Richard Serra

Born in 1939, Richard Serra is one of the most significant artists of his generation. His groundbreaking sculpture explores the exchange between artwork, site, and viewer. He has produced large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban, and landscape settings spanning the globe, from Iceland to New Zealand. Earlier this year, he conceived Promenade, a course of five steel sculptural elements towering seventeen meters, for MONUMENTA at the Grand Palais in Paris. In addition to the drawing retrospective "Work comes out of work" at the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2008), other recent projects include the eight-part permanent installation The Matter of Time at the Guggenheim Bilbao (2005) and "Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years" at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007).
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-serra/

RICHARD SERRA
Elevational Mass, 2006
Hot rolled steel
60 x 84 x 72 inches overall (152.4 x 213.4 x 182.9 cm)

Richard Serra, Vortex 2002

Robert Melee

David Kordansky Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Robert Melee. The exhibition opens on March 13 and runs through April 17, with an opening reception to be held on Saturday, March 13, from 6:00––9:00pm. Melee will show new works that transform elements of modernist and classical formalism into the building blocks for his own irreverent, kitsch-filled language.

Since the beginning of his career, Melee has sought to relocate the formal debates of the Western art historical tradition in the psychological realm of the suburban home. Whether he is honoring and disrupting the integrity of the picture plane, testing the limits of autobiographical reference, or telescoping Warhol’s pillage-and-burn regard for culture into an intricately-rendered personal iconography, Melee situates his practice in a place where high and low not only interact but cross-pollinate.

On view in the current exhibition will be examples of Melee’s beer bottle cap paintings, in which he builds up a sculpturally activated surface to skew, accentuate and/or undermine compositions (which sometimes include other found objects) and color relationships. These works arose out of a desire to return to the solitude of the studio; after working on short films exclusively for a period in the 1990s, Melee wanted to make physical works that would encompass, abstractly, some of the issues he had tackled in the films: class, obsessive behaviors, nostalgia, and humor. The use of beer bottle caps, found objects that accumulate as a result of drinking, becomes both a formal gesture and a sociological one. The beer bottle caps also lend an element of craft to the paintings, even as compositional strategies borrowed from mid-twentieth century Modernism are used to organize the works’ overt physicality. Melee’s paintings can also be seen as sites where urban and suburban attitudes enter into both conflict and collaboration.

Such conflation of high and low is not merely an end in itself, but awakens the mind and eye to the possibility of intense aesthetic potential in the suburban environment. In his sculptures, Melee often combines disparate found elements––audio speakers, mannequins, appliances, sections of wall––with painted plaster that appears to be draped like fabric. In some works the plaster elements take on a primary role, and even overtake the found objects altogether. Included in this group is a sculpture in which a mannequin is covered with plaster and paint; here the human form, and its psychological implications, can also be traced back to Melee’s earlier film works. Others pieces are wall-based, and seem to resemble sculptures of paintings, their plaster forms like lengths of canvas that have been bunched, rolled or pinned.

Melee’s formal experimentation finds its psychological analogues in the blurring of beauty and grotesquerie, nostalgia and critique. In so doing, Melee’s work suggests an underground or alternative narrative of how and why visual ideas develop; because Melee’s language draws in such a large part from the private realm of domestic environments, his work elicits emotional responses that are both uncannily familiar and disarmingly strange.

Robert Melee has exhibited internationally in wide range of public and private institutions. In 2008 the Public Art Fund organized an exhibition of his outdoor sculptures at City Hall Park in New York. He has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at White Cube, London; the Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington; the Milwaukee Art Museum; and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, among many other galleries and institutions. His work has been included in numerous group shows in recent years, including Bad Habits, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (2009); Wild Exaggeration: The Grotesque Body in Contemporary Art, Haifa Museum of Art (2009); Greater New York , P.S.1 Contemporary Art Museum (2005); Make It Now: New Sculpture in New York at Sculpture Center (2005); and Adaptive Behavior, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2004). He lives and works in New York City and New Jersey. (website: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2010/03/robert-melee-at-david-kordansky/).

Squat, 2010

Enamel paint on fiberglass

60 x 28 x 28in.

Her Chair, 2010

Enamel paint, plaster, fiberglass, on wood, metal, and plastic chair

48 x 63 x 28in

Phone, 2010

Enamel paint on fiberglass, imitation wood panel, and wood

46 x 22 x 9in.

His work using beer bottle caps:

Anti-Inter Shamelessness Substitution, 2008

Wood, stove, plaster, enamel, and beer bottle caps

89 1/2 x 32 x 50in.

Multi Disco Sectionalism Stella Substitution, 2010

Beer bottle caps, plaster, enamel paint on wood

73 x 51in.

Michael Alfano

Michael Alfano has been sculpting figures, monuments, and philosophical pieces for over fifteen years. He first studied at the Art Students League of New Yorkwith an emphasis on life size sculpture and anatomy. His formal education continued at Boston University, and was augmented by internships with several prominent sculptors. He continues his training with master classes, and occassionally teaches sculpture. Michael exhibits his work at galleries and other public venues, and he is a regular entrant in art shows, where he has garnered over 50 awards. His sculptures are found in private collections throughout the world. Monuments and other public art he's created are on permanent display in the United States. Newspapers, magazines, books, and television have featured Michael and his work. "The best art engages, generates discussion, and brings about change. My art compels viewers to experience, think, and understand life more fully." Michael Alfano is known for creating figurative and surrealistic sculpture that goes beyond the literal, adapting the figure to convey philosophical ideas and abstract concepts. He cites his major influences as Salvador Dali, Jo Davidson, and Jean-Antione Houdon, as well as Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi, and other eastern philosophy and literature. "When I dig into the clay, I pull out a vision that previously existed nowhere but inside my head, or some other place I don't know but am in touch with." Sometimes Michael sketches his ideas on paper, but most often sculpts a small model in clay or wax. He typically uses water-based clay to create the full-size sculpture. This can take anywhere from a few days to many months. Then he works with specialists to make a mold and create castings in cold cast copper, resin, or bronze. After casting a piece, Michael finishes and signs it, numbering the limited editions. "While there are various meanings to all of my sculptures, once a viewer sees it, they add their own equally valid interpretation. It's enriching and  when we discuss my artwork." http://www.malfano.com/artist.html

Marcia Spivak

A sculptor of metal horses, Marcia has worked at her art for more than a decade. She grew up in a Midwest equestrian culture, grooming, training and riding horses since early childhood. Her intimate knowledge of the conformation, performance and allure of horses translates seamlessly into authentic sculptural renderings. Though fabricated of found sheet steel scrap, Marcia’s sculpture is seemingly weightless. Often mounted on wood, steel and stone bases, her pieces range from tabletop size to larger than life. In the equestrian community, her works rank among the country’s best. Ms. Spivak creates her work in and around her studio in Wilton, CT.

Awards

1st Prize, Sculpture, Spectrum Show, New Canaan Society for the Arts, Juried Exhibition - 2009

1st Prize, Sculpture, Silvermine Galleries, 18th Annual Juried Student Exhibition - 2008

Honorable Mention, Sculpture, Silvermine Galleries, 13th Annual Juried Student Exhibition - 2003

Education

Sculpting, Silvermine School of Art, New Canaan, CT
Sculpting, Sculpture Barn, New Fairfield, CT
Monotypes, Pratt Institute of Art, NYC
Monotypes, Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, CT
BA, Communications Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison

(http://marciaspivak.artspan.com/index.php)


"Rearing Horse"
welded steel vinebar

"Grazing Horse"
Found steel, first exhibited Silvermine Guild June 2006

"Howl"
Found steel and wire steel vine bar

Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle was born in 1930 in France and died in 2002. She began producing her first paintings in 1950. This led to assemblages in plaster and her "shooting paintings". These pictures were plaster with containers of paint beneath the surface which would explode when she shot them with a firearm. More sculptural assemblages followed and in 1965, de Saint Phalle created her first "Nana". These large, voluptuous and brightly painted female figures were made originally in papier mache and later in polyester.

De Saint Phalle has designed stage sets and costumes, created movies, graphic work, chairs and a sculptural playground. One of her large works includes a giant Nana that can be entered by walking through the vagina. In addition, she and her son produced a book for children about AIDS and she has her own perfume.

A part of her most ambitious work is pictured here, the Tarot Garden, a sculpture park in Tuscany. The Wheel of Fortune in the water was created by her husband, Jean Tinguely. The Tarot Garden features mirrors, glass and ceramic mosaics. De Saint Phalle had never used these materials before and they show the influence that the architect Antonio Gaudi had on her work. This park contains Nana-like figures as well as the "skinnies" which proceeded them. You can see a skinny in the water in the photo here, the blue figure with an open wirey structure. Serpents, fountains and sculptures you can walk into are often a part of her work. They appear here on a grand scale. There is a fun, theme park quality to the place with its bright colors and sensual rounded forms covered with elaborate surface designs. A relationship to "outsider " art can be seen in this playful portrayal of the arcana of the Tarot deck.
http://www.oneroom.org/sculptors/desaintphalle.html

Marc Andre Robinson

Marc Andre Robinson works in sculpture, drawing, video and interactive public projects that revolve around a psychology of historical, cultural and familial belonging. Playing with the dialogue between art and artifact, he collects discarded furniture and transforms it into sculptural assemblages with complex and delicately balanced symbology. Robinson’s drawings are often marked by meticulous patterning and repetition, while his public projects have involved creating catalysts for members of the community to voice their historical reflections.

Born in Los Angeles, Robinson earned a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program and was artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The Rocktower in Kingston Jamaica. Robinson has exhibited extensively in the US and abroad at venues including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; the Contemporary Museum of Baltimore and the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. His work has been featured in Art Forum, Art News, Paris Vogue, New York Times and other international publications. Robinson was recently awarded an Art Matters grant to travel to South Africa in 2010 and has upcoming exhibitions in New York City, Long Island, Baltimore and Philadelphia. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

http://www.marcandrerobinson.com/marc_andre_robinson_web_site/Bio.html

Nairy Baghramian

Born in 1971, the Iranian artist relocated to Germany in her teens. Now based in Berlin, Baghramian is a rising figure among a younger generation of artists, like Paulina Olowska and last year's Turner prize nominee Goshka Macuga, who are reinterpreting art history on their own terms. An earlier work like Fourth Wall, Two Female Protagonists, for example, was a minimal piece of stage set: rectangular metal frames that conjured the invisible wall between performer and viewer.

Though her work frequently alludes to furniture and domestic spaces, Baghramian is more interested in the secret histories that exist behind closed doors. In the 1930s and 1940s, interior design was a haven for women like Janette Laverrière, or the gay Jewish modernist designer Jean Michel Frank, ostracised from the boy's club that was architecture. In 2007, she actually tracked down the now 100-year-old Laverrière, inviting her to collaborate on a project for the Berlin Biennial. A highlight of the event, it put both women firmly on the international art map and marked the beginning of a series of joint projects that have continued to this day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/09/artist-nairy-baghramian


Deserted Frame

Janette Laverrière / Nairy Baghramian / Carlo Mollino, Entre deux actes II (Loge des Comédiennes), reconstruction of the installation 'Entre deux actes'

Class Reunion