John Mendelsohn

John Mendelsohn has shown his paintings in solo and two-person exhibitions at Artists Space, New York; 57W57 Arts, New York; Kook Projects, NY; Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn; Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art, New York; Michael Walls Gallery, New York; Hal Bromm Gallery, New York; Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark; University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, and Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. Group exhibitions include the Venice Biennale, Nordiska Kompanient, Stockholm, Sweden; MoMA P.S.1, New York; 490 Atlantic, Brooklyn; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Hallwalls, Buffalo; and Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, MA.

He has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Tree of Life Foundation. His exhibitions have been reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, The Huffington Post, The New Criterion, Arts Magazine, Artnet, and dArt International Magazine. He has written on contemporary Art for many publications. He received a BA from Columbia University in 1971, an MFA from Rutgers University in 1974, and participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He is an Adjunct Professor at Fairfield University in the Studio Art Program.

The exhibition, John Mendelsohn: Dark Color Wheel Paintings, focuses on a series created in 2022. The paintings’ undertow of feeling arises from their array of gradated discs, distinctive color palette, and sense of shifting light. In these works, we have the uncanny sense that we have entered an imaginal space that is both abstract and yet somehow tangible.

 

A poetic motive for the paintings was the phrase “a song of flowering and fading”, conjured up by the paintings’ radiating forms, that suggested to the artist a way to consider the splendor and shadow pervading everything.

 

The paintings, acrylic on canvas, 40x27 inches, follow the artist’s Color Wheel series that were exhibited at the David Richard Gallery in 2021. Like the earlier series, they have discs with rays of color projecting from their centers. The form suggests a color wheel, a device that shows color relationships. Here, the colors do not follow the spectrum but rather reveal myriad, surprising color progressions.

 

A palette of colors recurs and subtly changes through the twelve Dark Color Wheel paintings. Lower saturation hues resonate in a minor key, playing off against exuberant, purer hues. Sequences of primary colors contrast with bruised purple, olive green, slate blue, and Sulphur yellow, that in turn devolve into tinted grays and blacks. Color in these paintings is by turn lyrical, astringent, and ultimately mysterious.

 

A sense of variable light that seems both to emanate and reflect from the discs, exists in concert with the unexpected color relations. The light varies from a soft atmospheric haze, to a glowing beacon, to a cold blaze of white. The persistence of light against encroaching darkness constitutes one of the central motifs in these works. It helps to evoke these paintings’ mood: an unstable mixture of melancholy and brightness – a sense of inevitable waning consorting with beauty that is a fugitive, saving grace.

The discs and rays suggest many associations beyond color wheels: flower forms, the movement of time, the wheel of life, the piercing appearance of the miraculous in the everyday.

 

In a video interview with David Eichholtz in January 2021, Mendelsohn mentioned three things touching on the impetus for the Color Wheel paintings: “The first was a dream I has as a child, a wonderful dream, in which I entered a golden chamber with turning golden wheels, like a clockwork’s interior. Second, there was a visit to the hospital to visit a friend who was at the end of his life. He said to us that he saw spinning discs, but that only he could see them, not us. Third, while conducting an art workshop at a senior center, I was teaching a participant how to paint flowers with dark centers.”

 

On John Mendelsohn’s paintings

He has been working on cycles of paintings since the 1970’s, creating what he has termed “an architecture of images” – individual paintings becoming a collective presence and transform a space.

 

In this exhibition, the Dark Color Wheel paintings create a conversation between contrasting chromatic experiences and modes of feeling. Although each work is distinctive, they have in common a set of forms, a palette, and a sense of continual change. Together the paintings amplify each other, creating an expanded context for seeing.

Over the past four decades, Mendelsohn’s work has explored shifting visual movements and optical excitations. A sense of instability in the paintings comes in many visual forms – radiance, turbulence, moiré patterns, waves, and phantom forms – activated by the manipulation of paint and other mediums by combing, wiping away, marbleizing, dispersion, and other techniques.

 

The paintings have drawn on a variety of models, including minimalist music, the fluid dynamics of water, and textiles such as ikat. Color has been a central element, whose relationships create unexpected harmonics and overtones.
 

Exhibitions of John Mendelsohn’s work

Solo exhibitions include David Richard Gallery, New York; Artists Space, New York; Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn; Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn; 57W57ARTS, New York; Kook Projects, New York; Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art, New York; Michael Walls Gallery, New York; Hal Bromm Gallery, New York; Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark; Fairfield University; University of Rhode Island; and Milliken University.

Group exhibitions include the Venice Biennale; Nordiska Kompanient, Stockholm, Sweden; P.S.1 The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, New York; Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery, New York; Studio Artego, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Hallwalls, Buffalo; Brown University; and Wellesley College Museum.

Mendelsohn’s exhibitions have been reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, The New Criterion, The Huffington Post, Arts Magazine, Artnet, and d’Art International Magazine. He received a BA from Columbia University, an MFA from Rutgers University, and participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Tree of Life Foundation, and the Café Royale Cultural Foundation. He has written about contemporary art for many publications.

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
 

2022     Dark Color Wheel Paintings, David Richard Gallery, New York

             Small Color Wheel Paintings and Studies, David Richard Gallery, New York

2021     Color Wheel + Tenebrae Paintings, David Richard Gallery, New York

2019     Six Movements, Scholes Street Studio, Brooklyn, NY

2017     Dream Garden, 57W57 Arts, New York, NY 10013

2015     The Passing Paintings, Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery; Six Movements, The Quick
            Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT

2014     Drawing, Studies, and Works on Paper, Kook Projects, New York

             21 Paintings, 5 Bryant Park, New York, curated by Ombretta Agrò Andruff

2013     Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, New Paintings, John Mendelsohn + Dana Gordon

2012     Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark, NJ

            Riverfront, Cambridge, MA

2009     Root [Brooklyn], Brooklyn, NY

2004     Perkinson Gallery, Milliken University, Decatur, IL

2003     Cheryl Pelavin Fine Arts, New York

1997     Penny Liebman Contemporary Art, New York

1994     Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT

1994     Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York

1988     Michael Walls Gallery, New York

1983     Concord Gallery, New York

1982     Hal Bromm Gallery, New York

1977    Artists Space, New York

1977    University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022     The Persistence of Hope, Studio Artego, New York

            Passion and Ego: John Mendelsohn, Gahae Park, Robert Morgan, Studio Artego, New York

2018     Turbulence, Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery, New York, NY

2017     The Winter Show, 490 Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

             Vibrant, Bergen Community College, Paramus, NJ

2016     Heliotrope flat file, ODETTA, Brooklyn, NY

2015     The Art of Invisibility: Religion and the Secular in Contemporary Art, Brown University

            Abundance, Donghwa Odé Gallery, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

2014     Artists in the Library, Mulberry St. Library, New York

Time Frames Marking Time, Westbeth Gallery, New York

Three Artists, Hallway Arts, New York

2013     There's Nothing Like Painting, 490 Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Victor Kord

2012     The Language of Form and Color, 750 Seventh Avenue, New York, curated by Ombretta Agrò Andruff

Cutting Edge, curated by Stefan Eins. Fashion Moda, Peekskill, NY

The Brucecennial 2012, New York

2011     CREON Gallery @ KI, New York

2010     Nature Calls, Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, NJ

             The Brucecennial 20I0, New York

2009     Forever Summer, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Platform Space

2008     Boson Exotics, Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark, NJ

2007     Arch Space, New York

2005     Spring Formal, OH+T Gallery, Boston

2003     Drawing Conclusions II, NY Arts Gallery, New York

1999     Harum Scarum, MCC Gallery, Marymount Manhattan College, New York

1997     The Whole World in One Small Painting, Trans Hudson Gallery, New York

1996      Separate Tables, Helen Harwood Gallery, New York

1993      Nine Artists from 14 Harrison St., curated by Edward Albee, Alphirst Gallery, New York

1992     The 1.5 Show, organized by Muranushi and Lederman, New York

1991     Take Five, Stephanie Theodore Gallery, New York

1990     Somewhere, curated by Robert Mahoney, Lintas Worldwide, New York

1989     Interiors, curated by Robert Mahoney, Bard College, Rhinecliff, NY

1988     Sequential and Diaristic Drawings, Michael Walls Gallery, NewYork

1987      Black and White, General Electric Gallery, Fairfield, CT, organized by the Art Advisory Service,

 Museum of Modern Art, NY

 Landscapes: Real and Imagined, The Squibb Gallery, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

1986     1976-1986, Ten Years of Collecting Contemporary American Art: Selections from the Edward R.

Downe, Jr. Collection, Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, MA

1985      Past and Future Perfect, Hallwalls, Buffalo

Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis

1984     Venice Biennale, Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained: American Visions of the New Decade,

U.S. Pavilion, organized by The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

1982     Compassionate Images, curated by Paul Krainak, Herron School of Art, Indianapolis

A Selection from the Hospital Drawings, P.S. 1, Queens, NY

Art and Anomie, Josef Gallery, New York

1981      U.S. Art Now, Nordiska Kompanient, Stockholm, Sweden

The Edge of Night, Yves Arman Gallery, New York

1979      Imitation of Life, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT

1977      Artists Space, New York

1975      Michael Walls Gallery, New York

1972      Whitney Museum Art Resources Center, New York

1971      Independent Study Program Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albee, Edward, “Nine Artists, 14 Harrison St.” (catalogue), Alphirst Gallery, New York, 1993

Boros, Phyllis A. S., Connecticut Post, Dec. 16, 2014, http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Color-sense-of-movement-mark-Mendelsohn-s-5961239.php

Docimo, Michelina, "Rise of the Riverkeeper, A Calling: The Work of John Mendelsohn", d’Art

International Magazine, Fall 2010, and http://miehelinadoeimo.eomlmyartobiography/2010/09/01 Dunne, Susan, John Mendelsohn: The Passing Paintings, Hartford Courant, Jan. 8, 2015,

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums-galleries/hc-fairfield-university-john-mendelsohn-0108-20150108-story.html

Ellison,Lori, "John Mendelsohn: Shimmer and Blur”, Cabinet of Cabarets     http://cabinetofcabarets.blogspot.com/2010/05/johnmendelsohn.html

Gardner, James, "Fad Men: The Whitney Biennial Strikes Back", The Weekly Standard, May 7, 2012

Hedberg, Lars Peder, U.S. Art Now, (catalogue), Stockholm, 1981
Kerlidou, Gwenael, “Earthly Delights in a Post-Apocalyptic World”, dArt Magazine, fall 2017/Winter 2018,
http://v1.dartmagazine.com/images/2017.11/d35_mendelsohn_GK_l-r.pdf

Johnson, Ken, "John Mendelsohn at Michael Walls", Art in America, Jan. 1989
…………, New York Times, September 19, 2003
Klein, Ellen Lee, "Sequential and Diarist Drawings”, Arts Magazine, May, 1988
Krainak, Paul, Compassionate Images (catalogue), Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1982 Lombardi, D. Dominck, "New Paintings at Sideshow Gallery", The Huffington Post, April 18, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/d-dominick-lombardi/new-paintings-at-sideshow_b_3095651.html
…………., An Interview with John Mendelsohn, CultureCatch, HHt//culturecathcg.com/artjohn-mendelsohn-interview
Lauterborn, Mike, Fairfield Patch, Nov. 11, 2014, http://patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/opening-reception-john-mendelsohn-passing-paintings-0
……………, Fairfield HamletHub, www.facebook.com/FairfieldHamletHub
Mahoney, Robert, "The Alice Paintings", Arts Magazine, Sept. 1988
Pinero, James, "Gallery Chronicle", The New Criterion, May, 2013,     http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Gallery-chronicals-7642
Raynor, Vivian, "'Real and Imagined Landscapes at the Squibb Gallery", New York Times, New Jersey    Edition, July 19,1987
Robinson, Walter, Artnet Magazine (artnet.com), October, 1998
Stroh, Suzanne, High Impact and The Downe Collection, 1976-1986, Ten Years of Collecting    Contemporary Art (catalogue) Wellsley College Museum, Wellesley, MA, 1986
Tucker, Marcia, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained: American Visions of The New Decade (catalogue),   New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1984
Zimmer, William, "Artists Space", Soho Weekly News, Oct. 19, 1977 …………"At Rutgers, Newark, An Exhibition of Unusual Self Portraits", New York Times, New Jersey Edition, July 19,1987

 

AWARDS

2014 Tree of Life Artist’s Grant

1987 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

 

EDUCATION

Rutgers University, MFA, 1974

Columbia University, BA, 1971
Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, 1971

 

TEACHING
Present-1994    Adjunct Professor, Studio Art Program Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT
                          Courses in Painting, Drawing, Foundation, Color Workshop, Text and Image,

                        Experiments in Drawing

                        Designed curriculum for studio art courses

Present-2013    Roosevelt Island Senior Center, New York
1998                  Artist-Instructor, Vermont College, MFA Program, Montpelier, VT
1995-1993         Instructor, New York Art Program, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
1993                 Visiting Artist Residency, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
1977                 Visiting Artist, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
1974                 Teaching Assistant, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
 

 

SELECTED WRITING
Deborah Remington: A Life in Drawing, essay, Deborah Remington Trust for the Visual Arts, 2016
The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images, major contributor, Taschen, 2010
artcritical, 2015   Simon Hantaï    exhibition review
            www.artcritical.com/2015/12/08/john-mendelsohn-on-simon-hantai
                               Deborah Remington   exhibition review
www.artcritical.com/2015/08/24/john-mendelsohn-on-deborah-remington
                               Diphthong   exhibition review
www.artcritical.com/2015/10/05/john-mendelsohn-on-diphthong
dArt International Magazine, 2012   Lori Ellison   exhibition review     www.dartmagazine.com/images/2013.01/d30_ellison.pdf
The Jewish Quarterly Review, London, 2010   Man Ray Retrospective   article
Sculpture Magazine, 2010   Robert Melee   article
               www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag10/nov_10/mel/mel.shtml
Galeria Piccolo, Livorno, 2006   Clover Vail exhibition catalogue    essay
artnet, 1996   Yayoi Kusama   exhibition review       www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/reviews/mendelsohn/mendelsohn7-9-96.asp
Jene Highstein   exhibition review
www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/mendelsohn/mendelsohn7-30-96.asp
The Jewish Week, 1995   R.B. Kitaj retrospective   article
Cover Magazine, 1998   George Segal retrospective    interview and article
                             1987   Charles Seliger    interview and article