LESLIE JEAN-BART : "Memories and Mysteries" at Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba

Motivation of Imbalance

"Memories and Mysteries"Exhibition at

The Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba

Skip The Worry

from the "Reality and Imagination” series

Leslie Jean-Bart

  The Light Within

from the "Reality and Imagination” series

Leslie Jean-Bart 

"Creativity of the Younger Generation"

Leslie Jean-Bart 

 

Photographers Beuford Smith and Leslie Jean-Bart

  Seeker

from the "Reality and Imagination” series 

Leslie Jean-Bart  

 Photographers Herb Robinson (left) with Leslie Jean-Bart (center)

and Cinematographer Jeffrey Akers

Corrine Jennings, Director Wilmer Jennings Gallery

with photographer Herb Robinson

Charlotte Allan viewing Leslie Jean-Bart's prints

Photo: William Avedon

 Artist Joe Overstreet and Corrine Jennings

with photographer Herb Robinson

 Leslie Jean-Bart (photographs) and Alex Mendoza's (paintings)

"Memories and Mysteries" Artist Reception

Artist Reception 

Photo and Video: Charlotte Allan

 

Play ...

 

Photographer Beuford Smith with Artist Joe Overstreet.

Smith recently received "The Culture of Legacy Award"

from the Griffin Museum of Photography

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Leslie Jean-Bart and Alex Mendoza
"Memories and Mysteries"

December 6, 2017 – January 20, 2018 

Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba

219 E 2nd St. 

(between Avenues B and C)
New York, N.Y.10009

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 Joe Overstreet and Corrine Jennings established Kenkeleba House

Kenkeleba House was established by Artists Joe Overstreet and his wife, Corrine Jennings, Director of the Wilmer Jennings Gallery (the sister gallery named for Corrine Jennings's artist-father).

"Named for a West African plant believed to possess spiritual powers, Kenkeleba House is dedicated to the exhibition of artworks by African-American, Latino, Asian-American and Native American artists. Kenkeleba House sponsors six to ten exhibitions a year. Educational programs such as artist talks, demonstrations, performances and lectures are often supplement the exhibits. An outdoor sculpture garden enlivens the property. A satellite space, the Wilmer Jennings Gallery, is across the street at number 219.

Kenkeleba House New York

214 East 2nd Street

(between Avenues B and C)

New York, N.Y.10009

212-674-3939

*all snapshots © 2017 Elizabeth Avedon

except where indicated

SATURDAY: Art + Photography

ASYA GEISBERG GALLERY: Chelsea
First Class / Second Class: March 31 - May 7

Glamour Break Diva, 2009
Photograph (c) Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Blass & Co. (Bill Blass, Nancy Kissinger, Mica Ertegun and Duane Hampton at the Seventh on Sale benefit, New York City), 1995 Photograph (c) Miles Ladin

Nan Kempner at the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show, 1995
Photograph (c) Miles Ladin

Wrestling Dalton, 2006
Photograph (c) Chris Verene

First Class/Second Class: Curated by Asya Geisberg and Leah Oates, includes Chris Verene, Rebecca Morgan, Miles Ladin, Devin Troy Strother, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Holly Jarrett, Conor McGrady, and Brian Shumway. Asya Geisberg Gallery 537B West 23rd St NYC

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STEVEN KASHER GALLERY: Chelsea
Phyllis Galembo / Maske: March 2 - April 2

Zambia, 2007
Photograph (c) Phyllis Galembo

Reflection in the window – the illusive John A Bennette, NY Photography Collector and SlowExposures PhotoFestival Curator at the Steven Kasher Gallery, 521 West 23rd NYC

Zambia, 2007
Photograph (c) Phyllis Galembo

Phyllis Galembo: Maske, an exhibition featuring recent photographs by Phyllis Galembo, large-scale color prints presenting African and Haitian figures in indigenous masquerade costume. Steven Kasher Gallery, 521 West 23rd NYC

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FINCH + ADA: Chelsea
The Pleasure Is All Mine: March 24 - April 8

Photograph (c) Jonathan Levitt

from the series "Spring Fever"
Photograph (c) Aline Smithson

Photograph (c) Toby Burrows

Photograph (c) Dolly Faibyshev

The Pleasure is All Mine: Curated by Elizabeth Barragan & Kathleen Mahoney-Cobb, includes Toby Burrows, Bill Durgin, Dolly Faibyshev, C. Finley, Maciek Jasik, Jan von Holleben, Jonathan Levitt, Diane Russo, Aline Smithson, Rachel Styer, Justin Walker, Rachael Warner, Jill Waterman and Logan White. Finch & Ada, 548 W. 28th St., Space A, Ground Floor, NYC

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ALLEGRA LaVIOLA GALLERY: Lower East Side
Jennifer Riley / Fire-Fangled Feathers: March 23 - April 30

Hermitage, 2011
Painting: Jennifer Riley

2011 Pastel Drawings
Drawings: Jennifer Riley

“Fire-Fangled Feathers”, painter Jennifer Riley maintains her exploration of line, color, shape and space in a series of new paintings and pastels. Allegra LaViola Gallery, 179 East Broadway NYC

CAIO FERNANDES: Aterces Adiv

reductive a new Blurb book
Self Portrait of Artist Caio Fernandes

Paintings (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

1995 while writing a poem named Vida Secreta (Secret Life) in my notebook, on the opposite page the ink left the opposite written–Aterces Adiv. This was just perfect for all I was trying to say...Aterces Adiv, nothing can be hidden in life and as consequence in art.–Caio Fernandes

Brazilian artist Caio Fernandes explains the history of the four phases of his work while showing us his "best painting among the best". Support the Arts, only $14.00 U.S. BLURB Books "Staff Pick"

reductive
paintings by Caio Fernandes

NEW BOOK: The Pictorial Consequence

Self Portrait (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

An Existence (Almost) Missed
Copyright (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Brazilian artist, Caio Fernandes, is sometimes described as a Realist painter, "though the sheer intensity of his work sets him apart from most contemporary Realist painters. With a highly individualistic style of painting, Caio reveals the raw physical characteristics and inner tensions of his subjects."

Fernandes published his work on Blurb only a month ago, and already collector's from all over the world have purchased his book, The Pictorial Consequence: 1999 to 2010. Follow Caio's exceptional world on his blog, Mein Welt. More About Caio Here.

THE PICTORIAL CONSEQUENCE: 1999 to 2010

FRANCESCO CLEMENTE: Vintage Interview

Click Image to Enlarge

An Interview With Francesco Clemente. Front Cover Photograph (c) Richard Avedon /All Rights Reserved. "She and She" Back Cover Painting (c) Francesco Clemente /All Rights Reserved.

Sky and Water, Watercolour on paper

Painting by Francesco Clemente /All Rights Reserved

The following quotes by artist Francesco Clemente were excerpted from An Interview With Francesco Clemente by Rainer Crone and Georgia Marsh, published under the imprint "Elizabeth Avedon Editions | Vintage Contemporary Artists | Random House:" (Here)

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"...about the publication of your book of poems, Castelli di Sabbia. (Naples: L’Arte Tipografica, 1964) "I had been reciting it to my mother since I was five or six, and it was published against my better judgment. It was enormously embarrassing, and it made me into a painter, actually, because I decided that to be a poet was too embarrassing; it was too revealing, and I wanted something more obscure to deal with. I thought of painting that way. That was when I was eleven or twelve years old."

"Paintings are simple things. They are important not so much for what is in them as for what is not there. When we talk of the Renaissance we talk of something fragile; the surprise is that at a certain point, after a thousand years of Christianity, Renaissance artists looked at their bodies again, and looked at their faces, and looked at the world as a sensual place. This feeling of surprise happens again in Tiepolo's skies, and even down to de Chirico's earliest painting. If we talk of Piero della Francesca, what comes to mind is the light. There are two lineages of light in painting. One is a secular light: from Caravaggio to de Kooning. The light is outside; it comes down on things, and makes them what they are. But if we talk of Piero, or talk of Roman paintings, or of the Pompeian paintings, we talk of a light that comes from within and that has nothing to do with the history of man. It is a light that is before the history of man. Giotto is unique because you don't know exactly which way the light goes: his is already a completely secular point of view, but still the light is treated as an inner flow. There is really no one else like him; that degree of mystery is nowhere else. We have to talk in terms of light, because if we talk in terms of formalities, what can we get out of it?"

"It could be a step forward to realize that the rational picture of the world is also an imagination; it has the same reality as a myth. It is the product of the mind; it is not more substantial than the mind. When we talk about mythology we are talking about questions of history, of rational thought and rationalized memory of our past. History is the most tragic product of the rational mind–a picture from which there is no way to escape. The picture of the world that history gives us is the picture of a dead person who looks over his own life. It is as if we are all dead, and we are looking at the world in a glass case. How can we get away from this? I have no answer for it."

An Interview With Francesco Clemente
by Rainer Crone and Georgia Marsh
Elizabeth Avedon Editions
Vintage Contemporary Artists/Random House

PAINTINGS & BIO | VIDEO I & VIDEO II

CAIO FERNANDES: My World

Untitled, acrylic on canvas
Painting (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Bianca Conducting Souls, 2009 series
Copyright (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Untitled, acrylic on canvas
Painting (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Untitled, acrylic on canvas
Painting (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Bianca Conducting Souls, 2009 series
Copyright (c) (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

Bianca Conducting Souls, 2009 series
Copyright (c) Caio Fernandes /All Rights Reserved

When I was 13, the year I fell in love with photography, I also discovered North American realism in painting, literature and photography. Here in São Paulo, we are sons and grandsons of Europeans that came here after the wars. The European sensibility and aesthetics are still very strong among us. I was taught all the "isms" of the 20th Century that came from the old continent, along with the most popular work from the USA, such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art...but after "In The American West", I saw that art could be very mature, even sober, without losing the power of expression. Today it sounds obvious, but at the time it really blew my mind.

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CAIO FERNANDES, born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1975, studied Psychology, Art and Photography at both the University of São Paulo and at Brazil's most prestigious school for Art and Architecture, the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP). Studying under artists Evandro Carlos Jardim, Claudo Mubarack and Elisa Bracher, he worked as studio assistant to Ms. Bracher for a short period preparing exhibits for Germany and Rio de Janiero.

Fernandes' work is sometimes described as Realist, "though the sheer intensity of his work sets him apart from most contemporary Realist painters. With a highly individualistic style of painting, Caio reveals the raw physical characteristics and inner tensions of his subjects. A strong interest in Kardecist Spiritism, which proposes an intricate set of perspectives of the "self", is apparent in his self-portraits. Though Caio affirms that a self-portrait can only be considered as a visual reflection of himself, "There is no conceptual speech behind it," he believes strongly that the only important thing is the painting itself."

Order Caio's Book: THE PICTORIAL CONSEQUENCE

CAIO FERNANDO: MEIN WELT

WOOM Art Outsiders / No Brow Art

ERIC FISCHL: An Interview

Fred, 1998. Oil On Linen. 72" x 68"
(Portrait of Fischl's friend novelist/art critic Frederick Tuten)
Painting (c) Eric Fischl /All Rights Reserved

Joan and John, 2002. Oil On Linen. 70" x 75"
(Portrait of writer's Joan Didion and the late John Dunne)
Painting (c) Eric Fischl /All Rights Reserved

Untitled (Brice In Pink Shirt), 2006. Oil On Linen. 50" x 60"
Painting (c) Eric Fischl /All Rights Reserved

ERIC FISCHL, born in New York City, grew up in the suburbs of Long Island and Phoenix, Arizona. He received a BFA from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972. His work has been the subject of numerous important exhibitions including: the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; and the Museum of Contemparary Art, Chicago. Fischl lives and works in New York City and Sag Harbor with artist April Gornik. Read his full bio here

An Interview With Eric Fischl by Donald Kuspit

Front Cover right: Photograph by Richard Avedon. Back Cover left: Painting "Portrait of the Artist As An Old Man" by Eric Fischl

The following is an excert from An Interview With Eric Fischl by Donald Kuspit, Elizabeth Avedon Editions / Vintage Contemporary Artists / Random House (Buy a vintage copy here):

DK: I see you want to live dangerously: you've critically introduced your contemporaries. Let's pursue your gambit. Within the context of the understanding you've set up, who are the artists you find interesting? Why do they make a difference to us?

EF: In the mid-seventies, when sincerity and/or meaning became important again, after pop art and minimalism and conceptual art, some artists found it either in direct expression of meaningfulness, or they found meaningfulness in the direct expression of meaninglessness, and that's how the lines were drawn. When I came to New York in the late seventies, the greatest risk was sincerity. The German artists–Keifer, Baselitz, Polke, Lupertz, Immendorff, Penck–became noteworthy because they were working with a historical event that was guaranteed to be meaningful. It was the worst thing that had happened, they were the descendants of its perpetrators, and they were trying to figure out who they were in relation to it. The whole struggle for meaning since the 1970's has been a struggle for identity. It's pervasive, but most of us can't identify what happened except in personal terms. By what happened, I mean what went wrong, what gave us this sense of collapse or disappointment. The Germans were hurt not just personally but culturally as well. It's very hard for us in America to complain or to feel that our complaint is justified, because, after all, what are we complaining about? That objects we surround ourselves with are disappointing? I mean, it's a joke, we're more embarrassed about having believed in the superficial qualities of America, and it's hard to see yourself in that light. But because the Germans were so devastated culturally, you can identify with their struggle for renewal. Baselitz made a formal decision to turn his images upside down. Before that he had been making traditional realist pictures, often genre and figure scenes. So he decided to turn history upside down. He distanced himself from history, almost as a kind of penitence, a kind of self-ostracism.

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Fischl's latest paintings are of the Corrida Goyesca held each September in the Andalusian town of Ronda. The toreros, or bullfighters, dress in 18th century attire as in the era of the Spanish painter Goya, who designed their distinctive costume. The bull fight has captivated artists from Goya to Hemingway and Picasso.

Corrida in Ronda / ERIC FISCHL / EXHIBITION
Mary Boone Gallery • Oct 21-Dec 2009 • 541 West 24 Street, NYC

ROSS BLECKNER: Birds

Copyright (c) Ross Bleckner

ROSS BLECKNER PAINTINGS HERE