About the exhibition As viewers, when we see text in contemporary art, we can breathe a sigh of relief; text feels like an anchor in a sea of not-knowing. Yet the longer we look, the more we come to realize that words are the ultimate abstraction. They stand in for both image and idea, asking us to conjure up pictures in our own imagination. The artworks in this exhibition treat text in a variety of ways, from ordered lists to commanding slogans. Some are dense with repetition while others are bare with just a single word or phrase. All of Read More …

About the exhibition Artworks that build worlds. Whether artifact or key, these 15 works imagine alternative realities, languages and landscapes.  View it here.

It’s gonna be amazing. Kathleen King (yes, we’ve shown her a few times) is at the top of her games. You can thank us later. Details.

From the New York Times: “My son often asks, “What do you have against jokes?” “Nothing,” I reply. “Well, stop killing them,” he says. He’s 18, autistic, and does standup. He has learned the importance of delivery and timing, skills mastered by the best comics. Despite this, many people believe people with autism are humorless. Tell that to Dan Aykroyd, who identifies himself as having autism spectrum disorder, or A.S.D. One of Mr. Aykroyd’s symptoms included an obsession with ghosts and law enforcement. His deep interest in the ghost hunter Hans Holzer inspired him to co-write “Ghostbusters.” “It’s a huge Read More …

About the exhibition Jeremy Burleson, Luis Estrada, and Anne Meade share clear artistic voices and recurring motifs in their artworks. I selected artworks that had salient emotional and psychological resonances for me. Burleson’s ink drawings of balloons suggest hope and joy; yet the untethered strings foreshadow loss. His stacks of turtles are curious; one turtle’s protective shell becomes other turtles’ stepping stones. There are hints of fear, excitement and danger in drawings of an undulating rattlesnake, a human who appears to be a hospital worker, and what might be an illustration of a dream about flying. Just as the tiniest Read More …

Very sad to report that Jon Fukui, one of our beloved artists, died a few days ago after a battle with cancer. Jon was an amazing artist, creating pieces that explored the world — monster moves, the sea and so on — through the lens of young Japanese American. He was always willing to listen to other artists and their idea, while exploring his unique visions in clay or on paper. He will be dearly missed. (You can see some of his work here.)

About the exhibition As the title clearly states, this selection of works from 12 NIAD artists would be what I, Clea, would like to buy on any “fuck it, I want it“ kind of day. As curators, the biased or subjective factor is always present in the composition of an exhibition. Although taste and genre are often present and presented as core aspects of the curation process, the ownership aspirations of the work is not mentioned as nearly as, according to me, it should. Following a conversation with Tim Buckwalter, Director of Exhibitions at NIAD, on successful sales platforms and Read More …

“The artists in the exhibition have built careers that many people with degrees from top art schools would envy. It seems likely that the show will sell out, with works that are priced from a hundred dollars to several thousand. (One) of the artists… Marlon Mullen ha(s) been included in… the Whitney Biennial, the most prestigious group exhibition of contemporary art in the U.S. Mullen was also selected as one of three SECA Art Award recipients for 2019, which includes an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which will open in November… Read the rest.

Hey New York, SHRINE has an amazing show of works up right now by Mary T Smith! Trust me, I’ve seen the works. Or if you don’t, read this: “Mary, who was hearing-impaired from an early age, was the third of 13 children; she and her siblings helped their sharecropper father grow, pick, and pack vegetables. Given her hearing disability, she had a hard time in school but still managed to reach the fifth grade; as a child, she often spent time alone, drawing. Smith later worked as a domestic servant for white families and was married twice, but it Read More …

Rock band Umphrey’s McGee (UM) has teamed up with We Are Lions (WAL) to present a new line of merchandise to celebrate the 15th anniversary of UM’s seminal album Anchor Drops. UM selected their favorite designs of the bunch – a Robot World squadron by Saul Alegria, a cheeky pop-art Wife Soup by Mireya Betances, an intricate homage to Chicago by Harold Jeffries, and a surreal 13 Days piece by Phoebe Pitcock. All items are made-to-order and available exclusively at We Are Lions .

About the exhibition “Mixed Messages” focuses heavily on the idea of communication, mainly through the representation of text and portraits. I am drawn to the varying ways NIAD’s artists interpret faces and people, what features to exaggerate or abandon, what these choices convey, and what stories they are trying to tell through the words they incorporate into the paintings. You can see this especially emphasized in the works by Luis Estrada, Edie Braught, and Dorrie Reid. And where the faces or words aren’t present for interpretation, abstract movement fills in to communicate and the use of color and stroke becomes Read More …

“I’ve gained so much from working with these artists. On my first day at NIAD in 2011, I remember when an artist walked by with her cane, she was blind, and she said loudly and proudly: “Oh yeah, I used to be a butterfly.” Hearing that opened me up. I felt like: yes, these are conversations I want to be a part of. I have never felt any different, per se, than the artists at these various centers and have developed profoundly loving, playful, honest and rare relationships over the years. I feel blessed to have been able to step Read More …

Yesterday we began installing a group exhibition at Minnesota Street Projects in San Francisco. The show, CE x CG x NIAD, is the first exhibition — in seven years — of works exclusively from the three progressive art studios founded by Elias and Florence Katz so many years ago. Opening reception is Saturday June 1 from 5-8 pm, after a panel discussion beginning at 2 pm. Complete details.

About the exhibition “A really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once. It’s an immediate image… one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it, and therefore it looks as if it were born in a minute.” -Helen Frankenthaler (Barbara Rose, Frankenthaler, 1972, New York: Harry N Abrams, p.85 When I came across Phyllis Carr’s beautiful ceramic works, I was inspired by the boldness and her ‘attack’ on the piece of clay.  I knew it came from a place of knowledge of how the clay would react and the freedom to Read More …

About the exhibition Before photography, portrait paintings were created with the goal, of reflecting to the viewer, a true picture of the what we, collectively, agree that we “see”. Today artists have the freedom to paint portraits from their own unique perspective. They are no longer bound by others perceptions. The artist is free to use unconventional colors to express emotion or distort features to help guide the viewers mind to travel past what they think they should see. The observer is led into an alternate reality that invites them to experience what more is actually present. The following collection Read More …

Last week news spread through the New York art community that Thomas Nozkowski had died after a long fight with pancreatic cancer. Nozkowski was known for his colorful abstractions, often made on small canvas boards. His intimate, anti-heroic approach influenced a generation of abstract artists (myself included) and readers will recall that his work was often featured on Two Coats of Paint. Roberta Smith contributed a thoughtful obituary at the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt… Read it here.

Some snapshots of NIAD artist Marlon Mullen at the VIP opening reception for the Whitney Biennial 2019, of which his work is a part. Enjoy.

About the exhibition “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.” -Georgia O’ Keefe C O L O R. To name a few – hansa yellow, ultramarine blue, cadmium red medium, magenta, cobalt turqouise, permanent green. Imagining these pops of color in paint, wool, glazes or fabrics can trigger a creative buzz that needs to be instantly and compulsively explored. Scribbles, drips, dots, stitches, lines and layers create a language to express a collective rhythm in color, process and play. Color Compulsion brings together work that blurs what we know with Read More …

“So when I first opened up downtown in SF, most of the artists from the area that I knew already had galleries. I initially showed lots of NY, LA, and European artists like John Currin, Zoe Leonard, Raymond Pettibon, Karen Kilimnik, Andrea Zittel, Catherine Opie, Erwin Wurm, Christian Marclay, Christopher Wool, Jack Pierson, Sue Williams, Rirkrit Tiravanija, on and on. Not many painters actually. I liked a more ephemeral-type work, usually somewhat humorous… Read the rest.

About the exhibition At dawn, wings flashing crimson then black. Toucan the skybearer carries the half-moon to the heavens in his ivory bill.  —Jan Conn, from “To Be Sung to Villa-Lobos’ ’The Amazon Forest’,” Jaguar Rain The most wonderful mystery of life may well be the means by which it created so much diversity from so little physical matter. The biosphere, all organisms combined, makes up only about one part in ten billion of the earth’s mass….Yet life has divided into millions of species, the fundamental units, each playing a unique role in relation to the whole.  —Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life Following a recent Read More …