The Fabric of Gods and Goddesses at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris

The Fabric of Gods and Goddesses
Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France
23 May - 22 July, 2022

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:
This exhibition brings together compositions from the eighties in which the human figure appears as a decorative motif. This exhibition demonstrates the artist's powerful syncretism to a singular oeuvre which acknowledged its overtly decorative function. When minimalism and conceptual art dominated the American art scene, Robert Kushner took a completely different direction: he chose to situate himself in a daring interval, mixing fine arts and decorative arts, which were then considered a minor art form. This return to motif and ornamentation allowed him to raise questions about the very concept of beauty in contemporary art, at a time when the United States bathed in a puritanical atmosphere where making beautiful things was suspect.

Using a vivid color palette, the artist nourished his works with a blend of Eastern and Western cultures, combined with transdisciplinary artistic practices - let us recall that Robert Kushner's beginnings were marked by performance and theater costume design. These different facets allowed him to compose work rich in hybridities, resolutely contemporary: with its sophisticated aesthetics and the philosophical messages it conveys, his work resonates in the present world.

photography © Aurélin Mole for Galerie Obadia

Robert Kushner, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, 9/4 - 10/23, 2021

« Jardin Sauvage »
Robert Kushner

Galerie Obadia
Cloître Saint-Merri
Paris 4ème
-
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: I ❤ Matisse | A Conversation with Jenelle Porter

Please enjoy this Zoom conversation with Jenelle Porter recorder on May 13, 2021.
Robert Kushner: I ❤ Matisse runs through June 19, 2021
at DC Moore Gallery.

Robert Kushner, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, FIAC Paris

Robert Kushner, Seven Seraphim, 2020, Oil, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas 182,9 x 182,9 cm (72 x 72 in.)

I am very pleased to be joining these artists and the Galerie Nathalie Obadia in the online viewing rooms at the FIAC this year!

MARTIN BARRÉ
VALÉRIE BELIN
CAROLE BENZAKEN
ROSSON CROW
FABRICE HYBER
ROBERT KUSHNER
BENOÎT MAIRE
LAURE PROUVOST
FIONA RAE
BRENNA YOUNGBLOOD

Download the preview here.
Access the Online Viewing Room here.

VIP PREVIEW: MARCH 2 & 3 | PUBLIC DAYS: MARCH 4 - 7, 2021

"August," 2020

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.

Robert Kushner at Yoshiaki Inoue Gallery

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.

With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985

Robert Kushner, “Fairies,” 1980, acrylic on cotton (Chris Kendall)

THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES
ON VIEW: OCTOBER 27, 2019 - MAY 11, 2020

With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 is the first full-scale scholarly survey of this groundbreaking American art movement, encompassing works in painting, sculpture, collage, ceramics, installation art, and performance documentation. Covering the years 1972 to 1985 and featuring approximately fifty artists from across the United States, the exhibition examines the Pattern and Decoration movement’s defiant embrace of forms traditionally coded as feminine, domestic, ornamental, or craft-based and thought to be categorically inferior to fine art. Pattern and Decoration artists gleaned motifs, color schemes, and materials from the decorative arts, freely appropriating floral, arabesque, and patchwork patterns and arranging them in intricate, almost dizzying, and sometimes purposefully gaudy designs. Their work across mediums pointedly evokes a pluralistic array of sources from Islamic architectural ornamentation to American quilts, wallpaper, Persian carpets, and domestic embroidery.

Pattern and Decoration artists practiced a postmodernist art of appropriation borne of love for its sources rather than the cynical detachment that became de rigueur in the international art world of the 1980s. This exhibition traces the movement’s broad reach in postwar American art by including artists widely regarded as comprising the core of the movement, such as Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, Kim MacConnel, and Miriam Schapiro; artists whose contributions to Pattern and Decoration have been underrecognized, such as Merion Estes, Dee Shapiro, Kendall Shaw, and Takako Yamaguchi; as well as artists who are not normally considered in the context of Pattern and Decoration, such as Emma Amos, Billy Al Bengston, Al Loving, and Betty Woodman. Though little studied today, the Pattern and Decoration movement was institutionally recognized, critically received, and commercially successful from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The overwhelming preponderance of craft-based practices and unabashedly decorative sensibilities in art of the present-day point to an influential P&D legacy that is ripe for consideration.

With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 is organized by Anna Katz, Curator, with Rebecca Lowery, Assistant Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

To learn more about this exhibition, please click here.

Read the Reviews:

“More is more. Why the ‘Pattern and Decoration’ show at MOCA is pure pleasure”, Christopher Knight, LA Times, November 4, 2019

Pattern and Decoration: Ornament as Promise

Now on view in Vienna: Pattern and Decoration: Ornament as Promise

Saturday, February 23, 2019 to Sunday, September 08, 2019

‘Pattern and Decoration: Ornament as Promise’ at Mumok, Vienna.
Pictured from left to right: Karola Kraus, Manuela Ammer, Curator, Ned Smyth, Robert Kushner, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Zakanitch
Image credit: Niko Havranek

Robert Kushner, Pink Leaves, 1979

Ornament as Promise was the premise of the Pattern and Decoration movement in the United States (1975–1985). In this exhibition, mumok, vienna presents the rich collection of works from this movement of Peter and Irene Ludwig, in the largest presentation of Pattern and Decoration in German-speaking Europe since the 1980s.
With oriental-style mosaics, monumental textile collages, paintings, installations, and performances, in the 1970s committed feminist artists like Miriam Schapiro, Joyce Kozloff, Valerie Jaudon, and Robert Kushner aimed to bring color, formal diversity, and emotion back into art. Decoration played a key role, with its connotations of the techniques of artisanship.

Various ornamental traditions, from the Islamic world to North American Indians to Art Deco, were incorporated in their works, opening up a view beyond geographical and historical boundaries. A proximity to folk art was sought as a deliberate counter to the “purism” of the art of the 1960s.

With works by Brad Davis, Frank Faulkner, Tina Girouard, Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Kim MacConnel, Miriam Schapiro, Kendall Shaw, Ned Smyth, Robert Zakanitch, and Joe Zucker

Curated by Manuela Ammer

To order a copy of the catalogue, visit here. 

For more background, please consider reading: “Funky, Funny and Fussy: Reassessing the Pattern and Decoration Movement” by Jonathan Griffin

The project was initiated by the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen and realized in cooperation with the mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. Following the venues in Aachen and Vienna, the exhibition will be on view at the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest.

Some photos from the artists’ talk on February 23rd, 2019. Images: Niko Havranek