Grabner Gingham
MICHELLE GRABNER GINGHAM SEPTEMBER 9–OCTOBER 29, 2016 OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY 9/9, 6–9PM
Gallery 16 is proud to announce it’s seventh exhibition with artist Michelle Grabner. With a career spanning over 30 years, Michelle Grabner has dedicated herself to identifying, indexing, and transposing patterns. Grabner Gingham is comprised of a series of large-scale oil on burlap paintings. After a decade-long hiatus, the artist is discovering a new relationship to the gingham pattern outside the realm of domesticity. “The gingham paintings are a head on embrace of the cliché, the big, beautiful, and all too general idea that [the pattern] is both overused yet sturdy in its unfailing predictability,” Grabner explains in an interview with ART21. Another significant variation in this series, Grabner chose to work in oil paints. The departure from waterbased paints in many ways mirror the shift away from domesticity. “My painting then was comprised of re-articulating the backdrops to my modest household. They no longer reflect the reality of our household economy or my daily relationship to little children.” The paintings’ loose, dynamic brushwork, vivid color, and texture invigorate the simple grid pattern. Unlike the crisp, almost flat quality of much of her previous work, this series has a messy liveliness and the textured burlap ground pivots to the warmth and ease of this textile. “My plan is to grow these physical fields of pattern into monumentalized paintings,” says Grabner. “At such a scale, the gingham fields will continue to evoke an American domestic nostalgia but they will also speak to the authority of painting.” With some canvases measuring nearly 100 inches tall, these gingham paintings usurp the viewer’s periphery. Propelled by an interest in collaboration and community, Grabner and her husband Brad Killam founded two project spaces, The Suburban and The Poor Farm, in response to the idea that the suburbs are an overlooked site for avant garde activities. “I do know that G16 was and is an important model for The Suburban. The Suburban’s anti-curatorial stance was underscored by the working pragmatics of a space like G16.” Gallery 16’s relationship with Michelle Grabner dates back to 1997 when her work was first presented. Griff Williams recalls, “My relationship with Michelle very much mirrors the lifespan of Gallery 16. We share a belief in championing artist’s labor and the hard work involved in supporting those values.” Grabner’s curatorial practice, much like her studio work, aims to shift focus away from popularized notions of contemporary art authorship, evidenced in her efforts with the 2014 Whitney Biennial, the Portland2016 Biennial, and now the upcoming Cleveland Triennial in 2018. As a tenured professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, a seasoned curator, and a frequent contributor to Artforum and other publications, Grabner’s relationship to studio work is enriched by her participation in these many dimensions of the art world. About Gallery16 Gallery 16 was founded in 1993 by artist Griff Williams with the primary focus of representing and advocating for the work of living contemporary artists. It is Gallery 16’s belief that the brick and mortar gallery model, to be culturally relevant, needs to embody new strategies for facilitating and presenting artist’s projects. The space, as Williams describes it, “allows for the artist to fail. We don’t create exhibitions around curatorial agendas, but extend an invitation to artists we trust and hope they use the opportunity to challenge themselves without restrictions.”
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 75 x 65 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Enamel on canvas and panel 70x60
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2016 Watercolor on paper, 14x20
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 63 x 93 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 63 x 93 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 75 x 65 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (Detail) , 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 75 x 65 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 24 x 18 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 12.25 x 24 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 12 x 9.5 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 12 x 9.5 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 20 x 16 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (relief 1), 2016, Gesso on textile and panel, 19.75 x 19.75 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (Detail), 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel,
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (relief 2), 2016, Gesso on textile and panel, x 20 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (Detail), 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel,
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled, 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel, 16 x 20 in.
MICHELLE GRABNER, Untitled (Detail), 2016, Oil and gesso on burlap and panel,
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on canvas over panel, 50 x 50
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled2, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on panel, 24� in diameter
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled2, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on panel, 24” in diameter
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled2, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on panel, 18” in diameter
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled2, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on panel, 12” in diameter
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled2, 2014 Gesso and Silverpoint on panel, 18” in diameter
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled, 2014 Flash and black gesso on canvas Diameter: 30 inches
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled 1, 2014 Flash and black paper, 19.75 x 19.75
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled 2, 2014 Flash and black paper, 19.75 x 19.75
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled 3, 2014 Flash and black paper, 19.75 x 19.75
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled 1, 2014 Flock on paper, 38 x 25
MICHELLE GRABNER Untitled 2, 2014 Flock on paper, 38 x 25
Gallery 16 Editions is pleased to announce a limited edition by Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam, Oyster Multiple. It is made on in conjunction with the Grabner / Killam 2014 exhibition at Gallery 16, San Francisco. The artwork is designed to function as a bookshelf that supports a classic Grabner/Killam mobile. The bookshelf, made of powder coated sheet metal, houses the monograph “Can I Come Over to Your House”, a history of the first fifteen years of the internationally acclaimed art space The Suburban. As well as an audio CD by Brad Killam and Darnell Thomas. The mobile is constructed from a hammered aluminum trash can lid upon which Grabners’ original paintings and silverpoint drawings are attached. Ken Johnson of the New York Times wrote of Grabner and Killam’s Oyster, “The basic structure is a disc made by flattened pieces cut from shiny metal garbage cans. Hanging by a cable, it turns freely this way and that. Attached to the disc are small paintings of gingham patterns and of radiating lines. For all the impressive physicality of Ms. Grabner’s piece, it’s the puzzling interplay of disparate signs that matters most. The garbage cans, the gingham patterns, the natural wood plank and the backyard photograph variously evoke suburban nostalgia. Ms. Grabner is not pining for a lost way of life, however. Rather, she presents a mind-teasing, rebus-like constellation of sociologically suggestive icons for viewers to sort out and make sense of for themselves.”
The mobiles are building blocks to which other artworks and objects are attached, creating new dependencies. The serializing of their mobile form neatly fits into other concerns, namely, pattern and repetition, which is really order and chaos.”
Gallery 16 was founded by artist Griff Williams in 1994. Since then, Gallery 16 and its fine art imprint Gallery 16 Editions has produced exhibitions with over 250 artstis and published over 800 prints, artist books, and multiples with artists including Ari Marcopoulos, Jim Goldberg, Colter Jacobsen, Bill Berkson, Harrell Fletcher, Lynn Hershman, Amy Franceschini, Adam Lowe, William Kentridge, Tucker Nichols, Rebeca Bollinger, Libby Black, Deborah Oropallo, Jim Isermann, bell hooks, Ann Chamberlain, Elliot Anderson, Carol Selter, Rebeca Bollinger, Rex Ray, Margaret Kilgallen.
MIchelle Grabner artwork is available through Gallery 16. Gallery 16 is located at 501 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. Inquiries may contact Griff Williams at 415-626-7495. All images Š Michelle Grabner gallery16.com