Dan Christensen: The Orb Paintings by LewAllen Galleries

Dan Christensen THE ORB PAINTINGS

JUNE 14 - JULY 14. 2013

Railyard: 1613 Paseo De Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com

cover: New Morning, 1996, acrylic on canvas, 91” x 73 1/2”

When initially exhibited in the early ’90s in New York, the series drew enthusiastic acclaim and interpretive speculation from major art publications and critics reviewing the mesmerizing array of technical and metaphorical flourishes. The series also became one of the most sought-after for collectors attracted to the spectacular pulsating auras surrounding chromatically vibrant oval forms that produced a nearly cosmic effect – what New York Times critic Holland Cotter called “little poems of hazy planet-like globes floating in what looks like galactic space.” Still as engrossing today as they were when premiered over 20 years ago, the works in this exhibition are all from the artist’s estate and have the additional distinction of being put aside by Christensen as among his favorites from the series.

To comprehend Dan Christensen’s important place in contemporary American art history and as a major figure in post-Abstract Expressionist painting is to understand part of the reason so many important museums and private individuals include work from the artist’s various periods in their collections. Another part of the reason is simply that his paintings are beautiful, ever faithful to a quality of feeling pervasive in his work, embracing joy as a worthwhile aesthetic ambition. Both of these dimensions are abundantly illustrated in the 19 extraordinary paintings that comprise the LewAllen exhibition entitled Dan Christensen: The Orb Paintings. This body of work from the 1990s – at the height of the artist’s career – features circles, orbs and ovals as subjects for dazzling compositions of color, luminosity and radiance. It is a celebration of spheres that epitomizes both Christensen’s primacy as a quintessential practitioner of post-Ab Ex pictorial strategies and his ample capacity to create a sense of playful fun in the viewing of his work.

In the trajectory of art history, Dan Christensen stands out as one of the major figures in the period of painting that began in the mid1960s. His career began at about this same time that the leading formalist art critic of the time, Clement Greenberg, famously curated

an exhibition entitled “Post-Painterly Abstraction” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964. (The ground-breaking exhibit subsequently traveled to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Art Gallery of Toronto.) It coincided with a point at which many younger artists who had been influenced by the dynamic and expressive intensity of the Ab Ex emphasis on passionate, dense, energetic (even aggressive) paint handling and surface development, began to feel that the movement was losing its authenticity. In his essay accompanying the LACMA exhibition, Greenberg summarized the critique as follows: “Having produced art of major importance, [Abstract Expressionism] turned into a school, then into a manner, and finally into a set of mannerisms.” He felt that the originality of Ab Ex exemplified in the ground-breaking work of such pioneers as Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning devolved when “a thousand artists proceed to maul the same viscosities of paint, in more or less the same ranges of color, and with the same ‘gestures,’ into the same kind of picture.” In short, he – and some young artists like Dan Christensen – felt that, in its proliferation, what had been cutting-edge about Abstract Expressionism had dissipated and lost its energy and originality. In response, a new generation of artists, urged on by critics like Greenberg, began to evolve approaches for innovating new forms of artistic expression. These painters brought a new emphasis on elements of painting such as expressive “openness” and “clarity,” devoid of the exaggerated material convolutions and ranging

excesses of Abstract Expressionism. Greenberg saw the next step in the progressive evolution of Modernism as a movement toward “purity” in art, focused on sharply defined “clear and unbroken” facture and “openness” of composition of a painting – the “lucid” application of pigment to flat surface, integrity of clean color, distinctness of structure, and “truthfulness” of the canvas. These aspects interested artists such as Dan Christensen, whose career would exemplify and innovate principal currents of the new Post-Painterly Abstraction movement. This new movement in painting was derogated, however, by many collectors and curators who had lost faith in the potency of Modernism itself in favor of what the critic Hilton Kramer famously called “that curious amalgam of fantasy and philistinism that goes by the name of postmodernism.” Alternative new responses to the decline of Ab Ex included Pop and styles like Conceptual Art in which the Modernist notion of visual aesthetics was replaced by an emphasis on “meaning.” Christensen, however, was never deterred by the cynicism or disillusion of these other movements which privileged derisive mockery and appropriation over aesthetic appreciation and innovation. Instead he embraced the emerging post-painterly variation in non-representational

These paintings embody the reinvigorated impetus toward pure color used so exquisitely by the artist in comprising the orbs and backgrounds on which they float. The paint application through the means of adept sprays, highly controlled runs and modulated brushwork allow for expressive impact while retaining the integrity of material and structure. The paintings may be heavy with intellectual and emotional fecundity but they are light in their virtuosic creation. They demonstrate the lucidity and openness that came to characterize the Post-Painterly movement’s ascendancy within post-Ab Ex abstraction.

painting as a direction that could extend the power of abstraction’s pictorial form to animate thought and emotion directly and devoid of subject and “content.” Through a distinguished career that spanned more than 40 years, Christensen never wavered in his enthusiasm for the aesthetic vitality of painting and its enduring artistic relevance. His tireless fascination with the medium’s myriad possibilities reflected its potential for continued innovation and fresh means of authentic expression. Christensen’s constancy ratified and demonstrated that abstract painting still had the power to enact the Modernist impulse to produce the genuinely new as a worthy artistic ambition. His continuous experimentation with new tools and materials for the making of paintings had enormous influence in reinvigorating the potential of painting for artistic creation when many around him declared the medium to be “dead.”

But as important as the art historical aspects it represented, Christensen’s large and varied body of work is also distinguished by its invariable freshness, ever enhancing the quality of visual enjoyment and unashamedly bringing to the eye an engaging and pleasurable viewing experience. As one museum curator saliently observed about his work: “these paintings seem to say ‘What if?’ ‘What if we just let the picture be gorgeous?”

The work included in this Orbs exhibition exemplifies the significant contributions Christensen made to the new tendency within abstraction.

The development of Christensen’s career leading up to the creation of the Orbs reveals his constant refinement of elements and techniques for which he is celebrated. Even in his earliest mature work the roots are visible of what would become momentous accomplishments in an evolving interpretive virtuosity of the constellation of Post-Painterly characteristics. Soon after coming to New York after graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1964, Christensen experimented with his own original contribution to Minimalism. It took the form of a unique series of Bar paintings that constituted a pioneering use of spray and rolled hues of varying intensities to create gridded arrays of small rectangles. There were positioned in code-like patterns that pulsed rhythmically across closely nuanced backgrounds. (See the catalog that accompanied the Dan Christensen: Bars and Scrapes exhibition at LewAllen Galleries in 2011.) Work of this period was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and also won Christensen, at the age of 25, inclusion in the 1966-67 Whitney Annual. Although his Bar paintings garnered critical acclaim and were acquired by major collectors of the time, perhaps their greatest importance was to influence Christensen’s progressively innovative approach to light and color. They also helped evolve his use of spray and other new techniques to create slow value changes in hue, an antecedent of the color optic finesse evident in work like the Orbs. Writing in Artforum in 1968, critic Max Kozloff labeled Christensen an “abstract luminist” in respect to his pioneering color work. It is a term that would have even greater applicability to the shimmering color spheres and light halos of the Orb series still to come more than 20 years hence. The Orbs were also preceded by a number of other innovative series and styles that epitomize characteristics of the new PostPainterly Abstract era. Its “openness and clarity” found application in Christensen’s trademark “loop” and “ribbon” paintings of the late ‘60s

his abstraction – physical gesture, drips, and brushstrokes appeared – but the quality of feeling in his work was palpably different, evincing a new and distinctive lightness, musicality and flat surface structure.

through the ‘80s. These were considered among the most original paintings of the era and were made with an adept mastery of spray techniques developed by Christensen used to control paint application while also allowing for the creation of high-keyed, pure and distinct color fields. Vibrant center elements, loose arabesques and succinct unbroken coils on solid grounds were evolved adding to other techniques and styles that largely contrasted with Ab Ex’s dense, packed, blotted, tactile surfaces that one writer called “those weighty encrustations of pigment.” The continuity between the earlier periods of Christensen’s career and the Orb paintings is manifest. The new directions he pioneered during those momentous periods – the potent effect of the spray and light-inflected color vibrancy – find evolved application in the later Orb series.

The visual effect is not only dazzling, but invites playful speculation as to what these pulsing orbs were “supposed to mean.” Some observers talked about the cosmos, orbiting planetary bodies, and celestial realms. Others saw in them aspects of Op Art, spiritual intensity, “mysterious force fields,” “electron traces in a cloud chamber,” “an uneasy balance between the concrete and the illusory” – even the psychedelic. One can imagine Dan Christensen being amused by these observations – such is the fun side of his Orbs, and all his work for that matter. Maybe he would have liked it if we now see in the works the idea of musica universalis, the ancient Greek notion of a kind of planetary relationship that gave rise to mathematical harmonies – the Music of the Spheres – determining the quality of life on Earth. He might chuckle gently if a viewer declared present the Eye of Providence, the all-seeing divine observer of the world. Perhaps he would nod patiently at the idea that the Orbs denote portals into a Universe Beyond or suggest primal mandalas representing the perfection and oneness basic to religions everywhere.

With the Orbs, however, Christensen amped up and concentrated many of his vanguard techniques, creating luminous planets of rich, pulsating solid color encircled by incandescent halos of tiny atomized droplets in contrasting chromatic hues. The series is made using the artist’s trademark “interference” paint, a special concoction that lends metallic or pearlescent shimmerance, making the globes appear to vibrate. In some of the works the spheres hover on grounds of solid color and in others they seem to lift off brushed fields. Surface and depth maintain a symbiotic interconnection.

Or maybe – very possibly – Christensen would be happy if we thought them just plain gorgeous.

In addition to illustrating many of the Post-Painterly innovations Christensen conceived in earlier periods, the Orbs series also demonstrates that the artist never abandoned expressive elements in

- Kenneth R. Marvel

Jacuzzi Blues, 1995, acrylic on canvas, 52” x 48”

Deja Two, 1995, acrylic on canvas, 65” x 52”

CV-2, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 56” x 44”

Oui Three, 1993, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 16”

Capistrano, 1993, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 16”

Deja Two, 1995, acrylic on canvas, 65” x 52”

Margaritaville, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 55” x 79”

Astrolabe, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 76” x 58”

Silver Surfer, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 39.75” x 55”

Merida, 1996, acrylic on canvas, 60” x 54”

Red Reign, 1996, acrylic on canvas, 12” x 16”

Rojo Loco, 1996, acrylic on canvas, 12” x 9”

Dan Christensen SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art Gallery, St. Joseph, MO Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL Blanton Museum of American Art, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX Boca Raton Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

2013

“Dan Christensen: The Orb Paintings,”

Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

2012-13

“Dan Christensen: The Early Sprays, 1967-1969”

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Spanierman Modern, New York, NY

Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC

2011

“Dan Christensen: Bars and Scrapes,”

Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY

“Dan Christensen: The Stain Paintings,”

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

Spanierman Modern, New York, NY

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,

“The Armory Show: Dan Christensen,”

Washington, D.C.

Spanierman Modern, New York, NY

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

2010

Elaine Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

The Jepson Center of Contemporary Art, Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA

2009

LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Spanierman Modern, New York, NY

Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, Switzerland

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Ludwig Collection in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany

2008

Elaine Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

2007

LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn University, Topeka, KS

Spanierman Gallery, East Hampton, NY

Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Spanierman Modern, New York, NY

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

2005

Skot Foreman Gallery, Atlanta, GA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

2004

Ed Thorp Gallery, New York, NY

Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA

2002-03

Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY

Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE

2001-02

The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX

1982-99

Salander O’Reilly Galleries, New York, NY

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

(and other numerous solo exhibitions at this gallery’s

Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

locations in New York and Beverly Hills)

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

1994

Gallery ISM, Seoul, Korea

Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA

1993

ACA Galleries, New York, NY

Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY

1987

Lincoln Center Gallery, New York, NY

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR

1978-84

Meredith Long and Company, Houston, TX

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

(solo exhibitions in New York and Houston)

Santa Barbara Museum of Modern Art, Santa Barbara, CA

1982

Ivory/Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

1980

University of Nebraska at Omaha Art Gallery, Omaha, NE

St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO

1969-76

Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

Watson/de Nagy Gallery, Houston, TX

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

1970, 1972 Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, GA

1969, 1971 Galerie Ricke, Cologne, Germany

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

1967

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Noah Goldowsky Gallery, New York, NY (Richard Bellamy, Curator)

Cameroun, 1994, acrylic on canvas, 38” x 54”