JOAN SNYDER
Work on Paper: 1970s and Recent
November 11 through December 23, 2004
A conversation with the artist, Saturday, November 20 at 11:00 am.
The gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Joan Snyder’s drawings from the early 1970s and recent work on paper from 1999 to present. The show will consist of 45 works and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with text by Jenni Sorkin.
Stylistically Snyder’s drawings from the 1970s are an exploration of mark making and gesture. Often done on lined paper, Snyder loosened the constraints of the grid with her own boisterous succession of primary color slashes, saturated orbs, and heavy scribbles. In this work she moved away from the austere vocabulary of minimalism and began to establish the style of her later work and its often political content.
The recent work explores the narrative potential of abstraction. Incorporating text is an integral part of Snyder’s practice. Sometimes the writing is used as notation, but most often it is a source that the abstract imagery references (sometimes the text itself becomes abstracted). The writing provides entrance into the work, giving clues about the thoughts and ideas present in the artist’s world. Text like, “Omphalos – a round swelling of the earth”, “Missing the Ocean” and “To Iraq” are deployed as itinerant scrawl crisscrossing the abstract terrain and playing in the interstice of abstract aesthetics and real world issues.
Jenni Sorkin says in her essay: “Snyder communicates through an economy of shapes and colors, building upon a landscape of text to create loosely connected works that bristle with intensity. Snyder’s works on paper explore the intimacy of expression, its rhythmic sequences, and its topologies.”
This exhibition is presented concurrently with an exhibition of Snyder’s recent paintings at Betty Cuningham Gallery. In the fall 2005 the Jewish Museum in New York will present a retrospective exhibition of Snyder’s work accompanied by a monograph with texts by Jenni Sorkin and Hayden Herrera.
This show may be previewed at www.alexandregallery.com.
William King “Early Ceramics” and Tom Uttech “Photographs from the 1970s” both remain on view through November 6th.
For further information contact Ellen Robinson at 212.755.2828 or [email protected]
