paintings
Galerie Obadia
Cloître Saint-Merri
Paris 4ème
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Vernissage / Opening:
Saturday, September 4
The show runs through October 23, 2021
Pictured: Anemone Bouquet (2019), Oil, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 183 x 183 cm.
Robert Kushner, August, 2020, 72 x 72 inches, oil, acrylic on canvas
Since the beginning of quarantine waaay back in March, I have worked hard in the studio as my mental and spiritual salvation. At first the paintings were a continuation of their pre covid predecessors, Then a large bouquet of flowers intervened. Subsequently the works bounced back and forth between compositions of one or two huge isolated flowers and a complex, diverse cluster, a community of varied flowers. it has been a fascinating pendulum. This most recent painting, August, is in some ways a summation of summer itself, distilling the ideas of the various bouquet paintings into this one canvas. Sunflower, cosmos, zinnias, odd wild things whose names I don’t really know. It has finally occurred to me that my community of friends which has been relegated to isolation, has reformed itself in these bouquets. These are my friends, not literally represented, but in communion, brushing shoulders, celebrating their upward ascent and the abundance of summer.
Please stop in to Yoshiaki Inoue Gallery in Osaka, Japan to see ‘Robert Kushner - New Paintings’ on view now through December 25th.
For more information, please click here.
OCTOBER 10 - November 9, 2019
Opening Reception with the artist: Thursday, October 10th, 6 - 8pm
DC MOORE GALLERY
535 West 22nd Street, NY, NY 10011
Hydrangeas (Diptych), 2019, oil, acrylic, and gold leaf on canvas, 72 x 144 inches
Robert Kushner’s ongoing fascination with decorative and modernist traditions, the use of fabric as a form of cultural expression, and the interfacing of ‘high’ and ‘low’ traditions is evident in this sumptuous exhibition of new paintings. Robert Kushner: By My Window October 10th – November 9th finds the artist in a complicated dialogue with the traditions of pure painting as well as a conversation with the artisans who created traditional textiles. This body of work also references his own early fabric installations and performance work from the 70s and early 80s. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition, with an interview by Manuela Ammer - curator mumok, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftlung Ludwig Wien — with Robert Kushner.
The Queen in her Boudoir, 2019, oil, acrylic, and gold leaf on canvas, 72 x 72 inches
At this moment in time, the issues brought up by the 1970’s Pattern and Decoration Movement, of which Kushner was a principal proponent, are newly relevant and essential. Global awareness, feminist inquiry, and traditions of the decorative have led to a re-examination of the ideals and concepts of the original P & D artists.
Kushner’s work will be featured in the upcoming Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 art fair along with those of artists Valerie Jaudon and Joyce Kozloff in a themed presentation Intrepid Guile: Pattern and Decoration Continuum. This presentation examines these artists’ early expressions and the ways they each have decided to integrate pattern and decorative content into their ongoing work.
Most recently, Kushner’s work has been included in several national and international museum exhibitions focusing on the Pattern and Decoration movement: Pattern and Decoration: Ornament as Promise at Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany, and Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung, Vienna, Austria; Pattern, Crime & Decoration at MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland, and Le Consortium, Dijon France; Les Chemins du Sud (The South Ways) at Musée Regional d’Art Contemporain, Serignan, France; Less is a Bore: Maximalist Art and Design at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; and With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.
Anemone Bouquet, 2019, oil, acrylic, and gold leaf on canvas, 72 x 72 inches
The artist states about his primary subject, "Flowers are always monumental, never trivial. They always bear witness to memories--flowers in our past, flowers casually encountered, sources of beauty, of nostalgia. Whether these recent compositions are anchored by the elaborate repeating patterns and textures of Indian textiles, or relate to floating fields of transparent colors, the flowers assert their importance and dictate the compositions. I want these paintings to be unapologetically decorative, celebrating a mixture of expansiveness, openness, and complexity. Color, line, drawing are the major elements in my painterly repertoire. My new works in this exhibition demonstrate a sense of grandeur, simplicity of composition and exploration of unexpected color harmonies.”
Robert Kushner’s works are included in many prominent public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Tate Gallery, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; The Con-temporary Museum, Honolulu, HI; Denver Art Museum, CO; Galleria Degli Uffizi, Florence; J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, CA; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA.
TRACERY AND PLANE: PAINTINGS BY ROBERT KUSHNER
SARAH MOODY GALLERY OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
February 8 – March 23, 2018
Gallery talk: Wednesday, February 7, 6 p.m., in the gallery
Reception: Thursday, February 8, 5-7 p.m., in the gallery
Robert Kushner, “White Lotus Shaft of Light III,” 2008, oil, acrylic, gold and silver leaf on canvas, 55 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York.
PRESS RELEASE
The 2018 Farley Moody Galbraith Endowed Exhibition features the work of internationally recognized artist Robert Kushner. Kushner will give a gallery talk about his work on Wednesday, February 7 at 6 pm in the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, 103 Garland Hall on UA campus. A reception will be held Thursday, February 8, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gallery.
Kushner (b. 1949) is an American painter known as a founder of the Pattern and Decoration art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Kushner’s work combines organic representational elements with abstracted geometric forms in a way that is both decorative and modernist. Since the 1980s, he has used a full spectrum of color with gold, silver and patinated copper leaf to render the flowers and leaves, which have become his signature motif. “I never get tired of pursuing new ideas in the realm of ornamentation. Decoration, an abjectly pejorative dismissal for many, is a very big, somewhat defiant declaration for me,” he says. Kushner draws from multiple influences, including Islamic and European textiles, Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Ito Jakuchu, Qi Baishi and Wu Changshuo.
His work has been included in the Whitney Biennial and Venice Biennale and is in prominent public collections including Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Art; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Tate Gallery, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House; Denver Art Museum; Uffizi Gallery; J. Paul Getty Trust; Ludwig Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Philadelphia Museum of Art. Public commissions include sites in New York City, Tokyo, California and Washington, DC, as well as an 80-foot marble mosaic in the new Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Installation Views
ROBERT KUSHNER INSTALLATION
Lobby Gallery
375 Hudson, NYC 10014
(between Houston and King Streets)
Gallery Hours: Monday − Friday, 8 am − 6 pm
Opening Reception: Tuesday, November 28, 5-7pm
ON VIEW THROUGH APRIL 2018:
ROBERT KUSHNER, MIDNIGHT IN THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY CACTUS GARDEN, 2014. OIL, ACRYLIC, AND GOLD LEAF ON CANVAS, 108 X 132 INCHES.
ROBERT KUSHNER, MALINALCO, 2014. OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS, 90 X 120 INCHES.
ROBERT KUSHNER, SPRING SCATTER SUMMATION (TWO HALVES), 2005. OIL, ACRYLIC, GOLD LEAF AND GLITTER ON CANVAS, OVERALL DIMENSIONS 7 X 46 FEET.