of Katzian realism, much of this may have been in response to the collapse of “Zombie Abstraction,” the last iteration of non-figurative painting that flamed out in the mid twenty-teens.“Unison” Rob de Oude’s latest presentation at McKinzie Fine Art focuses on the horizontal and vertical vectors of the picture plane. These obsessively constructed works, are pictures woven of brushstrokes, that use a sophisticated color theory and technique to create illusions of radiance and illumination.Paul Pagk builds up slabs of mysterious hues that are incised with geometric linear designs. The works witness a visual distillation accented by the accumulation of layered color which refines and simplifies the structure while complicating the ground color and surface of these pieces. This program was recorded February 5, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Regina Bogat Works from 1965 2008 at ZÜRCHER GALLERY Rico Gatson at MILES McENERY GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2023-01-29 | James Kalm has a passion for the idea of “Art History”. So, when patterns, and sympathetic manifestations appear across time, he pays attention, and tries to fit them into his “structure of cultural production”. Your correspondent met Regina Bogat in the early aughts. Regina, is a profound artist, and member of the New York School, who put her art career on the back burner, to accommodate the vocation of her husband Alfred Jensen. This exhibition presents works produced from 1965 to 2008. Rico Gatson is an essential member of the “Bushwick” art scene. This show at Miles McEnery displays Rico’s latest progressions, and presents an intriguing development of his painterly skills. This program was recorded January 21, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Chellis Baird & Jim D’Amato REVERBERATION Curated by Josh Campbell at High Line Nine Gallery jameskalmroughcut 2023-01-24 | James Kalm is a soft touch. So, as he’s out on the prowl, preparing to record a report, he bikes past a friend who has a show up. Jim D’Amato snags your reporter, and escorts him to the High Line Nine Gallery, where he and Chellis Baird have staged a two person show “REVERBERATION”. Kalm whips out his trusty camera, and records a spontaneous walk-through interview with the artists. Discussed are: their relationship to minimal formalism, the use of a pallet limited to mostly black white and red, the ultra-flat versus the three dimensional, and various material considerations. As a “Bonus Round” your correspondent zips to East Soho, and records a snap video of Steven Keister’s “Bio Meso” at Derek Eller. This exhibit is a presentation of intimate wall works inspired by Keister’s interest in Meso-American, and particularly Mayan art. A musical introduction is provided by J.P.Kogan. This program was recorded January 6, and 21, 2023. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
NEW GALLERIES, Henry and Pike Street, on the Lower East Side jameskalmroughcut 2022-12-25 | James Kalm, when it comes to Christmas, is generally a confirmed “bah humbugger.” But this year, despite his best defenses, the Yule Tide spirit creeps in. In this mood, your humble correspondent slinks back to the corner of Pike and Henry Street, on Manhattan’s Lower East side, to provide viewers with an updated vision of the latest hot enclave of Avant galleries. Within the last year and a half, seven galleries have opened here. This program is a stocking stuffer visit to these venues and a chance for viewers to participate in this cultural flowering.Your reporter will bring viewers along for visits to: Blade Study and “Relics of the Corrupted Blood” by Harris Rosenblum, Paulina Freifeld’s “How Sun Smells” at Will Shott, Matthew Kirk’s “MK ULTRA”, at Fierman. 56 Henry at 105 Henry, presents “Hope Against Hope” by Timo Fahler, strutting around the corner we pop in for recent works by Audrey Gair, at King’s Leap, and a final stroll through of a group show at Public Access featuring: Beatrice Domond, Piero Penizzottio, Greg Simmons and Lee Smith. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a blessed and Healthy 2023… #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
James Siena at MILES McENERY Regarding Kimber at CHEIM & READ Richard Pousette Dart at PACE jameskalmroughcut 2022-12-03 | James Kalm, between the holidays, personal events, and overwhelming amounts of work in the studio has been hammered. But, he’s finally found time to edit together clips from shows that slash across the spectrum of contemporary and historic New York “painting”. James Siena presents his first show at Miles McEnery. This outing is composed of substantial works on linen in which the artist draws repeating patterns on the picture plane that seem to fall out of perfect alignment until they fill the space with an algorithmically warped design. “Regarding Kimber” is curated by Jay Gorney, and employs the recently rediscovered work of Kimber Smith (1922-1981) as a harbinger for “Provisional Painting” and the “New Casualism”. The eight younger artists included have all reduced their planned finish, plotted compositions and tight traditional categories of pictures and instead, nonchalantly improvised light, loose and, spontaneous painterly experiments ala Kimber. Finally, viewers can tag along with your reporter for an after closing time tour of “Richard Pousette-Dart 1950s: Spirit and Substance”. This museum quality exhibition pares two aspects of Pousette-Dart’s work, one the “Byzantine”, thick richly colored paintings with the mostly black and white linear or “Gothic” style works. This program was recorded November 11th, and 19th 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Ann McCoy, Paulina Peavy and Olga Spiegel at ANDREW EDLIN Astrid Dick Erika Ranee at M DAVID & Co jameskalmroughcut 2022-11-22 | James Kalm pastes together visits to some current exhibitions, featuring women artists, that seem to reflect today’s concerns with “painting”, and the “spiritual”.Although most of the works that Andrew Edlin has curated into this three-person show are over thirty years old, they’re in harmonic dialogue with much contempory production, and reinforce the notion that some creative talents are perpetually living in the future. This is the first show by Ann McCoy at the gallery and brings three large color pencil works together with another first-time gallery exhibitor, Olga Spiegel. Paulina Peavy with her authentic spiritualist practice provides an historic background to the other worldly images of the younger artists. Then viewers can make a brief dip into Laurie Simmons “Color Pictures/Deep Photos 2007-20022” at 56 Henry Gallery. Simmons is a key player in the “Pictures Generation” and these small assemblage works pare miniature furniture with conceptually layered photos of erotica that parody the macho image of the 1950s Art World. Finally, we pedal out to 56 Bogart Street, the center of what remains of the Bushwick art scene, for a tour of “Painting Paintings: A Leap of Fate Astrid Dick / Erika Ranee” at M. David & Co. with banter and commentary between your correspondent and proprietor Michael David. This program was recorded November 10, and 21, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
THE WHITE PAPERS Mike Cockrill & Judge Hughes at PUBLIC ACCESS jameskalmroughcut 2022-11-11 | James Kalm doesn’t usually have to deliver a “CONTENT WARNING: VIEWER DISCRESSION IS ADVISED” notice. However, for this exhibition, it may be warranted. Originally produced during the early 1980s, this portfolio of drawings is like a personal manifesto of the arrival of the young Mike Cockrill as an artist into the East Village art scene. These drawings, constitute a “silent graphic novel” that verges on the grotesquely obscene. The plot is a perversely surreal “coming of age” narrative from the darkest recesses of the “American Dream” that weaves together elements from the Kennedy assignation, the Viet Nam War, adolescent libertinism, and the killing of John Lennon, as seen through the eyes of an imaginary Mark David Chapman. Having never been exhibited in their entirety until now, these 115 drawings are like a time capsule whose historic significance may partially lie in how the public’s response to visual acts of blatant transgression has morphed over a forty-year period? Artist Mike Cockrill gives viewers a strolling explication of the history and narrative of the work. A musical introduction is provided by InCircles. This program was recorded November 8, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Miles Debas Sundowning at FREIGHT+VOLUME jameskalmroughcut 2022-10-27 | James Kalm is sleazing through Manhattan’s most trendy artsy neighborhood, Tribeca, on a Thursday evening, when he drops in to view an exhibition by Miles Debas. “Sundowning” the title of this show is a reference to a condition that afflicts older individuals. It induces them into a state of consciousness that makes it hard to distinguish between reality and, competing narratives of reality. The paintings developed from this perspective, seem to coalesce around an archetypical set of elements with spontaneous variations that enhance the symbolic resonance. Using sculptural elements, that add a physical anatomy to the works, gold-leaf, and collage, these pieces combine the decorative legacy of sacred images, with a contempory notion of “what a painting is”. This program was recorded October 15, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
THE DOLL SHOW Curated by Carri Skoczek at Gallery GAIA Austé at LOMEX jameskalmroughcut 2022-10-14 | James Kalm spends a lot of time on his bike cruising the margins of the art world in search of intriguing and authentic art and artists. Sometimes it appears closer to home than imagined. “The Doll Show” is just up the West Brooklyn water front from your reporter’s Red Hook studio, and makes visible the diversity of the local art producing community. Curated by Carri Skoczek this display presents doll-based art works in all their creepy glory. Featuring works by Rani Carson, Ursula Clark, Kara Grail, Sandra Greuel, Tine Kindermann, Mellissa Stern et.al.Making our way across the Bridge, viewers can accompany Kalm on a visit to “A Mistaken Style of Life” a forty year mini-retrospective of the work of Austé. Hitting New York in 1979, Austé seemed like the quintessential spirit of a Gothic decadence that was essence of much EV creativity. The daughter of Lithuanian immigrants, Austé produced images and performances cobbled together from shredded strands of Baltic folktales, Punk Rock audacity, and post-feminist paganism. A musical introduction is provided by Pedro Ferro @pedrooferroo. This program was recorded October 9, and 13, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Mary Heilmann at 303 Gallery William T Williams at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery jameskalmroughcut 2022-10-06 | James Kalm brings viewers along to the far West Side of Chelsea for a brief tour of two shows featuring a pair of “mature” artists, that are experiencing the phenomenon of being rediscovered. Mary Heilmann Moved to New York from California in the late 1960s. Having studied ceramics before her arrival in New York, Heilmann gravitated to painting almost as an act of transgression against the Minimal hegemony. After years of unrecognized work, in the early aughts the artist begins to win converts over to her trippy version of hard-edge painting, and the quirky processes she employs.William T. Williams was working at the very center of the Downtown painting scene in the late 1960s, and produced some of the era’s most striking painted works. Though engaged in the turbulent cultural, and political milieu of the period, his works attracted serious attention for their ambition. As times and tastes changed, and due to his commitment to teaching, he withdrew somewhat from the day-to-day self-promotion needed to stay in the local art press. The paintings in “Tension to the Edge a Selection of Paintings and works on Paper, 1968-70” give new viewers a chance to experience these works and appreciate their historic importance. A musical introduction is provided by Gabriel Mayers. This program was recorded September 30, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Richard Mock at THE WALL GALLERY Urs Fischer at GAGOSIAN GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2022-09-26 | James Kalm has maintained a studio near the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn for over forty years. By now, there has evolved a local Brooklyn art history that’s significant. As providence would have it, your correspondent happened to capture snippets of exhibitions by two other artists that call this nabe home. “Mock Up” is a mini-retrospective featuring the work of Richard Mock, a local legend. Curated by Scott Pfaffman “Mock Up” covers a thirty-year chunk of this protean “Bad Boy” artist’s work. Pfaffman provides an insightful narrative regarding the career of the artist, and the challenges faced by guardians of an artistic legacy. Urs Fischer is one of todays most revered and institutionally recognized artists. Creating works in the realm of “New Media” Fischer, with “Denominator” presents a selection of three installation/video works that push the boundaries of technology, the participation of the viewer and the authority of the “Media Bubble”. Employing massive LED screens and multiple video projections, Fischer mashes together sublime amounts of AI controlled visual data, historic TV content, and architectural environments that beg the viewer to question their location (the inside, versus outside of society), within the idea of our created cultural “reality”. A musical introduction is provided by Kay Joe Unscripted @therealunscripted. This program was recorded September 13, and September 22, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Peter Acheson at STEVEN HARVEY FINE ART 11 Women of Spirit Part 6 at SALON ZÜRCHER jameskalmroughcut 2022-09-14 | Peter Acheson at STEVEN HARVEY 11 Women of Spirit Part 6 at SALON ZÜRCHER James Kalm has been acquainted with Peter Acheson and his painting practice since the late 1990s, and the emergence of the Williamsburg art scene. In the nearly three decades since then, the culturally astute public has witnessed the development of a group of artists who have called this Brooklyn neighborhood home. Chris Martin, Kathy Bradford, Fred Tomaselli, Bill Jensen, Margrit Lewscuk and Amy Sillman are just a few of a cadre of local painters who have garnered critical attention. By moving upstate early in the millennium, and removing himself from the hectic social/political scene the artist has forged his own unique path into local painting lore, while becoming a more mysterious presence. His choice to work on an intimate (small) scale, and to pursue his own hermetic and discordant motifs seems to intentionally work against commercial trends. “The White Album”, curated by Steven Harvey, is a selection of paintings spanning thirty-five years with the commonality of white as a color or concept. Peter Acheson graciously delivers a strolling explanation of the exhibition. As a Bonus Round, viewers are invited to saunter through "11 Women of Spirit" is the sixth iteration of this show, and was organized by Gwénolée Zürcher as a counterpoint exhibition to this year’s Armory Show. This selection of artists exemplifies the diversity and quality of work that hasn’t received the attention it deserves from many mainstream pundits. A musical introduction is provided by The Meetles. This program was recorded on September 10, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Jeremy Olson Zoe McGuire at ANOTHER PLACE The Patriot at O’FLAHERTY’S jameskalmroughcut 2022-07-19 | James Kalm, for a myriad of reasons, has recently not been fulfilling his creative obligation of recording and posting videos of events and art exhibitions in New York. However, despite new variants, the summer doldrums, and sweltering heat, your correspondent hits the streets on a midsummer Sunday to see what’s up…Maintaining a temperature theme, we head to Downtown’s hottest new art strip, (Henry Street) where your friend, and his camera, stop in at Another Place Gallery and take in views of Jeremy Olson’s “Brand-New Attachment Style” and Zoe McGuire’s “Sacred Ecologies”. Olsen presents sharp-focus Surrealistic paintings/sculptures with narratives that are both dystopic and humorous, while McGuire displays symmetrical abstractions based on the natural forms of “pollinators.”Zipping over the bottom east end of the East Village, we make a cursory stroll through of “The Patriot” a summer mega group show with nearly 900 works at O’Flaherty’s. This solon style installation captures something of the flavor of the young LES scene in 2022. A musical introduction is provided by Messy Masha. This presentation was recorded July 17, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Nathlie Provosty at NATHALIE KARG B. Wurtz at GARTH GREENAN jameskalmroughcut 2022-06-30 | James Kalm is back on his trusty bike, visiting galleries, and attempting to keep in touch with cultural happenings here in New York City. To that end, he slides up to the Nathalie Karg Gallery and records a walking tour of Nathlie Provosty’s [a partial list of failings]. This show features the debut of two large, multi-panel paintings, smaller oils, and a series of ink and mixed media works on paper. Provosty continues to develop her closely hued pictures, but has extended her pallet beyond the dark greys of previous shows into rich yellows, oranges and violet-blue.B. Wurtz: Monuments is a display of works from the past four decades. Many of these simple sculptures are crafted from plane, unpainted lumber, wire, and re-purposed items such as plastic grocery bags, parts of electrical motors, and fabricated ornamental fruit. Blown up corporate food logos, and text about sustainability are composed into graphic panels that end up creating a level of cognitive dissonance through their allusion to natural produce, and the synthetic packaging they’re sold in.A musical introduction is provided by Greg Morgan. This program was recorded June 18, and June 23, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Nicole Eisenman and Lee Lozano at HAUSER & WIRTH jameskalmroughcut 2022-06-21 | James Kalm was on an art recon marathon, scurrying from the Bottom East Side of the Lower East Side, to the far East Village, and finally to West Chelsea, recording hours of video, when he finally finds himself in front of Hauser and Wirth with about twenty minutes before closing time. There’s as double show featuring Nicole Eisenman and Lee Lozano. Although exhausted from a looooong day, your correspondent decides to turn on the camera, and see how far he can get in documenting these presentations. “Untitled (Show)” is Eisenman’s first exhibition with Hauser and Wirth. It features a gallery of recent paintings (some huge) and a cat’s head sculpture that’s chained to a backhoe. On the second floor are a group of bronze sculptures and an installation with an animated potter.Lee Lozano is perhaps one of the most enigmatic artists to emerge from the New York art scent in the last fifty years. Known as a founding member of the “Conceptual Art” movement, this show titled “All Verbs” features some of her bizarre earlier figurative paintings, her abstract design paintings, and notation sketches which give insight into her instructional text pieces, for which she became famous. A musical introduction is provided by Our Messy Ghost. This program was recorded June 4, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Nora Griffin at FIERMAN WEST Bobo at O’FLAHERTY’S jameskalmroughcut 2022-06-06 | James Kalm is enjoying the loveliness of a late spring afternoon, and cruising the Lower East Side and East Village when he happens on the debut of the new Fierman West Gallery. The enclave where young galleries are popping up at the bottom of the LES like mushrooms is astonishing. From a mere three or four galleries two years ago, there is now almost a dozen venues. Nora Griffin debuts “Liquid Days” a suite of four intensely colorfully paintings, and assorted small sculptures and studies that seem to harmonize with the abject nature of this rough space. The artist is present, and adds a spontaneous narrative of the work. Zipping north, to the east edge of the East Village, we slip into O’Flaherty’s and experience the multimedia installation “The Association Age” by Bobo(?) This, over the top presentation, depicts a dystopian future in which ideas are cloned for copyright, just like industrial farming clones bioengineered chickens. If the “market” requires “designed poultry” can “cloned art” be far behind? A musical introduction is provided by Pedro Ferro. This program was recorded May 29, and June 4, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Hayley Barker Shari Urquhart at SHRINE Mariah Dekkenga at SITUATIONS jameskalmroughcut 2022-05-17 | James Kalm is just a guy on a bike with a camera, pedaling through the streets of New York, trying to keep his eyes open. Occasionally he spots things of interest, and if lucky, he’s able to record them and present them to viewers interested in current cultural production. “The Spider” a two artist show at Shrine presents paintings (some of large scale) of domestic scenes featuring gardens and interiors, which resonate with underlying symbolism by Hayley Barker, and extraordinary hook rug tapestries that present surreal narratives in plush fibers by Shari Urquhart (who was included in “Bad Painting” curated by Marcia Tucker at the New Museum in 1978). We then pedal on to Situations to take in a "bonus round" stroll through of “Behind Doors” a group of geometric abstractions by Mariah Dekkenga that employ a technique of illusionary painting over brusque textured grounds. A musical introduction is provided by Marley Sings, and a transitional performance by Paperboy Prince. This program was recorded May 5, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Thornton Willis at DAVID RICHARD Markus Lüpertz at MICHAEL WERNER jameskalmroughcut 2022-04-30 | James Kalm is an unabashed contemporary art history geek. When, in the course of his tooling around New York recording views of exhibitions, he notes interesting parallels in what’s being presented, he tries to bring these elements to the viewer’s attention. Both “Thornton Willis A Painting Survey Six Decades: Works from 1967-2017” at David Richard Gallery, and “Marcus Lüpertz The Grace of the Twentieth Century is Rendered Visible by the Dithyramb I Have Invented: Paintings from 1963-1976” at Michael Werner are mini-retrospectives of master painters. Thornton Willis has been a presence on the New York scene since the late 1960s. He’s maintained his independence and unique vision of abstraction while extending the legacy of the New York School. Having begun his practice during a period when minimalism and conceptualism reigned and painting was shunned, this display chronicles his diverse approaches to color and composition. Marcus Lüpertz came of age in a Berlin still reconstructing itself after WWII. Within this turbulent environ, the creative social forces encouraged experimentation and innovation. Lüpertz was, and still is, at the forefront of the movements “De Nieuwe Wilden” (New Wild Beasts) and the European Trans Avant-Garde. A musical introduction is provided by West Fourth Trio. This program was recorded April 21 and 22, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Zuriel Waters at MY PET RAM Richard Tinkler at 105 HENREY STREET jameskalmroughcut 2022-04-16 | James Kalm asks: How many art vlogs do you watch that start off with two dudes sharing a blunt, and a hard-asses banger band, thrashing on a street corner on the Lower East Side (and that’s just the beginning of this real-life paint-head art tour)? Then we pedal over to see “Pent-up House” a selection of freeform paintings at My Pet Ram. These works were produced by Zuriel Waters over the course of the last six to eight months, while the artist waited for the Covid-19 pandemic to wane. Unstretched shaped canvases in subtle tints, and tones, are designed to be folded into boxes and are here, pinned to the gallery walls. Though initially, looking whimsical these works might be harbingers of erotic symbolism. Next viewers are presented with a “Sneak Peek” walk through of Jane Dickson’s “99¢ DREAMS” at James Fuentes. From Delancey Street it’s on to the debut exhibition of 105 Henry Street (an ancillary space to 56 Henry Street). “Large Paintings” (which, considering the scale of some of the recent works we’ve viewed) might be an ironic title for this group of works by Richard Tinkler. Though looking from a distance like soft focus, stained abstraction, on closer viewing these pictures are walls of small mosaic like brush strokes. A musical introduction is provided by Twisted Wrist, This program was recorded April 10, and April 14, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Jay Milder at ERIC FIRESTONE Mariana Oushiro at VITO SCHNABEL jameskalmroughcut 2022-04-05 | James Kalm, in the course of his bicycle perambulations, sometimes comes across events that are illuminatingly instructive in their contrasts. “Jay Milder: Broadway Nonstop Subway paintings from the 1950s and 60s”, is an historic exhibition presenting this series together for the first time since the early 1960s. These heavily textured works, bare the influences of the CoBrA artists and the materialist painters that Jay saw while studying in Paris in the early 1950s. But rather than using myths or folklore as his subject, Milder picks the scurrying figures of folks running to catch subway trains instead. Though using an almost comic book like depiction, the heavy facture and “action painting” brushwork is a harbinger of the Neo-Expressionists and masters like Philip Guston who attracted critical attention decades later.At the other end of the spectrum (and the other side of town), “Supernova” the debut show by Mariana Oushiro at Vito Schnabel presents large works on raw canvas. These pictures are big rough and ragged, creating a painting environment that pays homage to the classic Abstract Expressionists while still providing a space for this young artist to explore her own direction. These pieces have all the spontaneous energy of avant-jazz, and, with the included foot and hand prints, carry the notion of personal mark making to an extravagant level. A musical introduction is provided by Robert Leslie. This program was recorded March 26 and April 2, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
BUSHWICK REVISITED Inhabited Touch at M DAVID Zachary Keeting at UNDERDUNK jameskalmroughcut 2022-03-25 | James Kalm in 2003, was arguably the first “hard copy” art reporter to document the happenings in the trendy new arts neighborhood of Bushwick Brooklyn. From then to about 2017 your correspondent logged in the appearance of approximately eighty galleries/exhibition venues in the ‘Wick. Recently, between the natural dissipation of the scene, and the ravages of Covid-19, the gallery scene in Bushwick has been reduced to a mere half-dozen(?) Still, your reporter tries to get back out to the Bush when he can, and keep those interested, in the informational loop. “Inhabited Touch” at M. David is a modest group show that features some locals, some internationalists, some young, and some not so young, but all painters concerned with the physical properties of paint, and the physical touch that spreads it. A few blocks away we climb the stairs to witness the New York debut of Zachary Keeting at Underdunk. Although an active participant in the New York creative community for years, this is the artist’s first one-person exhibition. This show features his rich coloristic canvases, in which he employs tricky mixes of mediums, the chemical reactions of wet in wet layering techniques, and the frothing of acrylic paint. This program was recorded March 13, and 20, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Henry Street Trio NO GALLERY, KING’S LEAP, PUBLIC ACCESS jameskalmroughcut 2022-03-17 | James Kalm has been witness to the comings and goings in the New York art scene for several decades now, and he’s become aware of how the “location” of a gallery or artist’s studio, effects not only careers, but art history. Over the last year, a cluster of young galleries have popped up on the bottom of the Lower East Side. For this Sunday’s acculturation stroll, viewers can accompany your correspondent as he pokes his head in to investigate three of these new spaces. We start at No Gallery with COPE: Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Japanese Figurative Painting (Curated by Sven Loven) with works by: Motoko Ishibashi, KAITO Itsuki, Ewao Kagoshima, Taichi Machida, Ahmed Mannan, Emi Mizukami and Shogo Shimizu. Next door at King’s Leap we’ll take in a close viewing of new works by Tom Koehler. “Brass Duck Head Bookend Rendezvous” is Koehler’s third presentation with the gallery presenting four traditional oils, which were realized between 2020-2021. Lastly, we stroll through Christopher Wool’s “East Broadway Break Down” at Public Access. This is a collection of casual photographs taken by the renowned artist in the early 1990’s as he walked from his China Town studio, to his apartment on the Lower East Side. A musical introduction is provided by Gabriel Mayers. This program was recorded March 6, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Dorothea Tanning at KASMIN - Ninth Street and Beyond at HUNTER DUNBAR jameskalmroughcut 2022-03-13 | James Kalm has editing together a Double Feature of Women in Abstraction: Dorothea Tanning at KASMIN, and Ninth Street and Beyond: 70 Years Of Women In Abstraction at HUNTER DUNBAR. This program juxtaposes two shows that are just around the corner from each other, and seems to have a relational historic narrative. Dorothea Tanning was an influential artist on the New York scene since the early 1940s. Her work and relationships have altered the course of American art history. Ninth Street and Beyond Part 1: The Gestural, at Hunter Dunbar presents 34 artists who are some of the most noteworthy examples of three generations of abstractionists. Part 1 of “Ninth Street” (the title refers to the iconic 1951 “Ninth Street Show,” the first group exhibition bringing together the painters that would eventually be categorized as “The New York School”) is dedicated to the “gestural” (Part 2 will present the Geometric). A musical introduction is provided by Jewels Gold. This program was recorded March 5, and 6, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
David Diao at POSTMASTERS Ad Reinhardt Curated by James Turrell at PACE jameskalmroughcut 2022-03-01 | James Kalm tries to stay on top of, or at least aware of, the current trends and directions in the New York painting scene. Over the last several years there’s been a cresting in the notion of “the return of the figure”. Some wag has even trotted out the epithet of “zombie figuration,” a reference to the short lived and over-subscribed “zombie formalism” movement that crashed dramatically in the mid-teens. At a more sanctified level, your correspondent is taking note of a substantial movement that seems to be achieving critical attention, “conceptual formalism”. To fortify this claim, this program pairs a couple of brilliant recent exhibitions as examples of this tendency. Though separated by nearly fifty years, the austere dignity, and cerebral wit shared by the works of David Diao and Ad Reinhardt are related. Diao has been working on his elegantly understated paintings in New York for over forty-five years. In that time, among the city’s painting elite, he’s established a considerable reputation as a master theoretician and paint handler. Reinhardt, a noted contrarian, was an imbedded member of the Abstract Expressionists, and a harbinger of Minimalism. These two exhibitions give viewers a chance to ponder the shared aesthetics of these masters through comparison. This program was recorded February 12, and 25, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Lucio Pozzi at HAL BROMM GALLERY Robert Janitz at CANADA jameskalmroughcut 2022-01-31 | James Kalm decides to take a cruise around Tribeca (Triangle Below Canal) and visit a pair of shows that provide some instructive contrast of artistic approaches. In “Time and Again 1974/2018/2021” at Hal Bromm, Lucio Pozzi displaying paintings covering nearly fifty years of work. As a kind of “aesthetic contrarian” Pozzi has spent much of his long career running away from fashions, trends and conventions. Scooting up the block we stop in to see “Library of Dreams” a presentation of one wall filling multi-panel painting and smaller ancillary works at CANADA. Janitz has developed a technique in which he employs the odd constituent of wheat flour as a painting medium. He then creates calligraphic squeegee strokes that scrape through the body color to press compositional vectors to the very edge of the picture-plane. This program was recorded January 20, 2022. #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
IT HAPPENS EVERY 100 YEARS, GET USED TO IT! Bob Holman, James Brandon Lewis, Yoshiko Chuma jameskalmroughcut 2022-01-21 | James Kalm makes an exception to his self-exclusionary rule, and decides to document a poetic performance that accompanies the “On The Bowery” exhibition at Zürcher Gallery. IT HAPPENS EVERY 100 YEARS, GET USED TO IT! an event with BOB HOLMAN reciting his poetry, JAMES BRANDON LEWIS on the sax, and dance by YOSHIKO CHUMA at ZÜRCHER GALLERY. Also documented are over forty works of art produced by artists who lived and worked on or near the Bowery. This is an historic display and includes a cast of prestigious artists too numerous to mention, but here’s a short list: VITO ACCONCI, SOL LEWITT, BRENDA GOODMAN, EVA HESSE, ROBERT RYMAN, ROY LICHTENSTEIN, ADOLPH GOTTLIEB, LYNDA BENGLIS, MARK ROTHKO, WILLIAM BURROUGHS…This performance was recorded Jan. 15, 2022 at the Zürcher Gallery 33 Bleecker Street, just off the Bowery. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Charles Yuen at 490 ATLANTIC GALLERY Namio Harukawa at ATM GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2022-01-13 | James Kalm has entered the New Year entangled in a three way bind, that has kept your humble reporter from his beat in the streets. First, is the Holliday Season, always a burden for this bah-humbugger. Then, between his curatorial designation, and promotional responsibilities, for the current exhibition “On The Bowery” at the Zürcher Gallery, your correspondent has spent days created new supplementary map works. Finally, though double vaxxed and boostered, Kalm tested positive for Covid-19 on the 17th of December (though it only felt like a cold with sniffles for a couple of days), and was in isolation for a week and a half.That said, this program looks at a selection of paintings by Charles (Chuck) Yuen. This intimate show presents works, mostly from the last two years and showcases Yuen’s poetic narratives, composed from an index of personal signs and figures. These pictures display the artists painterly abilities, luscious use of color, quixotic composition, and humor, creating a visual poetics.Zooming to the Lower East Side, we stop in for a quiet stroll through of Namio Harukawa’s “Femdom” at ATM NYC. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia “Namio Harukawa was a pseudonymous Japanese fetish artist best known for his works depicting female domination ("femdom"), with erotic asphyxiation through facesitting which appears as a frequent subject of his art…” This selection of drawings, all untitled, graphite and color pencils, about 10 x 7½ inches, are from a private collection in California. A musical introduction is provided by Frances, and an interlude performance is by Mega Ecstasy. This program was recorded December 26, 2021, and January 2, 2022. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Stephen Westfall at ALEXANDRE Kyle Staver at STEVEN HARVEY jameskalmroughcut 2021-12-10 | James Kalm, by virtue of trying to stay on top of the Downtown Art scene, is sensitive to trends and waves of sympathetic practice. An artist can make any kind of art they want, anytime they want but, that doesn’t guarantee that people will exhibit it, the market will receive it, or that critics will review it. With “Persephone” Stephen Westfall’s latest collection of paintings, the domains of influence might be in alignment. Westfall has now, for several decades, produced his own version of whimsically formalistic color works. With the market deluged in “Post-Internet” figuration, a breakthrough group of mostly abstract color painters are gaining the attention of the market, and the critical spotlight.Up the block, viewers can tag along and stroll through a drawing show by Kyle Staver, called “Paper Trails”. This group of intimately scaled sketches, mixed media drawings and etchings give observers a chance to see Staver pursue her thematic and compositional concepts from the loosest doodle to well rendered depiction. Many of these pieces echo the artists engagement with mythical and biblical subjects in her signature humorous yet painterly style. This program was recorded December 3, and 4, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
James Ulmer at THE HOLE Amanda Church at HIGH NOON Andrew Masullo at NICELLE BEAUCHENE jameskalmroughcut 2021-11-15 | James Kalm ventures into the night of Halloween 2021, whips out his camera, and begins capturing views of some art shows, and other All Hallows Eve’s shenanigans. Viewers can begin with a tour of James Ulmer’s “Painting Pictures” at The Hole. This is the first one person show for Ulmer at this venue, and it presents a group of colorful, childlike depictions of groups of stacked figures, and landscapes. Simple narratives and compositions may only be opportunities for Ulmer to exercise his desire to paint striking arrays of singing color and patterned designs.Slinking further through the dark byways of the LES Kalm makes his way to High Noon Gallery to take in a viewing of Amanda Church’s “Passengers”. Constructing pictures of apparent formalistic elements, through a seductive and sensual approach, Church nonetheless suggests scenes of abstract eroticism, in an elegant reduced pallet. Is Kalm mistaken in thinking that high formalism can also embody the titillating, or is he just seeing things?Lastly, we make it to Franklin Place in Tribeca, and view a selection of intimate abstractions at Nicelle Beauchene by a Kalm Favorite, Andrew Masullo. These painting represent a broad cross-section of works from the past decade, and demonstrate why Masullo has received well deserved critical attention for his humorous yet bracing approach to abstraction. A musical introduction is provided by J.P. Koogan. This program was recorded October 31, and November 11, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Robert Swain at MINUS SPACE Ellsworth Ausby at ERIC FIRESTONE GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2021-10-31 | James Kalm, makes room on his handle bars, and invites paint head viewers to jump on for a Friday afternoon acculturation tour. We start our tour under the bridges (the Brooklyn and the Manhattan) in DUMBO at Minus Space with a painting installation titled “Immersive Color” the latest body of work from Robert Swain. Swain is one of America’s most distinguished pure color painter. These large color studies operate like Bach fugues, or Avant Jazz riffs, taking a basic color score, and extrapolating the units, till the spaces and spectrums are fulfilled.Then we zip across the Brooklyn Bridge into the West Side of the Lower East Side for a gander at “Ellsworth Ausby: Somewhere in Space” at the Eric Firestone Gallery. Though Ausby, gained substantial recognition while young, much of this work here is underknown. Painted during the tumultuous period of the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, Ausby pioneered his own course developing concepts of Afro-Futurism, and the use of the unstretched shaped canvas. Bearing witness to his contemporaries Ausby produced dynamic and formally unique works that are resonant of their time, yet personal in their content. A musical introduction is provided by Dominique Hammons. This program was recorded October 29, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Jacques Louis Vidal at REAL PAIN Korakrit Arunanondchia at CLEARING Material Mutation at TRANSMITTER jameskalmroughcut 2021-10-22 | James Kalm is out on a weekend acculturation tour, when he whips out his camera, and decides to bring viewers along for a totally unscripted tour of some of New York’s most radically innovative art venues. Starting on the Lower East Side we pop into see Jacques Louis Vidal’s “Dead End Jobs That Kill”, at Real Pain. Your correspondent visited this show a week before, and its implications clanged around in his head. These “over mediated” works employ computers and their inhuman virtues to produce objects that are too tedious for actual artists to fabricate. Within this “means of production” Vidal still maintains a goofy figurative element that somehow defies the machine consciousness of contemporary life.Korakrit Arunanondchia presents “3 SONGS” an installation. The gallery is cast in shades of blue light, and large mixed media panels accompany a costume designed titled “A Song For Dying (Ghost)”, with a thirty-minute video “Songs For Dying”.Finally, viewers can attend the after closing time run-through of “Material Mutations” at Transmitter. This group show examines the concept of the painted canvas surfaces, their physicality and their support, and includes works by Kathleen Kuck, Lily de Bont, and Jan Maarten Voskuil. A musical intro is provided by COVISKY. This program was recorded October 10 and 17, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Lisa Yuskavage and Frank Moore at DAVID ZWIRNER jameskalmroughcut 2021-10-11 | James Kalm is out for a Friday afternoon pedal, and happens upon a couple of intriguing shows that contrast seductive titillation, against a Surrealistic dramatization of tragic illness. Lisa Yuskavage New Paintings, presents a selection of works some wee some grand. These images retain the artist’s well-endowed female characters, though in a more “classic” mode, and within a series of comedic genre scenes that seem immersed in a nostalgia for the late 1970s.With “More Life” we’ll visit the work of Frank Moore (1953-2002), one of New York’s most accomplished Post Surrealists. This group features works completed in the last fifteen years of the painter’s life. Combining allegorical scenes of hospitals and healthcare with nature studies in a world gone wacky, Moore educes a disquieting sense of the existential conundrum brought on by a plague not dissimilar from what society is facing today. A musical introduction is provided by Alexandra Starr. This program was recorded October 2, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Beauford Delaney at MICHAEL ROSENFELD Alice Neel at DAVID ZWIRNER jameskalmroughcut 2021-10-05 | James Kalm, as an enthusiastic amateur art historian, is always on the lookout for overlooked and underrecognized painters. Sometimes there’s even an alignment of said artists, which give observers a chance to make interesting comparisons. “Be Your Wonderful Self, the Portraits of Beauford Delaney” at Michael Rosenfeld, and “Alice Neel: The Early Years” at David Zwirner is a delicious opportunity to look at two of America’s most unique talents, and see how their careers and artistic trajectories converged and diverged over, long careers.Both artists seemed to represent the art world’s version of the “other,” both racially, and sexually, and their stories and production are testament to how they overcame these challenges, not only artistically but socially as well. A musical introduction is provided by SECONDSET. This program was recorded September 30, and October 2, 2021 #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Mike Lee at ATM GALLERY Olivier Mosset at SPENCER BROWNSTONE jameskalmroughcut 2021-09-14 | Mike Lee at ATM GALLERY Olivier Mosset at SPENCER BROWNSTONEJames Kalm is back from his summer hiatus, avoiding two hurricanes, a Covid spike from the Delta variant, and the normal end of August doldrums to bring art head viewers along for a warm up tour for the 2021-2022 New York art season. “Under the Lemon Tree” is Mike Lee’s debut exhibition at ATM Gallery. Lee’s immaculately finished paintings present what might be mundane every day subjects, but the reduction of his pallet to the gray scale, and a surgical slicing and dicing of three-dimensional objects into cubistic overlays, presents a timely example of how our generation’s view of “reality” has been manipulated by high-tech programing. Proceeding from the southern most edge of the Lower East Side, to its Eastern precinct we stroll into “Rauschenberg White” the latest offering from Olivier Mosset at Spencer Brownstone. Mosset (who was a founding member of BMPT a Paris-based late Modern art group formed in the mid-1960s by painters Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni) has a long history of fiddling with the audience’s ideas about what constitutes a painting, and challenging received notions about authorship, autonomy, the social position of the artist and originality within the ancient practice of painting. This program was recorded September 5 and 12, 2021. #jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk
Robert Moreland, Adam Parker Smith at the HOLE Lee Lozano at KARMA jameskalmroughcut 2021-08-04 | Robert Moreland, Adam Parker Smith at the HOLE Lee Lozano at KARMAJames Kalm is out during 2021’s “summer, in the city, with the back of his neck getting’ dirty and gritty”… But despite the discomfort, your art correspondent decides to bring viewers a tour through some of the most provocative shows on the Lower East Side.Robert Moreland’s “The Concept of Calm” is an homage to a branch of Minimalism that combines an austere hardedge design, non-Euclidean geometry with, formalistic painting concerns. Add to this the artist’s craftsy, hipster approach to fabrication, and this makes his aesthetic statement at once more universally humanistic, yet personal.“Standing on the Moon” is the latest offering by sculptor Adam Parker Smith. These standing petrified “mummy bags” are spotlight in a darkened gallery space that give observers the impression of visiting a creepy collection of ancient sarcophaguses, and hoping the absent ghosts don’t return before they can make a hasty exit.“Lee Lozano Drawings 1959-1964” is a museum quality exhibition containing around 200 drawings by this, one of the most enigmatic and tragic artistic figures of the late 20th century. Although know primarily for her conceptual score pieces, this selection of drawings present Lozano as a very talented and transgressively humorous draftsperson. A pair of James Kalm articles explaining more of the Lozano story which appeared in the Brooklyn Rail are linked below A musical introduction is provided by Greg Banks. This program was recorded July 31, and August 3, 2021. #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmseesResurrection of a Badass Girl Part Ilorenmunk.com/writing/2017/7/2/brooklyn-dispatches-resurrection-of-a-bad-ass-girl-part-i-brooklyn-rail Resurrection of a Badass Girl Part IIlorenmunk.com/writing/2017/7/3/brooklyn-dispatches-resurrection-of-a-bad-ass-girl-part-ii-brooklyn-rail
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT at the BROAD MUSEUM jameskalmroughcut 2021-07-14 | James Kalm is, to quote Jerry Saltz “walking not talking”, or perhaps more precisely, inviting viewers to accompany him for a quiet stroll and close viewing of “Jean-Michel Basquiat” at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. This display is an enhanced version including rarely seen pieces from the deep collection, rehung for the reopening of the Broad after the Covid-19 lockdown. During his tragically short career in the Downtown Manhattan art scene of the 1980s, Basquiat produced hundreds of paintings and drawings that are at once spontaneous as a jazz riff, yet embodied with a sharp-eyed critique and satire that is profoundly cerebral. This selection presents examples from major periods of the artist’s work. This program was recorded July 2, 2021. #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
Gerhard Richter at GAGOSIAN Thornton Dial at JAMES FUENTES jameskalmroughcut 2021-06-26 | James Kalm enjoys bringing viewers along for his pedaling peregrinations through the streets of New York, and the byways of art history. This pairing of “Cage Paintings” by Gerhard Richter and, “Paintings 1990-1998” by Thornton Dial, contrasts two of the most revered and influential artists of the late twentieth century. One would be hard pressed to find artists who are more diametrically opposed than Richter and Dial. With backgrounds that are worlds apart, they are linked in their ambition, and coincidentally in a persistent use of the color gray. With the “Cage Paintings” Richter extends his technique of “squeegee painting” to mural sized, calling attention to their fabrication and how the physical properties of oil paint transmute at that giant scale. Dial’s works from the 1990s reveal an intuitive yet sophisticated handling of form, subject and color verging on the Abstract Expressionistic. Despite the brutal physicality, and use of abject materials employed in these pieces, the artist nevertheless achieves a poignant poetic quality. This program was recorded June 18, and 20, 2021. #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
Richard Mock at KENTLER INTERNATIONAL Derek Aylward at SHRINE jameskalmroughcut 2021-06-21 | James Kalm has pasted together a pair of visits to recently opened shows that present individual visions of expressionistic figuration from different generations, and in different media.Richard Mock’s “The Cutting Edge,” at Kentler International Drawing Center, is a long overdue look at over three hundred linoleum block prints produced from the late 1970s until just before the artist’s death in 2006. With a piercing political wit, and a natural vocabulary of graphic form, using just black and white, Mock was an equal opportunity satirist, mischievously mocking (pun intended) the foibles of both the left and right.Derek Aylward mashes together a sensibility tainted with the scruffy ruggedness of street art cartoons and graffiti. “Screen Door on a Submarine” presents this with a hefty portion of early modernist cubism, and Action Painting, left to simmer for a satisfying stew that might distract viewers from its subtle coloristic presence. A musical intro is provided by Sewage @spikesewage.com. These programs were recorded June 12, and 19, 2021#jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
SUPER ROUGH Outsider Art Fair Curated by Takashi Murakami jameskalmroughcut 2021-06-16 | James Kalm has been a big-time fan of “outsider,” “art brut” and the “visionary” since the last millennium. Within his video archive, the programs documenting these movements are a significant proportion, and have generated hundreds of thousands of views. “Super Rough” carries on this tradition, with your reporter strolling around a central table filled with nearly 200 sculptural works that’s the main feature in this installation. This exhibition was Guest Curated by Takashi Murakami and includes thirty participating galleries. This program was recorded June 9, 2021. #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
Jason Stopa at MORGAN LEHMAN Terry Winters at MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY jameskalmroughcut 2021-06-07 | Jason Stopa at MORGAN LEHMAN Terry Winters at MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY James Kalm begins this color quest by serendipitously capturing a tangy rendition of the Miles Davis classic “All Blue” on Union Square. After an intro like this it’s fitting that viewers are invited to visit “Joy Labyrinth” Jason Stopa’s latest exhibition at Morgan Lehman. “All shades, all hues, we’re all blue…” is an appropriate verse to contemplate as we ogle these pieces. Over the last decade Stopa has emerged as a force in the New York painting scene with his seemingly effortless compositions. Referencing a vocabulary of pleasurable shapes and color, from the Rocco, Matisse, flags, heraldry, and cartoons, these works are seriously unserious.Stopping for a tap-dancing interlude with Brian Davis, we paint-heads then trek on to catch one of this season’s most anticipated shows, Terry Winter’s “Table of Contents” at Matthew Marks. James Kalm has been keeping viewers abreast of Winter’s developments for many years now, and he is consistently one of the most popular painters your correspondent covers. This show is a luscious venture into one branch of contemporary New York painting that remains relevant. Dealing with compositions that are roughly geometric, the artist overlays skewed and warped dot grids, and networks of pattern and line. Winter maintains a sensuous facture, and a color sense that on close observation, is as complex as it is sublet. This program was recorded June 5, 2021 #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk #kalmsees
