Mar 29, 2013

Amy Sillman


at Campoli Presti


A Shape that Stands Up and Listens #18, 2012 
Voyeurism is based on curiosity and a feeling of belonging. Those two are the basic instincts that a human being has to survive. People have been looking for new sources of food and shelter as long as they exist. Men herd all the time for better security. When you are peeping onto someone, you are succumbing to you curiosity. And when you see something that you should not, you feel belong to a group that knows the secret.

Voyeurism  . exhibitionists.voyeur

Mar 28, 2013

Weekend Edition 40


Berthe Morisot

The Beach at Petit Dalles (aka On the Beach), 1873


The fuss of regular life is boring you. Those people on the foreground are too occupied with the details of everyday life. The sails call for freedom, adventure. The ships are promising a journey to far away exotic countries that you only have read about. The sea scares you with its might and absolute loneliness.

Adolfo Estrada

at Dan Galeria

Pintura 0394, 2003

Your life if a chain of different events. Some of them are good(colored figures), some of them are bad (the black figures). The bad events are here so you can distinguish between the bad and the good. When you know the bad, you can really appreciate the good. That's why the good things are bigger and more memorable.

Mar 27, 2013

Alain Séchas

at Galerie Chantal Crousel

Pastels 8, 2012
You have two forces pulling you in different directions : Logic (black lines) and Feelings(red lines). If you go by the Logic only, your life would be deserted and sterile (the right parts of the painting). If you succumb to your feelings, you would get overwhelmed by them. And eventually you would be drawn in chaos(the left parts of the painting). But if you keep to the middle (the center parts of the painting), avoiding extremities, your life will flourish. Balance is everything.

Mar 26, 2013

Steven Bindernagel

at CRG Gallery


Untitled, 2011
This is a look into a big company. From the outside it could look as a big solid skyscraper from glass and steel. But these are the dirty insides that every company has. Everyone is building his own project. Everyone is trying to get as high as possible. It does not matter by what means. You can use your neighbor's plumbing or just build on top of the his room. If it is good to you, you can cooperate with others, and then abandon them in the middle to move to a better place. Welcome to the corporate jungle.

Mar 25, 2013

Juan Uslé

at Cheim & Read


SIN DESENLACE, 2007
The routine (the white lines that go from left to right) changes you. You can't feel it, because it does very very slow. As time goes by (the grey vertical lines) you are changing. The routine gets in the way. It annoyingly disturbs the the main picture. You think : "This is just a day job, but I am actually an artist". But you are wrong. You are only part-time artist. Only if you can use this to your advantage(the blue background triangular figure in the lower middle), you can get you break-through (the white figure in the center). Otherwise the conveyor of life will be moving without you notice ( the grey horizontal ribbons in the upper part).

Mar 24, 2013

Weekend Edition 39

Auguste Herbin



Composition, 1940


The person is constantly under the influence of different forces. He wants something new, but he is afraid of new things. He sails out full of hopes. Then he turns back to his circle, because it is scary to be out there alone. He is in a contradiction. He zigzags from one course to another. He is full of power and energy. But never ending changing of direction and types of actions take him nowhere.

Eventually the power dies out, the individual becomes static (small orange circle with yellow border in the upper left center).

Mar 22, 2013

Bill Jensen

at Cheim & Read

WITH COLOR XXVIII, 2009
Woman (The big dark figure in the center). She could be secretively dark. Outside there is a bright sunny day, when everything seems simple, fun and easy to understand. She is full of unknown wisdom. The mystery pulls you in. You want to dive into the deepest darkest corner. You are marching willingly into a web of lust, forbidden pleasures and unending secrecy.

Mar 21, 2013

Jean Xceron

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Composition #220, 1934-45

The society(the blue cloud in the upper part) generates ideas(small rectangles on the right part of the blue cloud). Some ideas start growing and create movements (long rectangles). The movements are trying to put rails and move the society - to change it (set of grey lines, black lines). Some individuals are at the head of the charge(the black and blue circles on the orange rectangle), some of them are sacrificed - ran over (the black bordered circles under the black rails). Some are on the sideways, just watching how the world is changing before their eyes(the pink circle on the brown background).

Mar 20, 2013

Weekend Edition 38

William Baziotes



The Room, 1945


The room has not only the items that are physically there, but the things that were there and events that happened ( the red lines). That's what makes a house home.

Tony Smith

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Untitled, 1934
A morning after a party. It's a beautiful sunny day(the blue figure at the top middle), but you don't feel well. The illness is called hangover. You don't remember much of the party, it is in the thick fog(the white background). On your bed(the white background figure in the center) a naked girl(the brown figure in the center) is lying that you can swear you never saw before. On the table (the dark brown figures on the sides) there are bottles, leftovers, broken glass. Everything is splitting into pieces, sharp parts, with many sharp corners and edges. And they all are spinning around you. Even the table is cracked in two and has multiple corners, though yesterday it was one big solid circle.

Mar 19, 2013

Esphyr Slobodkina

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Sails, 1955
The left part(two rectangles) is how you imagine an adventure. The wind practically is tearing off the sails. You are full of hope, energy and speed. The shining polished ship is clipping the distance with astonishing velocity. The right part(the 3 small rectangles) is how it happens in real life. You are advancing in small, well calculated steps. You are working very hard to do a routine work over and over again. Only when you overcome all of those and all of pains then you get to the summit. But it is not an adventure, it is a victory over yourself. This is summit of your spirit.

Mar 18, 2013

Judith Rothschild

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Interior View, 1945
First you had a vision how to setup your room. You thought out the design. But with time the stuff started to pile up. You add a thing here, a framed picture there. As a time goes, you create a sentimental bond with your things. Then, one day you realize that the stuff bosses you around and demands more and more clutter. You can't resist, though it is more and more difficult to live like that.

Mar 15, 2013

Carl Holty

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Untitled, 1943
Self-made man (or woman). He builds himself out of emptiness(the lower part) by hope and faith in himself (blue figures). His main tools are hard work (dark grey figures) and persistence( light grey figures). The glue is purposefulness (black lines). He is selfish (red figures), and sometimes greedy (orange figures). He is open to new things. The whole structure is fluid as a banner in the wind.

Mar 14, 2013

Burgoyne Diller


at Valerie Carberry Gallery



Untitled (Second Theme), 1955
The window lets you to look outside, and it lets outside to see you. When it is dark outside and bright inside, the window can be used as a mirror to see your own reflection (yellow lines). The problem is that the image that outside world sees is so different (white lines) from your reflection.

John Ferren


at Valerie Carberry Gallery



Composition, 1936
Without the bad, there would be no good. Some people, when bad things happen to them, break and lose miserably(the figure in the lower left corner).When the bad strikes (the black line on the upper left side of the figure), they break - everything goes down. They try to change the situation by doing the same thing(the upper right side of the figure with blue ribbons to the sides). More of the same leads to another crises and demise. But some people use the bad situation to reinvent themselves(the big figure in the upper right corner).   The unfortunate situation makes them focus on the most important stuff(the upper part of the figure). They learn from the their mistakes(the lower right part and the lower middle of the figure). The focus and the learning lead to drastically new situation( the white ribbon and the blue bulb).

Mar 12, 2013

José de Rivera

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Untitled (Black and Red Lines on Gray), 1981

Do not act on impulse. The feelings can suggest a shortest route to take(red lines). But it could be a disaster. Think logically before you move (black lines). Logic together with feelings build a much stronger and balanced structure. Certainly feelings can take you places, but you would not have a bigger number of exists and detours as when you use your logic.

Mar 11, 2013

Judith Belzer

at Valerie Carberry Gallery


Order of Things #5, 2010
Everything is changing. Family events, people and historical moments are flowing around us like a stream getting around a stone. All things are moving, but the stone is constant, resisting any change, any move. But the stone is changing. It just has a different time table. If you want to the stone changing, use the stone's time scale.

Mar 10, 2013

Weekend Edition 37



Henri Matissei


Woman with a hat, 1905 


The woman has the iron grip on her life. She is smart, but she has a calculative, cold mind. She is lonely. This was not always a case. She had full of events life. She was daffy. She was sensual, full of desire. But then a sad thing happened. It could be a love affair with a bad end. She ended up with a broken heart, alone, free of illusions, cynical.

Mar 8, 2013

Amy Sillman

at Campoli Presti


A Shape that Stands Up and Listens #2, 2012 


Fear. You jump from every slight shadow ( a grey background figure in the middle). The fear makes you imagine things much more powerful and a lot frightful than they really are (a black silhouette at the right part of the painting). The fear shackles you (the grey figure from lower left corner to right middle). The fear leads you to a wrong direction, thus making the most damage to you.

Mar 7, 2013

Barbara Kasten

at Bortolami Gallery


Construct LB-5, 1982
Curiosity drives you. Just as a butterfly flies to a light (a construct in the lower left corner), you are moved toward a black hole of Unknown (upper right corner). Your wings are desire(red) and mystery(black). After getting some height(accumulating some knowledge) and crossing some lines (red line from the center to upper middle), you understand the more you know the less the subject is clear. The desire to explore the unknown really opens up the wings(the red figure in the right part of the painting).

Mar 6, 2013

Peter Halley

at Mary Boone Gallery


Panic Room, 2002

Fear, panic. chaos.
The panic room is the safest place in a house(the red rectangle with white bars in the center). But there is the panic at its highest. The room is built on fear and with fear(the yellow rectangle around the red one). The fear is fed by a bunch of external sources ( yellow lines coming into the yellow rectangle). You can't escape the fear, it is inside you. The panic room is not a safe place, it is a trap.

Mar 5, 2013

Thomas Scheibitz

at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Schlact, 2003

This man is very social. He is funny. He is the center of any party. He stands out in the flock of people. He converses, jokes and very likable. But he is an actor. Inside he is very lonely, empty and sad man. The external joyfulness is the symptom of the ongoing internal battle to conquer the desert in the soul.

Mar 4, 2013

André Butzer

at Galerie Guido W. Baudach


Ohne Titel, 2011

The person(the big brown stain in the center) is constantly changing. It was occupying the whole canvass before. Now, because of the changes in the surrounding environment it receded to the current position. We can see forces, events and circumstances that influence the person (the painting elements around the brown figure).  Main principles are being developed (blue, yellow, red loops on the brown spot). They create a moral skeleton of the person.

Mar 1, 2013

Weekend Edition 36


Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, 1905
A woman! She is so desirable. She is in the center. But she is surrounded by so many rules, precepts (the short plants). The blue flowers are the romance and courtship. This leads us to the ripe and juicy exotic fruit : Desire! It is weakly disguised in the upper branches of the trees that are deeply rooted. When you got up there and tasted the fruit, you want more of the exotic, sweet and forbidden fruit!

Iva Gueorguieva

at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe


Contamination Check,  2011
Memories : blues, red pain, scars, black despair. Some parts are not connected, because the connecting parts are forgotten. Memory catches the significant events, so the past seems packed. The future is calm, melancholy and static.