David Richard Gallery | News

March 7, 2022
Press Release - A Precedes B Works by Four Artists
News

A Precedes B
Four Artists and Four Strategies


Max Estenger
George Hofmann
Lorenza Panero
Mike Zahn


March 9 - April 1, 2022

Artist Reception: Saturday, March 12 from 2:00 to 6:00 PM

UPTOWN LOCATION
211 East 121 ST | New York, NY 10035 | P: 212-882-1705
Ground Floor


David Richard Gallery, LLC
211 East 121 ST | New York, NY 10035
P: (212) 882-1705
www.davidrichardgallery.com


The question posed by four artists of diverse backgrounds, ages and approaches to their art making practices is: how can painting remain viable in the current digital age where artists and viewers are inundated with reproduced digital images of every type and kind of art. The four artists whose artworks are included in the exhibition, A Precedes B, are: Max Estenger, George Hofmann, Lorenza Panero and Mike Zahn. This presentation includes new and recent artworks by each artist, all rooted in painting and offering an alternative to digital culture. The artist’s diverse aesthetics and methods of production present a path that recognizes the artist’s hand and beauty manifest in paintings and the experience of viewing. Relative to the exhibition title, a befitting subtitle could also be: Painting and Beauty Precedes Digital Technology.

About the Artists:

Max Estenger’s approach to painting reveals and exposes every aspect of his artworks, including the construction and stretcher bars from the front of the painting as well as the hard-edge geometric shapes and pristine surfaces. There is no illusion or obfuscation, instead he reveres his materials and approach, thus celebrating the literalness and transparency.

George Hofmann’s artworks are painterly, celebrating both gesture and mark making. Rooted in color and feeling, Hofmann’s paintings are about experiences, conveying memories, sensations, moods and perceptions.

The artworks of Lorenza Panero are rooted in color and derived from painting. Her primary medium is light using luminography, a non-photographic process that produces unique color images—essentially a monotype using light instead of a press.

The new paintings by Mike Zahn are reductive and purely geometric yet, realist in that they depict an industrial shipping and receiving department with brown boxes on steel shelving surrounded by institutional walls painted light green. The paintings are full of subtle detail with areas of relief in the grounds while reading as flat with a Pop sensibility. The conceptual underpinning is that the images, while hand-made, are riffing off a purely digital, internet-based industry that has become familiar to one and all during the pandemic. Sort of an ironic twist given the basis for the presentation.

About David Richard Gallery:

Since its inception in 2010, David Richard Gallery has produced museum quality exhibitions that feature Post War abstraction in the US. The presentations have addressed specific decades and geographies as well as certain movements and tendencies. While the gallery has long been recognized as an important proponent of post-1960s abstraction—including both the influential pioneers as well as a younger generation of practitioners in this field—in keeping with this spirit of nurture and development the gallery also presents established artists who embrace more gestural and representational approaches to the making of art as well as young emerging artists.

In 2015 David Richard Gallery launched DR Art Projects to provide a platform for artists of all stripes—international, national, local, emerging and established—to present special solo projects or to participate in unique collaborations or thematic exhibitions. The goal is to offer a fresh look at contemporary art practice from a broad spectrum of artists and presentations. The Gallery opened its current location in New York in 2017.

All Artwork
Copyright © Max Estenger, George Hofmann, Lorenza Panero and Mike Zahn, Courtesy David Richard Gallery.

All Photos: Yao Zu Lu

Download:   Press Release - A Precedes B Works by Four Artists

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January 17, 2017
Globalocation: Celebrating 20 Years of Artnauts
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah, 01/17/2017

The University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library will host the art exhibition Globalocation: Celebrating 20 Years of Artnauts, Jan. 20-March 3.

Artnauts, an art collective formed 20 years ago by George Rivera, professor of art and art history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, consists of 300 global artists who serve as goodwill ambassadors, acknowledging and supporting victims of oppression worldwide. Their creativity has generated over 230 exhibitions across five continents. Five faculty members from the U’s Department of Art and Art History are members of the collective, Sandy Brunvand, Beth Krensky, V. Kim Martinez, Brian Snapp and Xi Zhang.

Globalocation derives from “Globalocational Art” — a concept used by the Artnauts to refer to their exhibitions in international venues. It is the mission of the Artnauts to take art to places of contention, and this anniversary exhibition is a sample of places where they have been and themes they have addressed.

“The Artnauts could not exist without the commitment of the artists in the collective to a common vision of the transformative power of art,” said Rivera. “The Artnauts make their contribution with art that hopefully generates a dialogue with an international community on subjects that are sometimes difficult to raise.”

Krensky, associate department chair of the Art and Art History Department, had the opportunity to travel with Rivera in Chile as part of an Artnauts project, working with mothers who were searching for their children who had mysteriously disappeared during a time of political unrest.

“When I travelled to Chile in 1998, George and I spent an afternoon with the Mothers of the Disappeared, and the meeting changed my life,” said Krensky. “It was from that moment on that I placed a picture of them on my desk to look at every day. I was so moved by what they each had lost — a son, a brother, a father — and yet what remained for them was a deep, deep well of love. They were fierce warriors and stood up to the government to demand the whereabouts and information of the people who had disappeared, but they lived within profound love.”

The 20th anniversary exhibition at the Marriott Library is a retrospective of the traveling works the Artnauts have toured around the globe. The exhibition will be located on level three of the library. The opening reception is open to the public and will be held on Friday, Jan 20, 4-6 p.m. Rivera will speak at 4 p.m.

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