Gary Passanise: Painting by Bruno David Gallery

G A RY PA S SA N I S E PAINTING

bruno david gallery

GARY PASSANISE PAINTING

October 19 - November 24, 2012 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Gary Passanise Painting Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Yoko Kiyoi and Christy Kirk Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Gary Passanise Photographs by Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Gary Passanise. TX 4, 2012 Mixed media on linen 96 x 84 inches (243.8 x 213.4 cm) First Edition Copyright ÂŠ 2012 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

CONTENTS

Essay BY DR. JEFFREY HUGHES AFTERWORD BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

GARY PASSANISE: PAINTING BY JEFFREY HUGHES

In a seminal 1961 article in ArtNews, Robert Rosenblum associated first generation Abstract Expressionism with an experience he termed the “abstract sublime.” Rosenblum compared standing in front of a Rothko canvas to an emotional confrontation similar to the Burkeian sublime, the near religious state of awe felt when encountering the vastness of nature. Having completed Black square in 1915, Kazimir Malevich decried that “painting was done for long ago, and the artist himself is a prejudice of the past.” Aleksandr Rodchenko declared of his red monochrome in 1921 that he had accomplished the “last painting.” And yet, 40 years after Rodchenko’s pronouncement, Rosenblum realized that the unique result of a Still or a Rothko produced an atmospheric surface quality that suggested depth, space and elicited an emotive reaction that verged on the transcendent. Now a half-century after the abstract sublime, there remains the problem that Modernist terms like purity, formalism, and quality often get in the way of locating a practice that has one-hundred years of history within the sphere of meaningful/significant contemporary art. Is there a substantive place for abstract painting in a time of global political turmoil, instantaneous virtual communication via Facebook, Twitter and seemingly non-stop texting, and the hyper-mediation/mega-information of Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube, where, for example, Yves Klein Anthropométrie performances exist in simultaneity alongside Wade Guyton? It’s as though what’s left over from the last century is in some manner creeping into the cultural production of this one. What is the experience of re-seeing or seeing abstraction anew in the days of being connected via digital immediacy? Somewhat surprisingly, even with the incomprehensibly enormous amount of visual information constantly being uploaded, computer capabilities presently remain less sophisticated at analyzing visual material than textual data. Seemingly a facet of the present kunstwollen ‘will to form’ is necessarily manifest in developing fictive pictorial worlds, at some intermediary juncture between fortuitous narrative and immersive interiority, between the action of painting and the representation of information. Unlike numerous recent artists whose works question the essential characteristics of abstract painting, e.g. Jim Lambie, Julie Mehretu, R.H. Quaytman, etc; Gary Passanise’s works are unchallenged as painting process, gestural mark and color-fields that expose compositional structure. Passanise’s present exhibition is comprised of four moderately large-scale paintings that are informed by landscape and the Texas studio where they were painted, and also by a dialogue with painting that virtually illustrates the artist’s profound understanding of the history of Abstract Expressionist to post-formalist abstraction. Passanise’s luminous, veil-like paintings evince an internal light and structure, creating a surface space that converges numinous subtlety with sheer painterly control.

Although within Passanise’s works are multiple obvious reminders of the abstract tradition from which they are centered, with reminiscences of a Motherwell or Franz Kline gesture, as well as Rothko, perhaps Jules Olitski color-field and early Morris Louis staining. Equally, like Richard Serra’s drawings, Passanise’s paintings relate to an examination of process and materiality. However, I am actually more aware of Northern Sung ink monochrome painting, particularly works such as the famous Early Spring (dated 1072 CE) by the renown painter, theoretician Guo Xi (c 1020 – c 1090 CE). Guo Xi wrote about the notion of a floating perspective, which makes the viewer a participant in the work as her eyes are required to move around the surface and imaginatively fill in areas of the void, not that dissimilar from Wilhelm Worringer’s notion of empathy, read as an apologetic for experiencing early 20th-century abstraction. Additionally, the Sung painter’s brush and wash technique created an atmospheric perspective, with the gradations of black ink itself insinuating a variegated and subtle color range. All these innovations were an attempt to create a viewing experience that reflected the Tao, landscape painting as both philosophy and personal expression. Like Northern Sung painting, Passanise has used primarily black or white paint to suggest a vast possibility of colors, while maintaining the reality of an extremely limited, nearly monochromatic palette. Where actual colors are introduced as in Sea, Black (2012), they become tonally varied, and unexpected. Passanise’s canvases all contain a stitched seam that becomes an element of linearity and also of chance, an unanticipated surface effect that underscores depth and atmosphere within highly constructed compositions. I would assert that abstraction is not simply an evolving series of dichotomies, e.g. abstraction/representation, formalism/post-formalism, modernity/altermodernity, but rather follows a historical process of continuous reinvention and reification to address immediate contemporaneity. Gary Passanise’s recent paintings occur at a curious historic moment; while the vast avalanche of digitized images portends a banality of looking, his paintings require optical scrutiny. The viewer must slow down, observe nuance, and allow the intricate veils of paint to provide an experience that is both within and beyond the realm of visual perception.

- Jeffrey Hughes

Jeffrey Hughes is professor of art history and criticism at Webster University in St. Louis where he teaches courses on modern and contemporary art. His most recent research focuses on understanding the impulse for destruction in late twentieth-century art. He is also a curator and an art critic with articles and reviews appearing in Flash Art, Contemporary, Sculpture, Artpapers, Art on Paper.

AFTERWORD BY BRUNO L. DAVID 10

I am pleased to present Gary Passanise’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, Painting, on view from October 19 to November 24, 2012. In a career spanning over three decades, Gary Passanise has worked fluidly in a variety of media. In this new exhibition, we see a return to his roots in large-scale painting. Passanise engages a reduced palette and deceptively emotive compositional effects in his most recent body of work. The results reveal the confidence of an experienced hand and an always searching and advancing intellect. Although the work in his second solo exhibition is primarily two-dimensional, his ability to create space and movement reveals his experience with different surfaces and forms. In comparison to Passanise’s previous solo exhibition at the Bruno David Gallery in which he employed brighter colors and clearer shapes, he now explores the almost eerie luminosity of white surrounded by hazier space. Passanise creates the veillike effects found in many of his recent works in a number of ways, including soft gradients, gentle drips, and rough swipes with a paintbrush. The contrast of light and dark tones, in addition to purposefully executed blurring, creates a sense of secrecy within the paintings that piques the viewer’s curiosity. Passanise received his B.F.A. from Webster University Saint Louis, and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of numerous awards and endowments, including the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts (1994); the Pollack Krasner Foundation Award (1989) and the Ford Foundation Award (1981). His works are in the collections of the Stuttgart Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany; Central Academy of Art, Beijing, China; Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio; and Springfield Art Museum, Missouri. Passanise is currently Professor and Director of Painting at Webster University’s Leigh Gerdine College of Art. She lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Jeffrey Hughes for his thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Yoko Kiyoi, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Nicole Yen, Martin Lang, Rachael Schomburg, Christy Kirk, Sophie Lipman and Nicole Fry.

November 2012

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

TX 3, 2012 Mixed media 84 x 96 inches (213.4 x 243.8 cm)

TX 5, 2012 Mixed media 96 x 84 inches (243.8 x 213.4 cm)

TX 4, 2012 Mixed media 84 x 96 inches (213.4 x 243.8 cm)

20 22

TX 1, 2012 Mixed media 84 x 96 inches (213.4 x 243.8 cm)

21 23

Sea, Black, 2012 Mixed media 96 x 84 inches (243.8 x 213.4 cm)

GARY PASSANISE: Painting at Bruno David Gallery, 2012 (Installation View)

GARY PASSANISE Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.

EDUCATION 1981 1977

Southern Illinois University, M.F.A. Webster University, St. Louis, MO, B.F.A.

SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2012 2010 2009 2008 2007 2005 2004 2001 2000 1997

“Gary Passanise: Painting,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) “Survey Fifteen Years of Painting”, The Everbank Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Constructions,” Space B, New York, NY “Stacks,” Isolation Room, St. Louis, MO “The Sky Is No Longer the Limit,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Diary of Consequence,” Snowflake Citystock, St. Louis, MO “No-Structure,” Metropolitan Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Gary Passanise,” Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO “Gary Passanise: New Work,” William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis. MO “White Girl,” Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Project SeriesVideo, St. Louis, MO “PM Project,” The Phatory, New York, NY “New Paintings,” Stein Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Heartland,” Hendron Gallery, Lindenwood University, St. Louis, MO “New Paintings & Sculpture,” Mossa Center, St. Louis, MO “Millennium,” Thomas K Lang Gallery, Vienna, Austria

1996 1995 1994 1993 1991

“Wax Structures,” Stein Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Constructions,” LedisFlam Gallery, New York, NY “New Paintings & Prints,” CSK Gallery, Denver, CO “Resonant Light,” Laumeier International Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO “Gary Passanise: Recent Work,” LedisFlam Gallery, New York, NY “Conscience of the Rectangle,” Stein Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Gary Passanise,” LedisFlam Gallery, New York, NY “Gary Passanise: New Work,” Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Gary Passanise,” Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

“Blue – White – Red,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Contemplating Limits,” University of North Texas, TX “Paper,” Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO “Contemporary Artists Respond to Art History,” Edwardsville Art Center, IL “W.O.P. 1,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Legends of Warcraft”. Muli-media Video Installation, SOHA Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Current Paintings”, Invitational Group Exhibition, Edwardsville Art Center, Edwardsville, IL “Recession Rejuvenations,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Invitational Group Exhibit of Gallery Artist”, Thomas Masters, Chicago, IL “Invitational Group Exhibit,” Mad Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Fifteenth Anniversary Exhibition,” Thomas Masters Gallery, Chicago, IL “Alumni Invitational,” Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL “Works on Paper” William Shearburn Gallery, Santa Fe, NM “Sixteen on 21,” Metropolitan Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, MO “The Columbia Invitational,” Columbia Art League, Columbia, MO “East/West Painting Illinois/Missouri,” Edwardsville Center for the Arts, IL “St. Louis Painters,” Daum Museum, Sedalia, MO

2006 2005 2002 2001 2000 1998 1997 1996 1993 1992 1991

“Abstraction in the Heartland,” Daum Museum, Sedalia, MO “Elements of Scale,” Arts and Artists, Washington University, St. Louis, MO “Laumeier Acquisitions 1997-2000,” Laumeier International Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO “Grado Sequence,” Installation, Leather Trades Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Spring Exposition,” Joseph Silvestro Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (Catalogue) “Kursk,” Crowe T. Brooks Gallery, St. Louis, MO “The First Five Years,” Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis, MO “Inform V,” Lemp Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Group Exhibition,” MMC Gallery, Marymount College, New YorK, NY “City Series,” Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA “Light & Color,” Jeffrey Coploff Fine Art, New York, NY “Contemporary American Painters,” Central Academy of Art, Beijing, China “National Painting,” Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences, Evansville, IN “Material,” Deson Saunders Gallery, Chicago, IL “Group Exhibition,” Rosa Esman Gallery, New York, NY “Webster University Faculty”, Ballarat University, Victoria, Australia “Contemporary Sculptors”, Lindenwood University, St.Charles, MO “Emerging Artists”, Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY “New Work”, Robert Morrison Gallery, New York, NY “Group Invitational,” Rosa Esman Gallery, New York, NY

GRANTS & AWARDS National Endowment for the Arts, MAAA Pollack Krasner Foundation New York City Creative Artist Project, MAC Ford Foundation Award for Painting Sverdrup Travel Scholar

PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE Professor, Director of Painting, Leigh Gerdine College of Art, Webster University, St. Louis, MO Executive Director, The Santo Foundation

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Stuttgart Museum of Contemporary Art West Germany Central Academy of Art Beijing China Saint Louis Art Museum Laumeier International Sculpture Park Albright Knox Museum Buffalo New York Springfield Art Museum Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art Mitchell Museum Pulitzer Publishing Mercantile Trust Olney Central College Southern Illinois University Owensboro Museum of Fine Art National Gallery of Brooklyn Webster University St Louis & Vienna Austria Emerson Electric Price Waterhouse Paragon Southwestern Bell St. Louis Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital General Steel Historic Restoration

May Companies Anheuser Busch American Airlines AT&T A G Edwards Renaissance Grand Hotel Daum Museum, Sedalia, Mo. Peabody Energy First National Bank Columbia

ARTISTS Margaret Adams Dickson Beall Laura Beard Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen

William Griffin Joan Hall Ann Hamilton Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Sandra Marchewa

Robert Pettus Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff Daniel Raedeke Charles P. Reay Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet

Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman Damon Freed

Peter Marcus Genell Miller Patricia Olynyk

Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley

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