NEO OP Mark Dagley
NEO Op Mark Dagley March 1 - March 31, 2019
Essays by Stephen Maine and Dr. Jan Andres
Untitled, 2009-19, oil, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 52 x 68 x 1.25� 2
Mark Dagley: Algoriffing Painters are urged to pursue consistency, to accept that a signature style is expected and required. But as everyone knows, repetition is boring… A cerebral, mercurial artist, Mark Dagley works how he wants to work. He splits the difference between rigor and whim in an idiosyncratic and utterly winning way, turning his attention to various formal problems apparently unconcerned about a stylistic signature (or maybe it’s just that he has many). He approaches painting primarily as a field of inquiry, and only afterward as an area of endeavor. Some paintings Dagley initiates by means of procedural algorithms, but he allows himself to depart from their demands as the situation (that is, the painting) warrants. His overriding interest in painting is visual experience, not the reiteration of a predetermined method. Those programs may and often do provide a general framework (“everything starts with drawings,” he told me) but just how programmatic that framework turns out to be is a significant variable. He has made shaped paintings, propped paintings, “paintings” that are low relief sculptures… none of these was included in “Neo-Op” at David Richard Gallery, an exhibition that surveyed Dagley’s painting (and drawing) production of the last 25 years or so, but it was clear from the exhilarating range of formal and material experimentation on view that Dagley is among abstract painting’s authentic eccentrics. Until recently, though, the works’ strangeness has seemed buttoned-down, their concinnity of design more evident than their underlying instability.
Primary Color Vortex (Red, Yellow, Blue Dot Painting) (1996) is an early milestone in Dagley’s career; a larger, slightly later version was included in “Post Hypnotic” and reproduced on the cover of that exhibition’s catalogue, and is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Buenos Aires. (Gray-scale and secondary-hue versions of this design followed.) “Obsessive” hardly seems an adequate term to describe the meticulousness behind this dizzying exercise in chromatic looping and progression. The artist has offhandedly stated that there are errors in the sequencing of colors, and we’ll take his word for that. To most viewers, I expect, such ghost notes are lost in the crazy rhythms of this work. If we clock the historical moment of Op Art from “The Responsive Eye,” the 1965 exhibition organized by MoMA, it is over a half-century old. That work was supposed to be a bit abrasive, as it asks the eye to deal with perceptual stimuli of an intensity not often encountered elsewhere. Its wide popularity, even among people who didn’t have any particular interest in painting, owed something to the fascination with visual effects that, though mesmerizing, are understood to be mundanely bio-mechanical in origin—products of the hard-wiring of eye and brain. The movement’s afterlife continues to inform the work of abstract painters such as Dagley for whom a work’s visual gestalt is paramount. The dominant shape in many works in the Orb series is not actually a circle, but an octadecagon; by connecting all 18 angles with straight lines, Dagley sets up optical vi3
brations via the intervals between lines, and the illusion of spheroid volume with a confluence of 20-degree angles at its core. He asymptotally approaches a circle in Four Color Orbs A (2016) with its 32 points, and Cul de Sac II (2001), which has 36. Despite their systematic design and facture, there is simply no way to anticipate the instantiation of mark-making—of the drag or glide of a brush or pastel across raw canvas—and the resulting blur. The signal of overlaid pattern generates the noise of uncertainty. In Spectral Presence (2006), Dagley applies this method to the rectangle, connecting 17 evenly spaced points on the left and right edges of this commanding canvas with slim diagonals of primary and secondary colors, plus black. The title doubtless refers to the spectrum of visible light (that is, color) but it connotes a ghost in this machine and draws our attention to the wavering, vertical strings of rhomboid shapes in the gaps between the diagonals. Decorative and relentless, that string of stretched diamonds reappears in Orange and Bronze Polygon Chain (2011), a work that is startling in its exaggerated normativity. And Spectral Diamond Field (2011) might recall the Washington Color School painters as it takes the play of chromatic afterimages to a Gene Davis-like level of sophistication. Dagley’s newest work is unabashedly wiggy. A personal symbolist vernacular seems to be emerging, though still (and perhaps forever to remain) inchoate. Untitled (20092019) features an atypically clear distinction between figure and ground, with striped and spotted swarming things like some sort of disco paramecia bumping around in a 4
glittering puddle, or maybe a bling-studded cartoon galaxy crammed with nonrecurring celestial events. Missing from this galaxy would be the supermassive black hole at its center, but we may be seeing exactly that in Oblivion Express (2009-2019), which was finished just in time for inclusion in “Neo-Op.” Inward-pointing shards in alternating secondary colors trigger memories of comic-book explosions; a dazzling field of dots is either that big bang’s catalyst or its fallout; a finger-thick, undulating green line delimits the damage and is in turn framed by a drum-tight, mosaic-like Day-Glo border. This astounding painting typifies how, in the new works, order, deliberation, and lucidity wrestle with neurosis, romanticism, and subjectivity. Rather than cancelling each other out or otherwise equivocating, the two positions prop each other up, heighten the tension, raise the pictorial stakes. This is extremely tricky to pull off, and Dagley does so with great panache. Stephen Maine
Oblivion Express, 2009-2019, acrylic on canvas, 71.75 x 98.25 x 2� 5
Neutral Value Vortex (Black, White and Gray Dot Painting), 2000-2006, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 84 x 1.5� 6
Secondary Color Vortex (Orange, Green, and Purple Dot Painting), 2007-2014, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 84 x 84 x 1.25� 7
Loudmouth Baby, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 38”, framed size 25.5 x 31.5 x 1.5” 8
Spectral Diamond Field, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 74 x 86 x 1.5� 9
Phalanx, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 65.5 x 52.5 x 1.5� 10
Mark Dagley, Neo Op | David Richard Gallery | March 1 - 31, 2019 | 2nd floor gallery 11
Quadrifolia, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 40 x 1.5� 12
Charmed Circles, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 79 x 52 x 1.5� 13
Orange and Bronze Polygon Chain, 2011, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 44.5 x 138.5 x 1.25� 14
The Death of Mary Meyer, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 63 x 48 x 1.25� 15
Arcturus, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 25 x 85.5 x 1.5� 16
Cannonball, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30”, framed size 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.5” 17
Untitled (Benton Card Company ) - Set of six, 2007, offest prints on cardstock, each 22 x 14�, framed size 24.75 x 16.75 x 1.25� 18
Untitled (Star Shapes), 1996, electrical tape and linocut on canvas, 48 x 48 x 1.5� 19
Fluud’s Universe (1988), wood, geodesic model, glass rod, gold thread, 80 x 30 x 30� 21
Mark Dagley, Neo Op | David Richard Gallery | March 1 - 31, 2019 | 1st floor gallery 22
Mark Dagley, Neo Op | David Richard Gallery | March 1 - 31, 2019 | 1st floor gallery 23
Cul de Sac II, 2001, acrylic on linen, 72 x 68 x 1.25� 24
Visualized combinatorics of Mark Dagley Mark Dagley (b. 1957) preserves, disseminates and shares the heritage of artists like Emma Kunz (1892– 1963), Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) and Adriano Graziotti (1912–2000). This tradition consists in an euthusiasm in the use of certain geometric approaches whose aim relies on the attainment of optical effects by suitable arrangement of a set of elementary generative elements; for example line segments or circles. Endpoints of line segments and centres of circles are then artfully chosen so that the resulting images are reminiscent of lace structures, or so that the “envelopes” of generated elements create impressive curves. Spacing out the line segments’ tangent points often creates circles, while spacing out the circles’ envelopes on the other hand often creates segments; thus these approaches are complementary. The endless variability of possibilities has evidently a combinatorics foundation, as in the intentions of the First Manifesto of Permutation Art by Abraham André Moles (Stuttgart: Max Bense, 1962, 31 pp.). Or we could speak on the basis of fitting arguments regarding concrete art in the sense of the programmatic declaration of Max Bill, Worte rund um Malerei und Plastik (Zürich: Allianz, Kunsthaus, 1947), based of essays of ideas published 1944–1945 in the bulletin Abstrakt/Konkret, or more recently regarding generative art, as characterised by Philip Galanter in What
is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art Theory, his contribution to the 6th Generative Art Conference in Milan in 2003. When transposed to 3D, we can speak in the same connections regarding String Art (sometimes also called Thread Art). This trend is now experiencing an unprecedented boom, to which in addition to our protagonist – Mark Dagley – the following artists, the majority of them young, bear witness: Ladislav Daněk (b. 1958), Eleonora Pražáková (b. 1953), Sébastien Preschoux (b. 1974), Robert Urbásek (b. 1965), John Eichinger (b.1942), and many more. To these it is however necessary to add the further names of older, already internationally recognised artists, such as Piero Dorazio (1927–2005), Sue Fuller (1914–2006), František Hudeček (1909–1990), Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), Agnes Martin (1912–2004), and Lenore Tawney (1907–2007). Sometimes the works of these artists can only be distinguished with great difficulty from scientific illustrations depicting specific expressions and structures. The famed Renaissance man of the Baroque period, Athanasius Kircher SJ (1601–1680), was made reference to by Umberto Eco in Foucault’s Pendulum in terms of his work Ars Magna Sciendi (Amsterdam, 1669), a copperplate etching, with in-depth commentary. But this 25
is a purely scientific illustration, depicting a combinatorial expression. More precisely, it is a lovely geometric visualization of variations with repetitions. We can introduce this function for example by relation to two groups of chess players with 18 players each, for which the goal is to set up a scenario in which every player of one group plays with every player of the second group. It is evident that toward this goal it is enough to combine 182 = 324 line segments on a piece of paper by their names. The origin of the project Ars Magna, a kind of system of perfect universal language, found already in the works of Raymond Lull or Lully (1222/33–1315/16), is based on, as already mentioned, the practical use of mathematic combinatorics. Today we would say that the foundation of Ars Magna is mainly combinations and variations with repetitions of the expressed funcand . tions
Combinatorial art was developed by the mystical rabbi Avraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240–after 1291) in his Kabbalah of Names. Coveted perfection is based again on exhausting the enumeration of the possibilities (names). A frequently reproduced illustration from the book Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), where the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are connected by 231 line segments (gates), geometrically expresses a combinatorial number (i.e. a binomial coefficient).
Ordinarily one introduces an analogy between Lull’s combinatorics and Abulafia’s gematria and temurah. However, as Umberto Eco correctly warns in The Search for the Perfect Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, p 69. Translated by James Fentress), “What distinguishes kabbalistic thought from Lull’s is that, in the kabbala, the combination of the letters of the Torah had created the universe rather than merely reflected it.” This analogy was emphasised by one of the first Christian cabbalists, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463– 1494), who labelled Abulafia’s cabbalistic science (gematria and temurah) as ars combinandi.
Athansius Kircher, Ars Magna Sciendi Amsterdam, 1969, Combinations Linearis p. 170 26
Using Lull’s combinatorial wheels we can seek various connections, for example with the utopian, Guillaume Postel (1510–1581) in his book Livre de la formation, and with the Dominican, Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) in his book De lampade combinatoria lulliana with its accent on infinity.
Illustration from the book Sefer Yetzirah (231 gates)
To generalise, two-dimensional polygons and three-dimensional polyhedrons are n-dimensional polytopes, to which the Swiss Ludwig Schläfli (1844–1895), who used what are still the standard symbols to this day to describe them, and the Englishman Thorold Gosset (1869–1962), who introduced and classified what he called the semi-regular polytopes, systematically devoted themselves. Credit also goes to the Canadian Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter (1907–2003), who named the trio of semi-regular polytopes of dimensions 6, 7 and 8 (labelled by Gosset as 221, 321 and 421) Gosset polytopes The vertices of these Gosset polytopes are determined by the roots of what are called exceptional simple Lie algebras E6, E7 and E8, which are closely connected to the exceptional simple groups of the same name. Group E8 is the most complicated of all. It has 248 dimensions and a root lattice of rank 8. Weyl E8 group exhibits an unbelievable number of symmetries: 214 . 35 . 52 . 7 = 696729 600.
Its depiction requires a projection connecting 240 points (vertices of Gosset polytope 421) from eight-dimensional space into 2D. The result of the computer simulation carried out is called the Flower E8. In one of Coxeter’s books there is a hand-made drawing of this object made by British mathematician Peter McMullen (b. 1942) in the 1960s, which was even published in The Times in 1964.
Flower E8
According to a quite controversial theory by Anthony Garret Lisi (b. 1968), E8 could represent a geometric model of the basis of the theory of everything, the single unified field theory describing the fundamental interactions in physics, long sought by Albert Einstein (1879–1955). In the mid-1970s, without the aid of a computer, the above-mentioned Adriano Graziotti made 2D projections of regular polytopes, and his legacy is now being maintained and extended by the Roman group Simmetria.
27
As we have already noted, it is often difficult to distinguish a scientific illustration – its “liberation” from a described object can lead to an artistic artifact (i.e., in the case of McMullen’s illustration) – from the work of intuitive artists, interpreted in academic categories (e.g. the drawings of Graziotti).
of what is called the singular solution of this equation is the envelope of graphs of general solution. Its shape relies on the nonlinear function f. E.g. for f(p) = p2 it is a parabola. Alexis Claude Clairaut (1713–1765) introduced a solution for the equations now named after him already in 1734.
A slim tome by Edith L. Somervell with the odd, somewhat introductory title A Rhythmic Approach to Mathematics (London: George Philip & Son, 1906; referred to me by Mark Dagley), is an introduction to geometrically simple constructions which have impressive artistic effects due to their enveloped curves and surfaces. Its introduction is by Mary Everest Boole (1832–1916), who in that introduction places an emphasis on the aesthetic aspects of mathematics in the didactic process of children’s education. In a way, we could call her the foremother of String Art.
We will still introduce and allude to several other connections very briefly. A description of the interactions connected with nodal points of the most diverse (neural, transport, commercial, epistemic, social, political, etc.) nets is the subject matter of the spectacular monograph by Manuel Lima, Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001). In addition to individual visualisations it also includes the work of generative artists. And exhibitions, in addition to photographs of visualised complex nets, are more and more featuring interactive computer simulations.
The constructions called Bézier curves, one of the bases of computer graphics, are themselves based on often simple use of a one-parameter class of linear elements (e.g. line segments). Pierre Étienne Bézier (1910–1999), a designer and builder of prototypes at Renault, decided to patent his constructions. Curves may be defined with the help of straight lines, respectively, their components (line segments) and on the basic of implicit prescriptions. The general solution of Clairaut’s ordinary differential equation of the first order, is the same one-parameter class of line segments y(x) = Cx + f(C), where C is a constant. The graph 28
It is obvious that the visualisations of these networks (e.g. Hopfield neural networks) have a combinatorics foundation. Analysis of them also makes use of the mathematical graph theory. For example, the resulting graph of connections between the two teams of chess players could be written as K18,18. In this context there is a unique film project by Marie Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips titled Asphyxia (and available on the internet at www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/03/ asphyxia-a-striking-fusion-of-dance-and-motion-capture-technology), introducing the phasal movements
of dancer Shiho Tanaka. For emphasising the individual phases his body was equipped with sensors; line segments connected the nodal points in 3D, achieving an effects sequence of geometric images. In addition to artistic and scientific approaches to objects making a strong aesthetic impression on us, there exists at least one more approach – the meditative. A typical contemporary representative of this approach is John Eichinger, who intentionally calls his works, using Buddhist terminology, mandalas. The work of Eleonora Pražáková also has an intentional spiritual subtext. Proof of the psychedelic effects of this type of art is even the inclusion of two paintings by Mark Dagley in the prestigious publication Psychedelic Optical and Visionary Art since the 1960s (ed. David S. Rubin, Cambridge, MA: San Antonio Museum of Art / The MIT Press, 2009). The most famous representative of this approach was without doubt the painter and healer Emma Kunz (1892–1963). In her town of Würenlos, Switzerland, the Emma Kunz Centre was opened in her honour by Anton C. Meier in 1986. In addition to the artefacts gathered there which she invented to use in therapy for healing purposes, there is an entire complex intended for meditation and healing, including the healing rock she discovered, AION A. Her works are of such high quality and so original that independent of her healing she had an international reputation as an artist, proof of which is the postal stamp issued in 1993 with a reproduction of one of her paintings. Emma Kunz influenced and continues to influence legions of geometri-
cists, including our protagonists, and her work is some of the best geometric abstraction has on offer. The work of Mark Dagley is marked by variety, rich invention, and at the same time, minimalistic economy. The majority of his paintings have their foundation in drawing, less frequently he is represented by works on paper (drawings and graphic works), but he also makes spatial objects and sculptures. Although Dagley has been active in art since the mid1970s, he can be represented along the above lines by one of the first – from our perspective, much followed – realised sculptures, Fludd’s Universe, from 1998. This geodesic model, built of coloured rods connecting the nearest points of a polyhedron, gives the illusion of a hovering sphere of air, trapped in a wooden armature in the shape of a cube. Its title is a clear reference to the cosmic model by the English esoteric Robert Fludd, (1574–1636), described in his three-volume History of the Cosmos and Microcosmos (Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia, Oppenheim, 1617–1619). Fludd’s Heavenly Monochord (as was Fludd, Dagley is a musician), often reproduced, is also a long shadow cast from pythagoreanism, emphasising the numerical and musical base of the universe (Pythagorean tuning). The cosmic dimension of his work is also reflected in the title of an earlier sculpture – Ziggurat, from 1987.
29
Projections on the level of Dagley’s model of Fludd’s Universe arise from a symmetric assortment of line segments of connected points in a circle, which is only a kind of much “diluted” analogy to the flower E8. Dagley’s typical, more elaborated paintings on canvas, as a rule called simply Orbs or Spheres, on the other hand are sometimes “condensed” analogies of illustrations from the Sefer Yetzirah. To the titles the artist often appends the colour of the paint used. The majority of paintings from this long-term series, beginning in 1997 and continuing until the present day, are quite massive; some having on the other hand a cabinet character. Some of Dagley’s drawings, paintings and graphic works resemble the copper engravings from Kircher’s Ars Magna Sciendi. For example the black and white drawing untitled (pencil on paper, 17 × 21½ inches) from 2004, or the colour painting Spectral Presence (acrylic and pencil on canvas, 64 × 54 inches) from 2006, which however distinguishes itself not only by its size, but also in the density of its “web”. While the black and white drawing contains 302 = 900 points, the colour painting came about by mutually connecting 17 points with each other with the help of 172 = 289 line segments. And this series continues on in various forms to this day. Two graphic works from a collection of six colour off-set prints (printed by the Benton Card Company in an edition of 85 copies plus 15 artist’s copies, each piece having the dimensions 22 × 14 inches) published by the Abaton Book Company in 2007 have a similar character. Two more were again created in the manner of paired negatives. 30
Another graphic work from this collection, on which there are 18-point ellipses connected by 153 line segments, has despite a different form of the initial curves and a different number of points, the same combinatorics basis as an illustration in Sefer Yetzirah.
Although the spectrum of Dagley’s artefacts is much wider (e.g. the dot cluster paintings in diminishing spiral configurations, etc.), the “Orbs” are perhaps the most typical examples of his style. After all, Mark Dagley is a dignified and internationally respectable representative of described tendencies, briefly denoted by me as visualized combinatorics. Jan Andres
Red on Red Orb, 2006, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 64 x 58 x 1.5� 31
Mark Dagley, Neo Op | David Richard Gallery | March 1 - 31, 2019 | 1st floor gallery 32
Mark Dagley, Neo Op | David Richard Gallery | March 1 - 31, 2019 | 1st floor gallery 33
Untitled, 2009, oil on linen, 30 x 30�, framed size 31.5 x 31.5 x 1.5� 34
Purple & Black Orb, 2006, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 68.25 x 68 x 1.25� 35
Green & Gray Orb, 2007, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 66 x 66 x 1.25� 36
(left) Hued Spiral, 1999, oil and graphite on canvas, 24 x 24”, framed size 25 x 25 x 1.5” (right) Seven-Color Orb, 1999, acrylic and graphite, 22 x 22”, framed size 23.5 x 23.5 x 1.5”
37
Blue Orb with Yellow-Green Ring, 2009, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 25.75 x 26 x .5� 38
Five-Part Painting (study), 2001, mixed mediums, 24.5 x 35”, framed size 26 x 36.5 x 1.5” 39
Five-Part Painting, 2001, mixed mediums, 45.5 x 67.25”, framed size 47 x 69 x 1.5” 40
Four-Color Orb, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36� 41
Red & Black Orb, 2006, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 64 x 63 x 1.5� 42
Purple & Orange Orb, 2007, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 58 x 61 x 1.5� 43
44
(left) Self-Generating Orb 2, 1999, acrylic and graphite, 24 x 24”, framed size 25.5 x 25.5 x 1.5” (right) Self-Generating Orb 1, 1997, acrylic and graphite, 24 x 24”, framed size 25.5 x 25.5 x 1.5”
Maroon & Black Orb, 2006, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 67.5 x 68 x 1.25� 45
Pink-Ringed Orb, 2006, acrylic and mixed mediums on unprimed canvas, 64 x 64 x 1.2� 46
White Orb, 2007, oil and mixed media on distressed canvas, 64 x 64 x 1.5� 47
Purple Orb, 2009, oil on linen, 25.75 x 26� 48
Spectral Presence, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 64 x 54� 49
Mark Dagley (b. 1957, Washington, D.C.) is a painter, draftsman, graphic artist, creator of 3D objects, guitarist and audio engineer. He studied painting and sculpture in D.C. at the Corcoran School of Art, and painting, video and electronic music at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He currently studies classical guitar privately in NYC and Music Theory and Analysis at the evening division of The Juilliard School. Dagley has exhibited for over three decades across North America, throughout Europe, in Australasia and South America. During the 1980s he was active in the East Village art scene, showing alongside other pioneering abstract painters, among them Olivier Mosset, James Nares, Stephen Parrino, Li Trincere, and Alan Uglow. His debut solo exhibition took place in 1987 at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Soho. Subsequently he showed abroad at a number of influential galleries, including Galerie Hans Strelow (Düsseldorf, Germany), Galerìa Mar Estrada (Madrid, Spain), Galerie Swart (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Galerìa Leyendecker (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands). In 1993 Dagley had his first solo museum exhibition at Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland. In the same year, he received a major commission from Hoffman-LaRoche Pharmaceuticals: two wall reliefs, nine-foot square, that were installed in their new office building outside of Basel. His painting Concentric Sequence was included in the groundbreaking show Post-Hypnotic, which traveled the United States from 199950
2001, and was featured on the cover of the exhibition catalog. Dagley has since been in exhibitions at Riflemaker Gallery (London, UK), Minus Space (NYC), Centre National d’art Contemporain (Grenoble, France), Daniel Weinberg Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Instituto de Artes Gráficas (Oaxaca, Mexico), ParisCONCRET (Paris, France), The Suburban (Chicago, IL), Galeria Nara Rosler (São Paulo, Brazil), The Museum of Geometric and Madi Art (Dallas, TX), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (St.Gallen, Switzerland), Galerie Caesar (Olomouc, Czech Republic), MACBA (Buenos Aires, Argentina), San Martín Centro de Cultura Contemporánea (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain). His work can be found in many collections, including Bloomingdale’s Corporation, Cafritz Foundation, Collection Doberman, Credit-Suisse, EMI Madrid, Hoffman-LaRoche, Henkel GmbH, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Oppenheim & Co., Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Muzeum umění Olomouc and University of Michigan Museum of Art. Dagley’s most recent solo exhibitions were at Spencer Brownstone Gallery (2017-18) and David Richard Gallery (2019), both in New York City. He lives and works in Jersey City, NJ. He and his wife, performer and writer Lauri Bortz, run Abaton Book Company, a small press and record label, from their home.
Solo Exhibitions 2019 David Richard Gallery, NYC, Neo Op (catalog published) 2017 Spencer Brownstone Gallery, NYC, Radical Structures (catalog published) 2015 Matinee 54, NYC, Selected Works 1989-2015 2013 Silverman, Jersey City, NJ, Recent Paintings 2012 Minus Space, NYC, Structural Solutions (poster published) Kent Place Gallery, Summit, NJ, 35-Year Overview (catalog published) 2008 Minus Space, NYC, Shaped Canvas; Selected Work from 1987 (catalog published) 2007 Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ 2005 UP&CO, NYC, Holdings (catalog published) 2004 Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ (brochure published) 1997 Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf, Germany Galerie Traude Nake, Nuremberg, Germany 1996 Earl McGrath Gallery, NYC 1994 Galería Buades-Quintana, Madrid, Spain Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain 1993 Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland, Radical Structures (brochure and print edition published) Galería Mar Estrada, Majorca, Spain, Monochrome Paintings 1992 Buro Reiner Opoku, Cologne, Germany, Works on Paper Galería Mar Estrada, Madrid, Spain, Estructuras Radicales Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf, Germany Ausstellungsraum Zellweger, Basel, Switzerland, Radical Structures (catalog published) 1991 Stephanie Theodore Gallery, NYC 1990 Galería Mar Estrada, Madrid, Spain, Shape, Notch, Cut Galerie Swart, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Cut Paintings Galería Prozincia, Zaragoza, Spain 1989 Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf, Germany Galleria Chisel, Genoa, Italy (catalog published) 1988 Galerie Swart, Amsterdam, Netherlands (catalog published) Galería Mar Estrada, Madrid, Spain, Descriptions on Samenessness (catalog published) 1987 Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain Tony Shafrazi Gallery, NYC (brochure and poster published) 51
Group Exhibitions 2018 Beyond Black and White, curated by Li Trincere and Henry Brown, Westbeth Gallery, NYC 2017 1107, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, NYC Repeating Sequence: 1967-2006, W. Alexander, NYC Carpet Kartell, Tanja Grunert Gallery, NYC 2016 Esenciales, San Martín Centro de Cultura Contemporánea, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Chromatic Space, curated by Jonathan D. Lippincott, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, NYC The Onward of Art, curated by Karen Wilkin, 1285 Avenue of the Americas Gallery, NYC 2015 Geometric Obsession: American School 1965-2015, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Argentina Between Liminal and Subliminal, Elberson Fine Arts Center, Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC Ars Combinatorial, w/Danĕk, Preschoux, Urbásek, curated by Jan Andres, Galerie Caesar, Olomouc, Czech Republic Made in DC: Washington Color School and More, Bethesda Fine Art, Bethesda, MD Elements, Minus Space, NYC Sideshow Nation III: Circle the Wagons, Sideshow Gallery, NYC 2014 Sensory Impact, Morgan Stanley & Co., Purchase, NY To Leo; A Tribute from American Abstract Artists, Sideshow Gallery, NYC Elementare Malerei, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland Triangles, curated by Melissa Staiger, Ventana 244, NYC Homage to the Stripe, Bethesda Fine Art, Bethesda, MD Sideshow Nation II; At the Alamo, NYC Paperazzi!, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NYC 2013 Out of Step, curated by Brendan Carroll, Lemmerman Gallery, NJ City University, Jersey City, NJ 2012 Buzz, curated by Vik Muniz, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil Material Tak, curated by Kara L. Rooney, Panepinto Galleries, Jersey City, NJ Transformation – Transcreation, Hogarth Worldwide, NYC Minus Space en Oaxaca, El Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca, Mexico Mark Dagley, Gilbert Hsaio and Gabriele Evertz, The Suburban, Oak Park, IL Mic: Check (The Human Mic), Sideshow Gallery, NYC Paperazzi!, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NYC American Abstract Artists` International 75th Anniversary, ParisConcret, Paris, France 52
33 años después, Una hora antes, Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. 2011 Abstraction to the Power of Infinity, curated by Janet Kurnatowski, The Icebox, Philadelphia, PA Action Abstraction, Mark Gallery, Englewood NJ American Abstract Artists International 75th Anniversary, OK Harris Gallery, NYC American Abstract Artists International 75th Anniversary, Galerie Oqbo, Berlin, Germany Non-Objectif Sud Fundraiser, Bortolumi Gallery, NYC It’s All Good, Apocalypse Now, Sideshow Gallery, NYC An Exchange with Sol Lewitt, Cabinet, NYC No Favors, curated by Christine Krol, Bar Olivino, NYC 2010 Some Strings Attached, Shore Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ Splendid Energy, Jersey City Museum, NJ International, American Abstract Artists, Aragonese Castle, Otranto Italy Wall to Wall, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Momenta Art Benefit 2010, Momenta Art, NYC Source, curated by Melissa Staiger and Susan Ross, City University of New York, NYC Portrait de l`artiste en motorcycliste, Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland Escape from New York, curated by Matthew Deleget, Massey University, Wellington, NZ Paper Works, Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NYC It’s a Wonderful Life 10, Sideshow Gallery, NYC 2010 Non-Objectif Sud Fundraiser, Robert Goff Gallery, NYC 2009 Portrait de l`artiste en motorcycliste, Centre National d`art Contemporain de Grenoble, France Forever Summer, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Platform Space, NYC GeoMetrics II, 128 Gallery, NYC Linear Abstraction, McKenzie Fine Art, NYC It’s a Wonderful Life 9, Sideshow Gallery, NYC 2008 Minus Space, MoMA PS1, NYC Küf-Mold, The Centraale/Jan Colle Gallery, Gent, Belgium Tribute to Esphyr Slobodkina, The Painting Center, NYC The No Milk Today Show, Autoversion LTD., NYC The Other Side, curated by Billy Miller, Gallery 58, Jersey City, NJ Shape Shifters, curated by James Biederman, University of North Carolina, Pembroke, NC 53
Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art since the 1960s, San Antonio Museum of Art, T 2007 2007 Flux Factory Benefit, Hungarian Cultural Center, NYC Nyehaus Becomes Indica, Nyehaus, NYC The Annunciation in Contemporary Art, College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ Works on Paper, LBI Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Long Beach Island, NJ Escape from New York, curated by Matthew Deleget, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia Mark Dagley and Don Voisine, McKenzie Fine Art, NYC 2006 Riflemaker Becomes Indica, Riflemaker Gallery, London, UK 1x1, Jersey City Museum, NJ O, curated by MatCh-Art, Shore Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Branch, NJ O, Berrie Center for the Performing and Visual Arts, Ramapo, NJ Flux Factory Benefit, Lennon Weinberg Gallery, NYC 2005 Good Vibrations, McKenzie Fine Art, NYC Seriality, Axel Raben Gallery, NYC 2004 Mark Dagley, James Nares, Curtis Anderson, Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain 2001 Mark Dagley and Bill Schwarz, Dusk’s Gallery, Jersey City, NJ 2000 Post-Hypnotic, Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, FL Post-Hypnotic, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN Post-Hypnotic, Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA Post-Hypnotic, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL Post-Hypnotic, SECCA, Winston-Salem, NC 1999 Post-Hypnotic, University Galleries of ISU, Normal, IL Post-Hypnotic, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, TX Post-Hypnotic, The Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH 20 Years of Galería Leyendecker, Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain 1998 Mark Dagley and Alan Uglow, Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain OP at UP, organized by Tom Moody, UP&CO, NYC Gallery Artists, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, Germany 1997 The Legacy of American Modernism, KohnTurner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Trois Collections d`artists, Musée des beaux-Arts de La Chaux-de-fonds, Switzerland 1996 Summer Group Exhibition, Fundazione Prini, Bardonecchia, Italy 54
Group Exhibition, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, Germany 1995 Color and Paint: Radical Painting, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland Tomorrow Partly Sunny, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA 1107, John Gibson Gallery, NYC Smells like Vinyl, Roger Merians Gallery, NYC Barras y Estrellas, Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Spain 1994 Le Temps d`un Dessin, Ecole des beaux-Arts de Lorient, France 1993 Inception, Gallery 807, NYC Das Abstrakt, Galerie Thomas Rehbein, Cologne, Germany 1992 Mark Dagley and Olivier Mosset, Stephanie Theodore Gallery, NYC 1991 Exhibition #49, Galería Pedro Pizarro, Málaga, Spain ARCO 91, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Galería Mar Estrada, Madrid, Spain Preview 91, Stephanie Theodore Gallery, NYC They See the Light, Galerie Van Gelder, Amsterdam, Netherlands KunstRai, Galerie Van Gelder, Amsterdam, Netherlands KunstMesse, Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf, Germany 1989 Centro de Arte la Regenta, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Mirando y Aprendiend, Galería Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain Go Avanti, Galleria Chisel, Milan, Italy (catalog published) 1988 Group Exhibition, Anne Marie Collart, Brussels, Belgium Una Hora Antes, Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Spain (catalog published) 1987 Reduction Plan, Mission Gallery, NYC Bill Beckley, Mark Dagley, Olivier Mosset, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, NYC Young American Painters, Barry Stevens, NYC Group Exhibition, Pompeii Gallery, NYC 1986 Mark Dagley and James Nares, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, NYC 1985 Le Salon Ironique, Pompeii Gallery, NYC
55
Public, Private and Corporate Collections Bloomingdale’s Corporation, NYC Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Washington, D.C. Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Buenos Aires, Argentina Collection Dobermann, Chef du Pont, France Muzeum umini Olomouc, Czech Republic University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI EMI, Madrid, Spain Henkel Gmbh., Düsseldorf, Germany Hoffman-LaRoche, Basel, Switzerland Loudon Collection, Amsterdam, Holland Dr. Peter Ludwig, Aachen, Germany Hotel Chelsea, Cologne, Germany Oppenheim & Co., Düsseldorf, Germany R.H. Peterson Co., City of Industry, CA Foundation Prini, Genoa, Italy Rent-a-Group, Nuremberg, Germany Schalapher-Hasler, Zollikon, Switzerland Swiss Credit Union, Basel, Switzerland Valuta Specialisten, Stockholm, Sweden Ara Arslanian, NYC Jacqueline Beer, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain Marina Bignami, Milan, Italy Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, Switzerland George Condo, NYC Evan Dando, NYC Mia Enell, NYC Ivano Gianola, Mendrisio, Switzerland Berlin Gieri, Rome, Italy 56
Martin I. Haas, NYC Keith Haring, NYC Lea Juutilainen, Basel, Switzerland Valerie McKenzie, NYC Tobias Mueller, Zurich, Switzerland Gene Na, NYC Philip Niarchos, NYC Reiner Opoku, Berlin, Germany Alberto Parrando, Madrid, Spain Robert Pasch, Madison, WI Dr. Werner Peters, Cologne, Germany Jack Rounick, NYC Dr. Christof Schlaegel, Cologne, Germany Petra Singh, NYC Amy Teitelbaum, South Orange, NJ
57
Stephen Maine is a painter who writes about art. His paintings have been seen recently in New York at ODETTA Gallery, Hionas Gallery, Silas von Morisse Gallery, Next to Nothing Gallery, Westbeth Gallery, Transmitter Gallery, the Fiterman Art Center at BMCC and the National Arts Club; and in Connecticut at ICEHOUSE Project Space in Sharon and Five Points Gallery in Torrington. His exhibitions have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artcritical.com, The New Criterion, and abstractcritical.com. Maine has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2000) and Yaddo (2012) and is a longtime member of American Abstract Artists and the International Association of Art Critics. His writing has been published regularly in Art in America, ARTnews, Artnet.com Magazine, The New York Sun, Art on Paper and Hyperallergic.com. Maine teaches at Purchase College, SUNY and Hartford Art School, University of Hartford. He lives and works in West Cornwall, CT and New York City.
58
Jan Andres (b. 1954, Olomouc, Czech Republic) is presently employed as a Full Professor at the Faculty of Science at PalackĂ˝ University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. He served there for many years as chairman of the Department of Mathematical Analysis and Applications of Mathematics. He has also been a Visiting Professor at two American and many European universities, among them University of Paris 1, Sorbonne, and La Sapienza University in Rome. Jan has received the highest scientific degrees in the Czech Republic (DSc.) and in Poland (dr hab.). He serves as a member of 15 editorial boards on international scientific journals. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and chapters in several handbooks, as well as the coauthor (with Lech Gorniewicz) of Topological Fixed Point Principles for Boundary Value Problems. a monograph published in 2003 by Kluwer. A second edition was published in 2012 by Springer, jointly with World Publishing Corporation, Beijing. His main research activities concern topological methods in nonlinear analysis, differential equations and inclusions, multivalued dynamical systems, fractals and their application to quantitative linguistics. He has also written a chapter on generative art for the The Ticklish Structure (Verzone, Prague, 2018) and a book about the work of a noted Czech abstract painter and sculptor, Zdenek Sykora from the Point of View of a Mathematician (Louny, 2018). He and his son, Jan Andres, have coauthored two monographs for the Olomouc Museum of Modern Art.
59
ISBN: 978-0-9907011-9-4
Mark Dagley Neo OP at David Richard Gallery March 1 - 31, 2019 Published by: David Richard Gallery, LLC 211 East 121st Street, New York, NY 10035 www.DavidRichardGallery.com 212-882-1705 | 505-983-9555 DavidRichardGalleries DavidRichardGallery Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Gene Na and Lauri Bortz for their help organizing and preparing this exhibition, to David Richard Gallery for presenting this body of work in such an elgant manner, to George Condo and Amy Teitelbaum for lending work from their collections. I cannot thank my studio assistants enough! Without help from Alison Vuocolo, Marianne Nowottny, Crystal Stelling and Chaconne Klaverenga over the past fifteen years, many of these works may never have been completed. Gallery Staff: David Eichholtz and Richard Barger, Managers All rights reserved by David Richard Gallery, LLC. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or part in digital or printed form of any kind whatsoever without the express written permission of David Richard Gallery, LLC. Artwork: © 1996 - 2019 Mark Dagley Catalog: © 2019 David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY Catalog design: Mark Dagley Catalog layout: Richard Barger, David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY Images: © 2019 David Richard Gallery, LLC, New York, NY Artwork images and installation images: Yao Zu Lu Front and inside cover images, artists portrait on page 50: Chaconne Klaverenga For additional information visit MarkDagley.com
60
211 East 121st Street, New York, NY 10035