Author Archives: CUE

CUE Art Foundation
February 2 – March 9, 2013

by Emily Means

Leonard Contino. MOON YEAR MAJIC, 1972 – Acrylic on canvas, 30″ x 30″.

Leonard Contino’s first solo show opened at the CUE Art Foundation on West 25^th Street in early February. As I walked through the gallery alone a week or so after the opening, it brought to mind Gaston Bachelard’s questions of poetic imagery, particularly the seemingly intangible notion of reverberation: “The duality of subject and object is iridescent, shimmering, unceasingly active in its inversions.” Unlike the complex armature, the symbols in this exhibition construct and deconstruct though the symbols themselves remain basic -  triangles, lines, biomorphic shapes. The twisting, morphing of lines into shapes that hold and carve space, mark Contino’s movement among these symbols. As one navigates his work, the symbols change. Some fade away, some are removed altogether, lines become triangles and triangles become ovals become circles become line again. The tension in this movement billows and decays throughout; what is the container and what is the contained? Contino’s dynamic pictorial plane opens as an oeuvre that echoes our historical understanding of geometric abstraction, but maintains its immediacy in the present, in its self-contained world, a world that resists audience. This work is not made for us. Continue reading →

An opening night feature of the exhibition Gutai Spirit Forever
Part 1: Works from 1964 to 1976: February 7th – March 16th, 2013 
Part 2: Works from 1977 to 2013: March 21st – April 20th, 2013

by Taney Roniger

It is a blustery New York evening, typical for the city in early February, and a crowd has gathered inside Chelsea’s Galerie Richard to attend the opening of Gutai artist Takesada Matsutani’s first U.S. retrospective. The exhibition, which will be installed in two phases under the single title Gutai Spirit Forever, is timed to run concurrently with the artist’s inclusion in Gutai: Splendid Playground at the Guggenheim Museum, a confluence that further attests to the claim the show’s title advances. In New York this spring, the Gutai spirit is very much alive. It is especially so this evening, as the artist is scheduled to give a live performance to usher in the series of events. Continue reading →