György Kepes/ Cameron Martin

GYÖRGY KEPES/ CAMERON MARTIN November 21, 2019 – January 18, 2020

GYÖRGY KEPES/ CAMERON MARTIN November 21, 2019 – January 18, 2020

SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO.

530 WEST 22ND STREET NEW YORK, NY 10011 TEL 212 929 2262 WWW.SIKKEMAJENKINSCO.COM

Designer and art theorist György Kepes was primarily concerned with the production of light as the integral conduit of visual information. Kepes considered light the “life-giving basis for any existence” and sought to integrate applied science and photographic technology into Modernist design practices. Eschewing the use of a camera, Kepes’ “photogenics” were developed by arranging and exposing a variety of everyday objects—including leaves, stones and fragments of newspapers— upon photographic paper. By directly manipulating the nuanced interplay of light and shadow, Kepes emphasized the photographic potential to generate new, distinct spaces of visual perception beyond the lens of a camera.

In conversation with György Kepes’ photograms are a series of non-objective paintings by Cameron Martin. Martin’s recent paintings share an experimental approach with Kepes’ photographs, and represent a turn in his work from the layered monochromatic landscapes of his early career.

Overlapping and undulating transparencies, patterns and geometries are meticulously applied to the canvas using techniques that complicate the distinction between the handmade and the mechanical, and at times flirt with representation. Utilizing a vivid chromatic palette, Martin’s dynamic paintings occupy a new hybrid visual system, negotiating methodical and improvisational approaches to composition while applying contemporary strategies of image generation.

From different historical vantage points, the works of György Kepes and Cameron Martin contemplate the generative potential of light, even in its non-representational forms. While Kepes’ images were born from a subversive manipulation of photographic light, Martin’s paintings contend with the ubiquity of the light produced by LCD displays. Exhibiting Kepes’ and Martin’s work in tandem reflects on the possibilities and implications of image-making, from the Modernist movement of the early twentieth century to our deeply digitized present.

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Throughout his life as an artist and theoretician, light was fundamental for György Kepes. In The Language of Vision, his book of visual analysis originally published in 1944 and still in circulation today, he wrote, “Without light, there is no vision, and without vision there can be no visible space.

Space in a visual sense is light space.” While his orientation towards the primacy of visuality was typical of the European modernist milieu he came out of, Kepes goes on to write that “Light is the lifegiving basic energy for any existence.” an indication that beyond its ability to illuminate and allow for perception, for Kepes light held properties essential to being itself.

Distinguishing himself from his mentor Moholy-Nagy, who popularized the term “photogram” for his cameraless images, Kepes borrowed from Henry Fox Talbot and called his own photographic works “photogenics.” This designation emphasizes the production of light rather than its use as a tool to write or draw with, and represents an aspect of Kepes’ thinking I find particularly relevant to and even prescient of our current moment. Moving away from a romantic notion of “capturing” light and instead focusing on its propagation strikes a resonant chord for me at this tech-saturated juncture in history, in which the production of light is so intimately interwoven with the dominant modes of information and image exchange.

The light of Kepes’ time is of course different from our own. In my work I am contending with the light of the LCD screen, whereas Kepes was dealing with the incandescent light of the black and white dark room. What’s more, we approach those respective lights with distinct dispositions. In his recent book, György Kepes, Undreaming the Bauhaus, John R. Bollinger draws a portrait of Kepes as unswervingly technophilic, dedicated to the belief that a merger between art and applied science was the path to an advanced new form of cultural production. My relationship to technology is much more conflicted. While I use technology in the making of my work (in large part because I am motivated to produce paintings that reflect our current moment), I am quite skeptical of the promises of our technocratic present. Whereas Kepes was convinced of technology’s ability to take us “forward,” I am interested in the friction between a reluctant acceptance of certain interfaces as being unavoidably representative of how we currently consume aesthetic input and the necessity to maintain a critical stance towards them despite their ubiquity.

These distinctions are at least partially endemic to the times in which our work was produced, and despite them I feel a strong affinity with the experimental aspect of Kepes’ photographic practice, not to mention its inscrutability. We share a compositional sensibility, as well as a drive to combine the aleatory with predetermination, a desire for chance to play a role within a system of control. These are just a few of the ways Kepes’ photogenics from the 1940’s resonate not just with my work but also with a more expansive sense of now. I am extremely pleased that this exhibition allows for our work to be shown side by side, and the dialogue that might be generated by that juxtaposition.

—Cameron Martin

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GyÜrgy Kepes was born in 1906, in Selyp, Hungary, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. In 1930, Kepes moved to Berlin and studied design and film under Laszlo MoholyNagy before immigrating to the United States in 1937. He taught at the New Bauhaus at The School of Design in Chicago, and Brooklyn College, before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). Kepes served as the Director of CAVS until his retirement and 1974, and was the only visual artist of MIT’s faculty to have been awarded the rank of MIT Institute Professor. Kepes passed away on December 29, 2001, in Cambridge, MA. Cameron Martin (b. 1970, Seattle, WA) received his BA from Brown University (1994) and continued his studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program (1996). He has exhibited at venues including the Whitney Museum, St Louis Art Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, City Gallery (Wellington, New Zealand), and Tel Aviv Museum. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum, Albright-Knox Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Saint Louis Art Museum, among others. Martin is recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2010), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship (2008), and the Artists at Giverny Fellowship and Residency (2001). Martin is Co-Chair of the Painting Department at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Untitled, 1940 Photogenic 4.125 x 6.125 inches (10.5 x 15.6 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Untitled, 1981 Photogenic 19 x 15.125 inches (48.3 x 38.4 cm)

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Cameron Martin Schematic, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 40 inches (127 x 101.6 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Queer Structures, 1946 Photogenic 9.5 x 7.5 inches (24.1 x 19.1 cm)

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Cameron Martin Eidolon, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)

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Cameron Martin Motile, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Untitled, n.d.

Photogenic 19 x 15.125 inches (48.3 x 38.4 cm)

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Cameron Martin Draft, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 66 x 53 inches (167.6 x 134.6 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Untitled, 1941 Photogenic 6.5 x 4.375 inches (16.5 x 11.1 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes No title, 1979 Photogenic 19 x 15.125 inches (48.3 x 38.4 cm)

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Cameron Martin Signals, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 55 x 44 inches (139.7 x 111.8 cm)

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Cameron Martin Margin, 2019 Acrylic on linen 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

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Gyรถrgy Kepes Labyrinth and Crystals, 1977 Photogenic 18.625 x 14.75 inches (47.3 x 37.5 cm)

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Cameron Martin Reflex, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

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GYÖRGY KEPES Born 1906, in Lorinci, Hungary, artist György Kepes studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Originally trained in impressionist styles he soon felt attracted to the abstract visual language of the avant-garde and expressed a keen interest in the technological potential to depict the visible world, in particular the effects of light. Kepes became interested in filmmaking and the visual representation of motion. At the invitation of fellow Hungarian, the Bauhaus professor László MoholyNagy, he moved to Berlin in 1930 and then followed Moholy-Nagy’s call to teach at the New Bauhaus and the School of Design in Chicago.

While teaching at Brooklyn College, Kepes published the Language of Vision in 1944, which set out his theories on the impact of the “new” technologies of photography, cinema, and television on visual culture.

In 1947, Kepes accepted an invitation to teach from School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he edited and published the influential seven-volume Vision and Value series in 1965-66. In 1967 he founded MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), a laboratory for interdisciplinary art practice and artistic research and the first one of its kind. Kepes is the only visual artist of MIT’s faculty to have been awarded the rank of MIT Institute Professor and taught there until his retirement in 1974.

Throughout his life, Kepes continued to paint, while at the same time exploring different techniques, such as double exposure, photograms and “photo-drawings” as new ways to use light. A common avant-garde technique, the photogram, is a photographic image exposed by placing objects directly onto the surface of the photosensitive material, without the use of a camera. In contrast to the impressionist perception where things shimmer under the influence of changing illumination, photograms are true manifestations of light. The combination of ephemeral phenomena with geometric structures is an integral part of his work.

Honors received by Kepes include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958 and the Medal of Honor from the Republic of Hungary in 1996. Kepes passed away in 2001, in Cambridge, MA.

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CAMERON MARTIN

Born 1970 Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

EDUCATION

1996 Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York, NY 1994 Brown University, Providence, RI, BA

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2019

2018 2017

2016

2014 2012 2011 2009 2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

Gyรถrgy Kepes/Cameron Martin, Sikkema Jenkins and Co., New York, NY Signals, M+B, Los Angeles, CA New Congress, James Fuentes Gallery, New York, NY Abstracts, University Art Museum, SUNY Albany, Albany, NY (catalogue) Reticulations, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY (catalogue) New Work, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA Cameron Martin/Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska (project room), Salzburg, Austria Cameron Martin, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg, Austria Bracket, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) Ski Dubai, The Suburban, Oak Park, IL Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg, Austria Eclipse, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) Eclipse, Eleven Rivington, New York, NY Focus 3: Cameron Martin, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK Currents 97: Cameron Martin, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO Works on Paper, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) Law of Ruins, G Fine Art, Washington D.C. A Turn Pale, Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan (catalogue) Clear Skies, Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY Never Rider, Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan Standstill, Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) New Paintings, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL Cameron Martin/Scott Reeder, Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, TX Future Views, Tate, New York, NY The Future Lasts Forever, Howard House, Seattle, WA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019

2018

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Friends and Family, Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena, CA, curated by Keith Mayerson 20 by 20, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA Notebook, 56 Henry, New York, NY, curated by Joanne Greenbaum 4 x 4, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA Gaze, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY

Formal Matters, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA 2017 Collect, Soloway, Brooklyn, NY

When We Were Young: Rethinking Abstraction From the University at Albany Art Collections

(1967-present), Univeristy Art Museum, SUNY Alabany, Albany, NY 2016 Utopia Banished, Angela Meleca Gallery, Columbus, OH

Foundation Barbin Presents: Redux (Sort of), Kai Matsumiya Gallery, New York, NY 2015 sorry, i’ve been trying to teach peacock how to act, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY

Heaven and Earth, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

Influence, Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY

Exquisite (with Amy Sillman and Henry Chapman), LABspace, Hillsdale, NY 2014 Fixing a Hole, Koenig and Clinton, New York, NY

Delusion/Illusion, Galleri Haaken, Oslo, Norway

monochromatic, Triumph and Disaster, Montgomery, AL 2013 White House, Galerie Clemens Gunzer, Zurich, Switzerland

Decade One: Highpoint Editions, Sherman Gallery, Boston University, Boston, MA

How You Gonna Get Back to Jersey?, Planthouse, New York, NY

Black Rabbit, White Hole, Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2012 25 Years of Tandem Press, Chazen Museum, Madison, WI (catalogue) 2011 Mythos Berg, RLB Kunstbruecke, Innsbruck, Austria

Highpoint Editions- Decade One, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

After Destiny: The Contemporary American Landscape, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC, curated

by Greg Lindquist (catalogue)

Make Skateboards, I-20 Gallery, New York, NY

Waiting Ground, Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Heather Rowe and Tommy White (catalogue)

Reclaimed: Nature and Place Through Contemporary Eyes, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

Accrochage, Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg, Austria

Surveyor, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2010 Art on Paper Biennial, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC

roundabout, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand; traveling to: the Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel (catalogue)

Force of Nature, The Horticultural Society of New York, New York, NY

Grass Grows by Itself, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Sima Familant

Guatavita, Eleven Rivington, New York, NY

Swell: Art 1950-2010, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY 2009 Media Int’l Group, Foundation Barbin, New York, NY

Uncharted, University at Albany Art Museum, Albany, NY

Infinitesimal Eternity: Images Made in the Face of Spectacle, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (catalogue)

Untitled (A Brink of Infinity), Western Bridge, Seattle, WA 2008 Gray, Dinter Fine Art, New York, NY

Water, G Fine Art, Washington, DC

The Group Exhibition, Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan 2007 In Monet’s Garden, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; traveling to: Musée Marmottan,

Paris, France (catalogue) 55

2007 Back to Nature, Galerie Ruzicska, Salzburg, Austria

Neointegrity, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY

Microwave 5, JosĂŠe Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY

Shipworm and Gribble, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY

Back East, Mandrake, Los Angeles, CA

New Prints 2007/Spring, International Print Center New York, New York, NY

Melvins, Mandrake, Los Angeles, CA

Water, Ferragamo Gallery, New York, NY 2006 Ruth Root, Alex Brown, Cameron Martin, Sally Ross, Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan

Pop and After, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO

Tandem Press Highlights 1995-2005, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI

Selections from the John Morrissey Collection, Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach, FL (catalogue) 2005 Structure, Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York, NY

No Facsimile, Florescent Gallery, Knoxville, TN

Terra non Forma, Howard House Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA

Short Stories: Contemporary Selections, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA 2004 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (catalogue)

Wayne Gonzales, Bill Adams, Cameron Martin, KS Art, New York, NY

Stay Inside, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Colored Pencil, KS Art, New York, NY

New Prints 2004/Winter, International Print Center New York, New York, NY 2003 Giverny, Salon 94, New York, NY

Nature Boy, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, NY curated by Doug Wada

Melvins, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Bob Nickas

How Come, Stux Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Max Henry

City Mouse/Country Mouse, Space 101, Brooklyn, NY, curated by David Hunt 2002 Contemporary Art Project Collection, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (catalogue)

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL

Painting and Illustration, Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles, CA,

curated by Adam Ross

Linger, Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY

The Sea, the Sea, Glen Horowitz Bookseller, East Hampton, NY

Guide to Trust No. 2, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, curated by ANP (catalogue), 2001 Three Painters: Eva Lundsager, Cameron Martin, Louise Belcourt, Lawrence Rubin Greenberg

Van Doren Fine Art, New York, NY 2000 Twice Born: Beauty, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA

3ness, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, curated by Dike Blair, Jimi Dams and

Edith Doove (catalogue)

Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape, Henry Art Gallery,

Seattle, WA, (catalogue)

Flat File, Bellwether Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 1999 Other Paintings, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA, curated by Julie Joyce 56

Another Country, Lawrence Rubin Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art/Brent Sikkema, New York, NY

Air Hockey, Howard House, Seattle, WA

Antiworld, Gallery Untitled, Dallas, TX 1998 Open, Tate, New York, NY

Landscapes, Meyerson Nowinski Gallery, Seattle, WA 1997 Apartments, Artra, Milan, Italy 1996 1996A, Holly Solomon Gallery, New York, NY

Images Lost and Found, Chassie Post Gallery, New York, NY 1995 Northwest Annual, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA 1994 Home, The Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA

COLLECTIONS

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA University Art Museum, SUNY Albany, Albany, NY University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI U.S. State Department Art Bank Program, Washington, DC Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

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SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO.

530 WEST 22ND STREET NEW YORK, NY 10011 TEL 212 929 2262 WWW.SIKKEMAJENKINSCO.COM