Vittorio Colaizzi and Douglas Witmer at The Painting Center

Douglas Witmer, at The Painting Center.

Vittorio Colaizzi and Douglas Witmer at The Painting Center. Douglas has a solo show in the project room, Vic spoke on Robert Ryman in the main space. I don't think that they had ever met before... but Vic wrote a review of Douglas' show in Richmond a few years ago.


Susan English, Nomi Lubin, Vittorio Colaizzi. Vic's show of paintings at Stump Town Gallery has just closed.


Vic speaking on Ryman. All of my lecture pictures have that painting going through his head, sorry!


Douglas Witmer. It was cool to be at this reception with Doug because we are both included in a show that was opening in LA that same night.

Doug stayed with me when he came to RVA for his 2006 show... we saw Jered Sprecher's show at ADA.


Matthew Fisher.


Carrie Patterson painting.... Carrie is included in the group show in the main exhibition space... Vittorio wrote an essay for the catalogue.


Carrie Patterson talking to Russell Roberts. Douglas' friend Lowell is in the background.


laughing.

Skadden, Arp, Mcfadden, Ayers, Slipek & Kalm

Hey, I got a thumbs-up from starmaker SIMON WATSON... now my career is ready to GO. I will never have to promote myself, after this, again. Simon is giving the thumbs-up to one of my paintings in the Building Picturing show, at The Painting Center.

Okay. I am lying. That is not Simon Watson. That is Ed Slipek. I have never met this Simon Watson person....

James Kalm WENT! Look at his video! Unfortunately, he came and left before I had arrived, so I didn't get to say thanks. James Kalm says on that video that I am one of his first subscribers, but that is wrong. I'm not one of the first, I was the FIRST.

SHOCKER - Building Picturing, the show I'm in (!), is an Art Info pick for Best of New York Summer Shows??? WOW... that is weird! Thanks, Robert Ayers, of Art Info!

Building Picturing

I'm in a show called Building Picturing, opening at The Painting Center this week, curated by Vittorio Colaizzi. The show opens June 19, with an opening reception Thursday June 21, 6-8pm.

There are sixteen artists in the show, each represented by two pieces. Here's a list of the included artists (more links later, if I find them) -

Donald Beal, Martin Bromirski, Pamela S. Cardwell, Hannah Cornish, Michael Davidson, Vaughn Whitney Garland, Lenore Golub, Anne Gray, Julie Karabenick, Russell L. Roberts, Yolanda Sanchez, Jeffrey Stark, Elizabeth Ternhune, Timothy M. Trelease, David Webb, Susan Zurbrigg.

About the show -

“Building Picturing” features the work of sixteen painters whose approaches range from geometric abstraction to keen observation, from lyrical inventions with mark and color to restrained distillations of the landscape. These diverse painters are linked by their emphasis on the painting as a made thing, the result of an encounter with both tactile and formal constituents; paint and canvas, as well as color, shape, and placement. Neither hermetic nor naïve, these artists do not ignore the last few decades’ challenges to painting’s languages and ideologies in order to practice a nostalgic revivalism. They are fully aware that their images speak within a broader field that includes “high art,” news media, and cartoons, but they do not accept equalization as a premise, nor do they approach painting as a collage of readymade styles. Instead, they invest their very craft with meaning. Never simplistically painting “about painting,” they use the terms endemic to their practice to achieve the human qualities of curiosity, experiment, desire, and commitment.

Vittorio Colaizzi is the Richmond painter who wrote the intense Assault on Taste review of my Markel Building show... prepare for some more assault.

I am (almost certainly) going to come down to NYC for that opening, and to see some other shows. The only show I know about that I really want to see is Sarah Peters, and Lauren Luloff if I get to Brooklyn. What else should I see? Please advise.

RELATED: there IS another review of that Markel show still to come out... it's coming. HANG TIGHT!