Installation View, Larry Zox: Gemini, Berry Campbell, New York, 2024.

Harmon Siegel for Artforum
March 2024

Why do some “Gemini” paintings succeed where others fail? As I study a given example from Larry Zox’s 1967–69 series of concave polygons, I feel that I know when one is working, but not necessarily why. It would satisfy no one to shrug, “I just like it,” or to cite some personal preference for a particular color combination. To apply standards enumerated in advance or derived from encounters with other artists’ work would also be misguided. Perhaps I should simply refrain from any qualitative judgments, disavow my initial instincts and restrict myself to neutral description. Yet their seriality invites––even demands––assessment, for it follows such tightly defined parameters that each canvas is directly comparable to the others. We are then left with the question: What criteria do the paintings themselves pose to help us evaluate them on their own terms?

Zox (1937–2006) named his series for its principal figure: his riff on the astrological sign. The eponymous shape is eight-sided and hard-edged, as though someone had pinched each side of a Bicycle playing card to form an obtuse angle. One so-called gemini molds four triangles in its negative space. Each composition thus comprises five figures with which the artist can try unique color combinations. As a whole, the series assays this configuration’s pictorial properties, testing its possibilities. In some of the earlier works on display, horizontal stripes cut across the central shape, while later ones distilled the artist’s project into a finite number of core variables.

The figure can be more or less symmetrical along one or both axes. Very slight unevenness among the four angles has an outsize effect on overall balance. Zox also played with contour, whether and how much to outline the edges. A slight white border amplifies figure/ground ambiguity between the gemini and the oblique triangles to each of its four sides. A thicker band does the opposite, thrusting the design off the surface, especially when bisected by a thin stroke of vibrant color. The acute angles that form the gemini’s points are usually congruent with the corners of the canvas, enhancing its graphicness. But when they seem to slip out of bounds or stop short of the edge, the whole surface becomes painterly. To that end, the artist varied his application, either embracing a housepainter’s uniformity or disavowing it via subtle gradations of opacity. 

More dramatic effects come with color, number, and size. Zox claimed that he chose his hues randomly. Whether or not that is true, the juxtapositions usually feel well-calibrated to the gestalt. They can play a compensatory role, offsetting imbalances in geometric structure or perceived weight, as in Palanpup [sic], 1967, in which mauve and terra-cotta triangles seem to stop the airy, robin’s-egg Gemini from floating away. Or they can exaggerate the gestalt, as in one of the untitled works from 1969, where dusky surroundings intensify the void-like darkness of the center form. That year, Zox also experimented with repetition, placing double and triple Geminis laterally on horizontal canvases. Where their corners meet, the facing triangles form a diamond, amplifying figure/ground oscillation to the point of optical illusion. When the central motifs are all the same tone, the frame feels arbitrary, as though the pattern could continue ad infinitum. When the motifs are differently colored, the work enforces internal unity, dynamized by ineluctable imbalances.

While scale is relatively constant, the dimensions of Zox’s paintings can range from fifteen by fifteen inches to more than seven by seven feet. The difference prompts wildly disparate forms of bodily engagement. When more uneven design combines with points in the corners, the largest works evoke biomorphic forms. The points become tacks pinning the gemini in place, its span recalling the slaughtered oxen of Rembrandt or Chaim Soutine. 

So why do some geminis work better than others? Because each is an experiment. As Zox modulated the series’ constitutive variables, he produced a series of singular results. Counterintuitively, the invariant parameters yielded unusual risk, for the success of each work teetered on the slightest adjustment to each element. The paintings thus gestated in a medium of uncertainty, resolved only when the last mark was made.

Now at New York’s Galleries, ‘Everything in the World’ and More

By Mario Naves
Friday, March 22, 2024

“Janice Biala: Paintings, 1946-1986,” an exhibition curated by Jason Andrew at Berry Campbell Gallery, fills out a byway of American modernism with expansive and, at moments, head-snapping aplomb. Biala (1903-2000) was the sister of an undersung New York School painter, Jack Tworkov, the inamorata of the novelist Ford Madox Ford, and the student of Edwin Dickinson, a painter of uncanny power and ghostly portent. This is the fullest accounting of Biala’s work mounted at New York City.

As an overview, the Berry Campbell show is bumpy in momentum — there’s a lot of ground covered here — but, then again, the momentum never flags. A significant chunk of the gallery is dedicated to canvases painted after an extended stay at Paris. “I’d have no use for Paradise,” Biala wrote to her brother, “if it wasn’t like France.” She hung with the in-crowd while living at the City of Light, and their influence was decisive, particularly that of Matisse. 

Among the most striking pictures are a suite of interiors painted during the early 1970s, each of which imbues a strain of intimisme with a brash and distinctly American sense of scale. “Pompeii Interior” (1972) offers a gutsy juxtaposition of finely tuned details and brusque swaths of color, while “Homage to Goya” (circa 1975) is a tour-de-force of oblique patterning and the color black employed with rare acuity. “Paintings, 1946-86” is peppered with such moments, and if those don’t qualify it as a must-see, then I don’t know what does.

Janice Biala, The Studio (1946). © Estate of Janice Biala / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

by Artnet Gallery Network
March 21, 2024

Moving seemingly intuitively between abstraction and representation, the synthesis of elements from both the School of Paris and New York Abstract Expressionism is unmistakable. The exhibition of her work at Berry Campbell, which includes paintings dated from across a 40-year period, lets viewers visually accompany Biala through the trajectory of her artistic experiments and evolution. In early works like The Studio (1946), perspectival space is distorted but still very much discernable, offering a charming view into a green studio room. In works such as Red Interior with Child (1956) from a decade later, the depiction of space is largely relegated to the title of the painting, and the composition is overrun with swaths of vibrant pigment, with only the suggestion of a child on the right edge of the canvas. Her investigations into abstraction also didn’t stop with paint, as Casoar (The Cassowary) (1957) shows, made from collage comprised of torn paper with oil on canvas. The show is a testament to Biala being poised for not only reappraisal within the context of the art historical canon, but her singular contribution to the narrative and development of 20th-century Modernism.

Artists often work in close contact with one another as a way to encourage their artistic and creative innovations, forming clubs, schools, and colonies that have produced some of our most groundbreaking art. All of the couples presented in this exhibition were brought together by art, and chose to join their domestic and family life with their creative output and profession. Examining the influences within these partnerships, differing arrangements can be seen, from deliberately collaborative to unexpectedly subconscious. Mary Nimmo and Thomas Moran together established East Hampton as a burgeoning artist colony with the creation of their home, The Studio, in 1884. He taught her to etch, and she conquered the medium to become internationally recognized. Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock retreated to their remote Springs studio in 1945 where gestural painting was pushed to its limits, and where Krasner decided that Pollock’s genius was the one to promote and support, even after his death. Judith and Gerson Leiber, over the course of a remarkable 70 year marriage, guided one another to success on the national stage in both the fashion and art worlds, poetically passing away just hours apart on the same day in 2018. These historic couples established Long Island as a place that nurtures artistic partnerships, and contemporary pairs continue this tradition, including Bastienne Schmidt and Philippe Cheng, Lautaro Cuttica and Isadora Capraro, and Jeremy Dennis and Brianna L. Hernández. This exhibition features over 50 artworks comparing and contrasting the work produced by 14 artist couples of Long Island, from the Morans in the 1880s through contemporary couples working today.

PARRISH ART MUSEUM
March 8, 2024
6 pm

As the Parrish celebrates International Women’s Day, join us for a conversation with artists Renate Aller, April Gornik, and Susan Vecsey, each on view in Beyond the Horizon: Interpretations of the Landscape from Women in the Permanent Collection, moderated by Assistant Curator Brianna L. Hernández. The exhibition includes mural-sized representational oil paintings, expressionistic watercolors and pastel drawings, and intimate mixed-media abstractions, from the unique visual language of women artists from the Parrish’s permanent collection. In a conversation centered around the exhibition, visual styles experiences of the landscape, the program celebrates and recognizes the accomplishments of women artists within the Parrish collection and across the East End.

REGISTER HERE

$10 Members | $20 Adults | $18 Seniors | $15 Member’s Guest | Free for Students & Children

Reinvented Tradition
Glenn Gissler Design

A vibrant canvas by the late American abstract impressionist painter John Opper takes pride of place in the apartment’s gracious living room. Two deep-seated sofas are upholstered in lush blue velvet, with a pair of club chairs covered in a Zak & Fox textile and two Regency-style benches covered in paprika-hued velvet. The curtains were tailored from a Cowtan & Tout floral fabric.

LISTEN HERE: https://cerebralwomen.com/2024/03/06/episode-191-a-conversation-with-christine-berry/

Ep.191 | Christine Berry earned her Bachelors of Art in Art History from Baylor University and her Masters in Art History and Museum Studies from the University of North Texas. She began her career at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and continued on to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Twenty years ago, she shifted from the non-profit sector to the commercial art world.

In 2013, Christine Berry and Martha Campbell founded Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea. The gallery has a fine-tuned program representing artists from Postwar American art, who have been overlooked due to age, race, gender, or geography. This unique perspective has been increasingly recognized by curators, collectors, and the press.

Over the last ten years, Berry Campbell has doubled its roster, staff, and footprint. In 2022, the gallery moved from its original venue to its current 9,000 square foot gallery space at 524 West 26th Street. The gallery represents 34 artists and estates including Lynne Drexler, Perle Fine, Bernice Bing, Frederick Brown, Lilian Thomas Burwell, Nanette Carter, Beverly McIver, and Frank Wimberley.

Janice Biala (1903-2000) La Seine: Paris la Nuit, 1954, Oil on canvas, 18 x 36 3/8 in (48.3 x 92.4 cm) Collection of the Estate of Janice Biala, New York

AMERICANS IN PARIS:
Artist Working in Postwar France, 1946-1962

March 2-July 20, 2024

The Grey Art Gallery

New York University
100 Washington Square East
NYC

Following World War II, hundreds of artists from the United States flocked to the City of Light, which for centuries had been heralded as an artistic mecca and international cultural capital. Americans in Paris explores a vibrant community of expatriates who lived in France for a year or more during the period from 1946 to 1962. Many were ex-soldiers who took advantage of a newly enacted GI Bill, which covered tuition and living expenses; others, including women, financed their own sojourns.

Showcased here are some 130 paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, textiles, and works on paper by nearly 70 artists, providing a fresh perspective on a creative ferment too often overshadowed by the contemporaneous ascendency of the New York art scene. The show focuses on a diverse core of twenty-five artists—some who are established, even canonical, figures, and others who have yet to receive the recognition their work deserves. A complementary section dubbed the “Salon” combines works by French and foreign artists that the Americans would have seen in Parisian galleries or annual salons, alongside examples by compatriots who likewise spent at least a year residing in France during this time.

While the U.S. art scene was dominated by the rise of Abstract Expressionism, Americans working in Paris experimented with a range of formal strategies and various approaches to both abstraction and figuration. And, as the esteemed writer James Baldwin—a longtime French resident—saliently observed, living in Paris afforded expats the opportunity to question what it meant to be an American artist at midcentury. For some, Paris promised a society less constrained by racism and the exclusionary power structures of the New York art world.

American artists also encountered undercurrents of nationalistic tension, as French critics sought to maintain Paris’s artistic preeminence. By 1962, the year that concludes the exhibition, many felt that the once-inspiring atmosphere had diminished. That same year, Algeria achieved independence from France after many years of demonstrations and riots, and, ultimately, war. Many Americans opted to return to the U.S., which was experiencing a burgeoning civil rights movement, and in particular to New York, where there were more opportunities to exhibit, due in part to the rise of artist-run galleries. Others chose to remain abroad. Whether they returned or remained in Paris, the Americans’ encounters with French collections, artists, critics, and gallerists significantly impacted the development of postwar American art.