indian space painters Wheeler Busa Daum Barrell
Howard daum (1918-1988) Red, White, Black, 1 9 6 0 oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
indian space painters Wheeler Busa Daum Barrell
February 8 - march 8, 2013 monday - saturday 10:00am - 5:30pm
Reception: Saturday, February 8, 3:00 - 5:00
daVid FindLaY Jr GaLLerY E s t a B l i s h E D 1870 724 Fifth avenue, New York, NY 212-486-7660 www.davidfindlayjr.com
(cover image)Peter Busa (1914-1985) Mythic Dancers, 1 9 4 7 oil on canvas, 31 x 36 inches
“Wheeler, Barrell, Busa, Barrer and Daum are painting a new magic out of old star-driven symbols rooted in an understanding of American Indian Art,” wrote Kenneth Beaudoin when he first exhibited the Indian Space Group in the exhibition 8 and a Totem Pole at the spring of 1946 at Gallery Neuff . This loose confederation of artists, which also included, among others, Will Barnet and Gertrude Barrer, tapped a broad range of modernist and Native American traditions. Their goal was to go beyond Cubism in an effort to explore the underlying perceptions of reality as it applies to all cultures throughout times. Inspired by the luminous ideographs of Native American and preColumbian art and their use of flat all-positive space, the Indian Space artists expanded their own perception to express multiple dimensions of reality in their work. The Indian Space artists often rendered the world as if seen through the consciousness of a shaman. The group frequently worked in a spirit of play, incorporating visual puns, multiple meanings and a free-associating use of line and thought. Wheeler, describing his work, talked about “water turning into air, a smile into an umbrella, anger into heat into light, a nose into a fish.” Just as Native American culture emphasized the essential unity of all things, seen and unseen, the Indian Space artists wanted their art, in Wheeler’s words, to “build a reality in harmony with external fact and internal desire… weaving painting and life into a close knit fabric that has no beginning or end. Barbara Hollister Independent Curator
(back cover image) S t e v e W h e e l e R ( 1 9 1 2 - 1 9 9 2 ) Untitled (head), 1 9 4 2 Watercolor and ink on paper, 13 x 11 inches
RobeRt baRRell (1912-1995) Untitled II , 1 9 4 3 tempera on paper, 13 3/4 x 11 inches
daVid FindLaY Jr GaLLerY E s t a B l i s h E D 1870 724 Fifth avenue, New York, NY, 212-486-7660 www.davidfindlayjr.com