Robert Kushner in conversation with Aliza Edelman

Robert Kushner, White Gladiolus - Rainbow Sherbert, 2017.
Oil, acrylic, gold leaf, silk, embroidery, and sequins on canvas, 72 x 72 inches.

From Salome to Redouté
Robert Kushner in conversation with Aliza Edelman, Independent Curator and Critic  
Wednesday, May 16th at 6:30pm
DC Moore Gallery
 535 W 22nd Street,  New York, NY 10011 

Please RSVP to skhosla@dcmooregallery.com

Please join Robert Kushner and Aliza Edelman for a lively discussion about the history of ornamentation and decoration. By revisiting the position of “Pattern & Decoration” as both a condition of modernism and as a vital contemporary art practice, they will address the intersection of fashion, dance, and performance as developed in Kushner’s early pieces from the 1970s, and the radicality of his new artworks’ engagement with surface materiality and narratives of textiles and cloth.

Q&A and reception to follow the talk. 

Robert Kushner: Reverie: Duppata-topia on view at DC Moore Gallery through June 16

“Provoking Change,” UC San Diego, October 12 – December 7, 2017

Robert Kushner, Big Blue Chador. Performed Extensively in Persian Line and Persian Line: Part II in the 1970s.

PROVOKING CHANGE
A Visual Arts Alumni Exhibition – UC San Diego 
Curated by Tatiana Sizonenko, Ph.D., ‘13 

October 12 – December 7, 2017
Reception, October 12, Thursday, 5:30 – 8:00 PM

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Thursday, 11:00 am – 4:00 PM,
Open Fridays by Appointment
Closed: November 28 

From the Press Release : 

Exploring a segment of the unique early history of the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego, Provoking Change celebrates an extraordinary roster of artists who came to study in San Diego in the early 1970s through the 1990s. Diverse in their approaches, these artists shared a desire to foster change by challenging the narrowly defined avant-garde canon as manifested in the formalism of the 1960s.

Works on view in Provoking Change include painting, sculpture, photography, photomontage, film and video, and text-and-image installations. Standing at the forefront of the Pattern and Decoration Movement, the work of Kim MacConnel and Robert Kushner challenged the conventional idea of painting as a two-dimensional work on canvas. Executed as a kind of cloth hanging, both MacConnel’s Turkish Delight and Kushner’s Big Blue Chador [pictured above] question the long-standing pejorative dismissal of decoration. 

Participating Artists: David Avalos, Becky Cohen, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Brian Dick, Doris Bittar, Kip Fullbeck, Heidi Hardin, Robert Kushner, Fred Lonidier, Jean Lowe, Kim MacConnel, Susan Mogul, Allan Sekula, David Avalos/Louis Hock/Elizabeth Sisco (collective), David Avalos/Deborah Small (collective).

Read the full press release here.

Robert Kushner selected for “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1, 2015

Three works by Robert Kushner have been selected for “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1.
Robert Kushner’s Samba Class (1982)  featured in “Why ‘Greater New York Matters’ for the International Art World” by Ben Davis for Artnet News.

Robert Kushner, Torrid Dreams, 1984, acrylic, silk and cotton appliqué on cotton. Photo by Pablo Enriquez for MoMA PS1.

Robert Kushner, Composition in Green and Pink, 1982, mylar and dotted Swiss reverse appliqué on printed cotton. Photo by Pablo Enriquez for MoMA PS1.

Robert Kushner, Samba Class, 1982, acrylic on cotton with sequin and mylar reverse appliqué. Photo by Pablo Enriquez for MoMA PS1.

Robert Kushner’s “Happy Hour,” Holly Solomon’s Living Room, New York Magazine

Holly and Horace Solomon’s Living Room

Some time in the mid 1970s, Holly Solomon, always a defiant arbiter of good taste, decided that her golden yellow sofa needed recovering. Instead of pursuing her goal in a traditional way, she invited Kim MacConnel, whose work she had been collecting along with my own, to paint on it instead. Kim created a true work of art, a touchstone for his further explorations in furniture re-purposing.  To the left of the couch is a later MacConnel end-table-cum-lamp.  I decorated the blue silk throw pillow with acrylic pastry tube extrusion to try to match the exuberance of Kim’s couch. Some time later, Holly and Horace acquired my acrylic on cotton painting, Happy Hour (acrylic on cotton, 1980), and soon thereafter completely redecorated their living room. Happy Hour on the wall (replacing three Roy Lichtenstein Cathedral paintings), the couch and lamp/table in front, and a marvelous Ken Price ceramic  completed the ensemble. Voilà. Maximum impact for a New York drawing room.

Featured in New York Magazine‘s Spring Design 2015: “18 Architects and Interior Designers on Their Favorite Rooms of All Time,” April 20, 2015.