Response: New Works by Anne Labovitz Solo Exhibition Opens Saturday, October 24th On view October 24 through November 28, 2020
“Response investigates the intimacy of color and space. For me, color is a personal reflection, a language that crosses boundaries and can connect us. I believe color is a life force. These works are about hope for the future; for a connection between people as we struggle through current complexities. In March 2020 I had COVID-19 and was secluded in my bedroom. Immediately following, I felt the pressing need to create and respond. My response comes from my intense solitude. I was considering what was happening in the world and my role in it. Urgency can be seen in the fierceness of color and the feeling of my mark making. Each work I created was titled the day it was completed, marking my time alone. Concurrently I was working on a commission about travel, isolation, solitude, and longing. Some works have graffiti-like marks with words like Bon Voyage and Safe Travels. These concepts have become even more intense during the period of the pandemic.” – Anne Labovitz, 2020 Anne Labovitz (b. Duluth, Minnesota) lives and works in St. Paul, MN. Notable exhibitions include Tweed Museum, Duluth, MN; Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA; Crary Art Gallery, Warren, PA; University of Raparin, Rania, Iraqi Kurdistan; Växjö Kunsthall,Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk City Exhibition Hall, Petrozavodsk, Russia; Isumi City Hall, Isumi City, Japan; MSP Terminal 2, Minneapolis, MN; MSP Terminal 1, Minneapolis, MN; Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Canada; Burnet Gallery, Le Méridien Chambers in Minneapolis; Talgut die Schönen, in Kunste, Germany; Chapman Art Center at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, New York; to name a few. Labovitz’s artwork can be found in the following public collections Minnesota Museum of American Art, St Paul, MN; The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; Frederick R Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul MN; International Gallery of Portrait, in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Växjö Kommun, City of Vaxjo, Sweden; Isumi City Offices, Isumi City Japan; University of Raparin, Rania Iraqi Kurdistan; City of Petrozavodsk, Petrozavodsk, Russia; to name a few.
For inquiries: 952.473.8333 info@burnetart.com
Photo courtesy of David Sherman
One Hundred Flowers: Chromatics and Care in the work of Anne Labovitz Marian Lovett, Sligo, Ireland, October 2020 ‘Colour is Bliss’, Roland Barthes. I am at my desk at home, a quiet place in the remote North West of Ireland, the very edge of Europe. Through the lens of my computer I am viewing the art of Anne Labovitz. The images are sumptuous, glorious paintings in a range of sizes, defined by their intense palette. I glimpse the aqueous blues, shades of vermilion and cadmium orange. I peer into Anne’s studio, a world away in downtown Minneapolis, discovering an Aladdin’s cave of colour and gesture, considered and vital compositions. I am awed by the exuberance of energy. I feel the excitement building around this exhibition in the making, aware of the absolute necessity of its coming into ‘being’. Aptly named RESPONSE, the exhibition addresses a range of concerns that have defined our life and times in the last six months. While the work emerges from the tensions of these times and the artist’s need to make and have agency, it is also prefaced by a career steadfastly devoted to art making that is actively engaged while also contemplative and inward looking. Labovitz has achieved much recognition for her socially engaged practice and ambitious public projects. Her process is relational in the way it takes as its point of departure the rich seam of human relations and the relevance of social context. The expansiveness and reach of those projects is paralleled by her consistent, focused and robust studio practice, one that has steadily evolved from a wealth of training and experience, in addition to a myriad of global and local networks. It’s in the quietness of the studio that she finds the space to be centred, true to her creative impulse and how it manifests. We bridge the geographical distance by talking, intense free flowing conversations connect Dublin to California and Sligo to Minnesota. Technology permits us to transcend time-zones and oceans. The thread of our connection develops around an understanding of the need, now more than ever, for a culture of radical care, a conviction actively espoused in so much of Labovitz’s work to date, exemplified in such projects as the I Love You Institution and 122 Conversations and distilled now into this exhibition of paintings and drawings for Burnet Fine Art. From our conversations and in looking at the work, I sense the importance of the years she lived in Germany, and her artists’ residencies in Berlin. An interest in words and text deepened during that time, coming to the surface of the mid-size canvases. Here and there text and words emerge as notes spinning from the unconscious mind. Phrases such as ‘Safe Travel’ and ‘Bon Voyage’ whisper their warm intent, acquiring even more poignancy now. In the centre of the gallery the jewel-like intensity of a series of small paintings evokes the shimmer of Venetian glass. This series emanates from two permanent mosaic installation designs currently in production in Italy destined for Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Whether in mosaic or in paint, Labovitz is a gifted colourist with an intuition for the emotional register of a particular palette. For her, colour is a core value, its optimism felt as much as seen but shape and form, and how these are deployed in the non-objective picture plane, are also key components.
In 5.22.20.3, 2020, one of the largest pieces in the show, swathes of bright, affirmative colours, cerulean blue, cerise and daubs of citrus yellow, mingle, cohere and happily coexist. I am reminded of the spiritual values ascribed to colour by the early 20th century Swedish painter Hilma af Klint. The framed works on paper, which I think of as ‘colour field’ works, convey movement and vibrancy as marks are layered and meshed to create intricate layers of highly worked and coloured surface. The abstract expressionists, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner et al, might seem like a point of reference here but many of them were influenced by the early European modernists. Labovitz’s own referencing of her debt to the German expressionists, whom she deepened her appreciation for during her years in Europe, brings the wheel full circle. The art of Anne Labovitz is characterised by its versatility and innovation and underpinned by the artists resilience. Hope, kindness and gratitude have been invested in this work, as practice and as principles that will sustain all of us in these fractured times. To be in the gallery with Anne’s paintings is to feel their joy and the warmth of their embrace. I view the show from afar and already it is like walking through a field of poppies on a sunny day, wishing to ‘Touch a Hundred Flowers……’ while not picking one.* Marian Lovett, Sligo, Ireland, October 2020 Marian Lovett is an arts writer and curator based in Sligo, Ireland. She has also worked as a company director, editor, public art advisor and college lecturer. From 2016 to 2018 she was co-editor of CIRCA art magazine. Previously, Lovett led the Limerick City Gallery, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin and Artworking, Public Art Projects and Commissions Agency (Dublin). She lectured in art and design history at the Limerick School of Art and Design. Her numerous publications include writings in The Irish Times, The Examiner, The Sunday Times, Film Ireland, AN, and Circa Art Magazine. She has written/produced dozens of catalogues and publications and curated over 40 exhibitions, projects and events, working with visual artists, curators, sound artists, poets, musicians, architects, dancers, choreographers and filmmakers. Lovett's post graduate work at University College Dublin was in planning and strategizing for public art. Most recently, she completed a postgraduate programme in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Critical Thinking at Trinity College Dublin in 2020.
*From Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, Afternoon on a Hill, written in 1917
Anne Labovitz 5.22.20.1, 2020 acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 inches $6,000
Anne Labovitz 5.22.20.3, 2020 acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 inches $6,000
Anne Labovitz 9.16.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 inches $6,000
Anne Labovitz 9.14.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 48 x 48 inches SOLD
Anne Labovitz 5.19.20, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed SOLD
Anne Labovitz 5.25.20.1, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed $2,500
Anne Labovitz 9.2.20, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed SOLD
Anne Labovitz 10.11.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $3,200
Anne Labovitz 10.15.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $3,200
Anne Labovitz 10.13.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $3,200
Anne Labovitz 10.14.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $3,200
Anne Labovitz 8.12.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches $2,200
Anne Labovitz 10.6.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 18 x 18 inches SOLD
Anne Labovitz 6.6.20.6, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 9.12.20.2, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 6.6.20.2, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 10.19.20.3, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 9.12.20.1, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 6.6.20.3, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 10.15.20.2, 2019 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 10.16.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 6.6.20.4, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 10.15.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 6.6.20.5, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz 6.1.20.5, 2020 acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches $1,200
Anne Labovitz Three Moons, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 6.2.20.4, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 6.2.20.3, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches SOLD
Anne Labovitz 9.1.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches SOLD
Anne Labovitz 9.2.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 6.1.20.4, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 6.1.20.3, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 6.1.20, 2020 acrylic on canvas 10 x 10 inches $1,000
Anne Labovitz 5.26.20, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed $2,500
Anne Labovitz 6.3.20.1, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed $2,500
Anne Labovitz 6.3.20.2, 2020 acrylic on Rives BFK paper 34.75 x 49 inches framed SOLD