-Review by Matt Mulholland

Thanks to his unmistakable, comic-book-style dot paintings, Roy Lichtenstein has long been revered as a cornerstone of Pop Art. While his signature, brightly colored works might be his most celebrated, The Morgan Library has traced the roots of the icon’s Ben-day dot style back to his black-and-white drawings in an outstanding new exhibition titled Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968. Assembling over fifty drawings, shown together for the very first time, The Morgan explores the artists’ lesser known, yet historic works.

By 1960 Lichtenstein was a mid-career artist already showing his Cubist and Abstract-Expressionist works in New York galleries. Inspired by contemporaries including Claes Oldenburg and George Segal, Lichtenstein abandoned his former precepts and radically shifted his focus to imagery from popular culture and techniques that mirrored those used in commercial graphics. The drawings on display at The Morgan are the first instances where Lichtenstein appropriated images of pop culture such as his now famous comic book strip excerpts, instruction manuals, and singular everyday objects such as a cup of coffee or a couch.

In addition to the drawings, The Morgan Library also built a separate room to house a very special work created by Lichtenstein– a full-sized three-dimensional door, a representation of one of his own black-and-white drawings. The piece is the only surviving element from an obscure exhibition in 1967, where Lichtenstein used black tape on white walls to create a life-like extension of his work. Unpublished photographs of the whole Lichtenstein room adorn the Morgan’s tailored display.

One particular highlight of the Morgan’s show is its examination of Lichtenstein’s drawing processes. Because Lichtenstein’s execution is as interesting as the finished products themselves, the artist proves to be the perfect subject for such a study. The Morgan devotes plenty of space for visitors to learn about Lichtenstein’s tricks of the trade: There is giant display showing the many objects the artist utilized to produce his drawings– compasses, enormous window screenings varying in size and shape, mail-order catalogs, as well as comic strips depicting war and romance. In examining his transformation into a lion of the Pop Art movement, the viewer also explores his journey through different tools, techniques and subjects.

Visitors also have an opportunity to examine Lichtenstein’s masterful, precise imitations of commercial prints. His earliest drawings are profoundly simple; they depict a typical solitary object against a stark black background. As Lichtenstein refined his approach to mimic the products of mechanical Ben-day dot printing, his subjects grew more and more complex. Later examples include a pilot and an airplane’s cockpit, the geometric sole of a pair of Keds, and a pensive woman staring out her window.

Lichtenstein’s progression from experimentation to eventual perfection is undeniable. Essentially he succeeded in creating an original piece of art that masqueraded as a copy. Paradoxically, by imitating mechanical printing processes, Lichtenstein formed his own signature style, producing his greatest contributions to the medium of drawing and the Pop Art movement.

Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968
Through 1/2/2011
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street
New York, NY 100016
www.themorgan.org
Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961–1968 is underwritten by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

*above:Roy Lichtenstein. I Know How You Must Feel, Brad!. 1963. Graphite pencil, pochoir and lithographic rubbing crayon. 30 x 22 ¼ in. (76.2 x 56.5 cm). Private Collection. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photography: Schecter Lee, 2009.

above: Roy Lichtenstein, Knock Knock, 1961. Brush, pen and india ink. 22 ½ x 20 in. (57.2 x 50.8 cm). The Sonnabend Collection. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

*above: Roy Lichtenstein. Him, 1964. Graphite pencil, pochoir and lithographic rubbing crayon. 21 5/8 x 17 in. (54.9 x 43 cm). Saint Louis Art Museum, Eliza. McMillan Trust and Friends Fund 138:1972. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

*above: Roy Lichtenstein. Baked Potato, 1962. Brush and india ink and synthetic polymer paint. 22 3/8 x 30 1/8 in. (56.8 x 76.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
(by exchange). 385.1984. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art
Resource, NY / The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

*All images courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum. All images © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

Now showing at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum:
Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)

“I was out walking the dear dog and I saw 500 things that made me want to make art.”
- Maira Kalman

The first major museum retrospective of award-winning illustrator, author and designer Maira Kalman is open now at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum. Perhaps best known for her covers and drawings for The New Yorker, Kalman’s art characteristically shines a joyful, insightful, and often humorous light on contemporary life. The New York-based, Tel Aviv-born artist has written and illustrated over a dozen books for children and adults, authored two celebrated illustrated blogs for The New York Times, and collaborated with the likes of fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi and choreographer Mark Morris.

The exhibition, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, features a selection of 100 original works on paper that span thirty years of illustration for publication as well as less widely seen works in photography, embroidery, textiles, and performance.

The works on view – from preliminary sketches to paintings – are hung as a running narrative of personal memories, cultural references, life’s abundant pleasures and distractions, and the chaos of profound events – all rendered in Kalman’s now signature blend of written text and drawings and infused with her keen sense of the absurd.

“I think everything I do is narrative,” Kalman says. “It’s things that are from my life, and things I’ve seen, and things I’ve seen in books. It’s always telling stories.” She goes on, “As an artist, I’m reporting the big things and the small things. And sometimes you don’t know which is which.”

Describing the inspiration behind her work – her curious nature and daily observation – Kalman says: “Being curious is a completely natural part of it, and being a busybody, and wanting to know what people are doing, and why, and how it works. And why are you wearing those shoes? And what’s that hole puncher for? The nature of curiosity is both about how people live their lives and about the bigger picture of how the world works.”

Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) runs through October 26th.

above: Maira Kalman, Crosstown Boogie Woogie, 1995, gouache on paper, 15 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York.

*above: Maira Kalman, Keep Calm, 2007, gouache on paper, 11 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches. Collection of Barbara Becker and Chad Gallant.

above: Maira Kalman, Woman with Face Net, 2000, gouache on paper, 17 x 14 3/4 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York.

above: Maira Kalman, Man Dances on Salt, 2007, gouache on paper, 9 x 7 3/4 inches. Collection of Tom and Claire O’Connor.

above: Maira Kalman, Self-Portrait (with Pete), 2004–5, gouache on paper, 16 x 15 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York.

above: portrait of Maira Kalman, courtesy of Rick Meyerowitz.

*Images courtesy of The Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Asia Society Presents
“Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya”
Now through August 15, 2010
-By Matt Mulholland

Since the first recorded expedition to reach the summit of Everest in 1921, less than 3,000 individuals have reached the apex of the world’s highest peak. David Breashears has been to the top of Everest and back five times. During those five ascensions, spanning 1981 through 2004 , the world renown mountaineer and documentarian noticed much warmer temperatures and thinning ice at high altitudes.

Three years after his last ascent, Breashears was approached by Frontline producer Martin Smith. Smith was producing a special on global warming, and was in search of photographs demonstrating the effects of global warming on the Himalayas, the home of the fourteen highest peaks on earth. Breashears knew of an 80-year old photo taken by George Mallory, the leader of the first Everest expedition.

Motivated by his firsthand exposure to climate change on Everest, Breashears decided to reproduce Mallory’s photo, shooting exactly where Mallory had 80 years before. The difference between the two images shocked the veteran alpinist, and inspired his photographic call to arms: the “Glacier Research Imaging Project” (GRIP). The fruit of GRIP is a series of startling images, “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya,” now showing at New York City’s Asia Society.

For this dramatic series of juxtapositions, Breashears revisited the sites seen in photos by respected mountain photographers taken over the last century. Breashears has precisely recaptured images produced decades earlier, demonstrating the dramatic impact global warming has had on these areas. Notably, Breashears’ photos are not only demonstrative of substantial change, they are beautifully composed.

There are also three videos – two poignantly narrated pieces and one that takes the viewer on a virtual tour of where the Himalayas are located. These videos are a must-see if the viewer wishes to fully understand the magnitude of the change illustrated in the photographs. What might appear simply as a small, newly exposed rock face, for example, is actually the result of a 400-foot wall of snow and ice melting away. The scope is impossible to determine simply from staring at the images; thus the Asia Society provides illustrations to establish the colossal scale.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, spells out the dire meaning behind the melting glacial ice:

“Many of the Greater Himalaya’s glaciers are in China, and the rivers that flow out these mountains and from these frozen reservoirs will help determine the fates of people from Afghanistan to the North China Plain. What the world chooses to do about climate change, will determine the fates of these glaciers and these peoples.”

The melt from these glaciers, the world’s largest sub-polar ice reserves, supply critical water flow to the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow, Brahmaputra and several other rivers. Hundreds of millions of people depend on these rivers to live. At this current melt rate, many of the Himalayan glaciers will be severely depleted in less than fifty years. Lonnie Thompson, paleoclimatologist and Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University states:

“The glacier is a wonderful archive and you can take it to any goverment, you can take it the U.S. Senate; no one yet has come up with a political agenda the glacier might have to be behaving like it is, except the climate of the planet is changing.”

David Breashears has witnessed a harrowing change in these mountains and succeeded in illustrating the destruction caused by climate change in his dramatic comparisons. With “Rivers of Ice,” he has demonstrated the irreversible loss of hundreds of feet of ice. Breashears has been to the top and back, and guided others to the pinnacle of the world. But the greatest endeavor for Breashears remains – convincing people to do something about climate change.

Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya
Now through August 15, 2010 at Asia Society Museum
725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York, NY

Story and photos by Matt Mulholland.

This summer, London’s Somerset House is proud to host Maison Martin Margiela ’20’ The Exhibition; a major exhibition celebrating 20 years of one of contemporary fashion’s most influential and enigmatic designers.

Young as its history is, no other fashion house has had quite the same impact on our understanding of fashion and its relationship to history, craft, commerce and innovation. 20 years on, Maison Martin Margiela’s radical questioning and rethinking of what fashion is, how we clothe the body and ideals of human beauty, is still as groundbreaking as ever. This multi-layered exhibition captures Margiela’s one-of-a-kind aesthetic and vision spanning the past two decades, by incorporating installations, photography, video and film.

The show provides an opportunity to learn more about the brand and its philosophy through a visual examination of themes that underpin the essence of the fashion house since its creation – from its deconstructivist, subversive design aesthetic and avant-garde couture to its understated branding, unusual boutique interiors and ‘trompe-l’oeil’ or optical illusion and its couture atelier white coats. Various iconic pieces from both the women and menswear collections will be on display, such as the highly replicated ‘Tabi’ boots, as well as specially recreated garments for the exhibition.

Conceived in close collaboration with Maison Martin Margiela and curated by the Mode Museum, Antwerp, the show makes its London debut where it will be specially reconfigured for the Embankment Galleries, following critical acclaim at the MoMu, Antwerp and Haus der Kunst, Munich last year.

A graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Martin Margiela formerly worked as design assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier before showing his first collection under his own label in 1988. Employing a ‘deconstructivist’ approach – monochromatic palette, outsized garments, non-traditional fabrics, the use of recycled materials and exposing the construction of his clothes – Margiela displayed a radically new visual language that diametrically opposed the power dressing of the 1980s. Often referred to as the seventh member of the “Antwerp Six,” Margiela early on decided to let his fashion speak for itself and remain anonymous. As a result, Margiela as a brand is driven by product and sheer invention rather than fad, hype and celebrity often linked to other fashion labels.

Visitor details below. And if you’d like an abbreviated walk-through of the exhibit, take a look at Somerset House’s video below!

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA ‘20’ THE EXHIBITION
Now through September 5th
An exhibition at Somerset House, London:
Somerset House Embankment Galleries, Stand, London, WC2R 1LA
Open daily 10.00 to 18.00.
Tickets: Adult £6, Concessions £5, Under 12s Free
For further information, call 020 7845 4600

*Images courtesy of Somerset House.

Now showing at Jen Bekman Gallery: “…Practice…,” photographer Gregory Krum‘s first NY solo show, explores the concept of art making, and the ways in which truth is derived simply by virtue of belief. Krum – also the retail director of the shop at Cooper-Hewitt Museum – offers three series of photographs for his debut show, titled after Gerhard Richter’s book, “The Daily Practice of Painting,” in which the author states, “Art is the highest form of hope.”

In line with Richter’s words, the three series are based on one simple but potent sentiment: Here is to all the unprovable truths, bravely fueled solely by belief.

Series include:
*Devotion to an endeavor. Manifested as images from the climbers’ cemetery in Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn, images of dust and sand whose form is stolen from pictures I love or react to, i.e. Vija Celmins or Thomas Struth. Portraits of houseplants made with a cell phone camera, and in the case of ‘Cherifa Tree’ whose form is stolen from Brice Marden and whose content is stolen from the tree through which Jane Bowles’ lover, Cherifa, controlled her.

*Interiors that explore objects as containers of meaning, the meaning we place in them, and the extent to which all man-made objects are an act of communication

*Devotional offerings…the daily practice.

The 24 small photographs – pinned in a grid to the wall by the artist – that depict devotional offerings made by Krum in varying states of decay may be the most engaging. The repetition of these sculptural objects mimics the daily rituals that become symbols of belief. The artist’s daily compulsion to create is rooted in the same faith that inspires the spiritual to practice these rituals.

…Practice…
Photographs by Gregory Krum
On display at Jen Bekman through June 27th.

Images below…

*above: Zermatt (I Chose to Climb)

*above: Krum’s Dust No 65

*above: Untitled Mantle

*above: Offering 46

*above: Offering 66

*above: Offering 79

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212.219.0166

*Images courtesy of Gregory Krum.

Opening today at Boston’s Howard Yezerski Gallery, the exhibit “Better Not Tell You Now” presents new paintings and works on paper by Emily Eveleth. Revealing intimate scenes with figures, childhood objects and un-peopled spaces, Eveleth pays particular attention to the placement of figures and objects within their environment, creating poignant tableaux of an event that has perhaps just occurred or is about to occur.

Through tight cropping (reminiscent of cinematic close-ups), we catch glimpses of dramatically lit lone figures, hands, and familiar childhood toys, drawing our attention as they recede in and out of darkness. In several of the images we see the hands of a lone adult figure playing out a curious game of magic eight-ball.

By not giving any details as to surroundings, time, or place, the images remain anonymous; yet, the close-up nature of the scenes in these works creates a feeling of intimacy, as if the viewer has stepped into a private moment.

The exhibit runs through May 26th.

Howard Yezerski Gallery
460 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
(617) 262-0550

*above: Chew Toy 3, 2010, graphite and alkyd on mylar, 8 x 10″

*above: Hands with 8 Ball, 2010, oil on board , 5″ x 10″

*above: Hands with Dice, 2010, graphite and alkyd on mylar, 8″ x 11 1/2″

*above: Shepherdess, 2010, graphite and alkyd on mylar, 9″ x 8″

*above: Waiting, 2010, graphite and alkyd on mylar, 7″ x 9 1/2″

above: Dinosaur by the Window, 2010, graphite and alkyd on mylar, 7″ x 10″

*Images courtesy of the gallery.

Just four month shy of his PhD in genetic engineering, New Yorker Christopher Griffith gave it all up to take up photography. Then he spent eight years in Europe working for Arena, Wallpaper, and the international editions of Vogue and Elle. Upon returning to the U.S., Griffith spent four months on the road photographing “States.”

He assembled a crew to travel the sideways and byways of a forgotten America to shoot everyday, utilitarian things found dotting the contemporary landscape. Searching out abandoned gas stations, remote industrial plants, budget motels, strip mall car lots, utility fields, roadside ditches, and even graveyards, Griffith and his team constructed huge backdrops around each painstakingly selected specimen, creating stark, decontexturalized and utterly magnificent renderings of the myriad of things we see and forget without noticing. The resulting series is a dramatic reinterpretation of American iconography.

“States” is on display at Randall Scott Gallery through May 22nd. A book signing event for Griffith’s books “States,” “Blown,” and “Fall” will take place May 15th from 1pm to 3 during the NY Photo Festival.

Randall Scott Gallery
111 Front Street, #204
Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.randallscottgallery.com

*above: Truck Stop Sign, Route 235, Blufton, Ohio, 1998/99.
66×42” edition of 3 Archival Ink on Hahnemuhle

*above: Eisenhower’s Airforce One, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tuscon, Arizona, 1998/99. 97×62”” edition of 1 Archival Ink on Hahnemuhle

*above: Defunct Oil Refinery, Shell Oil, Odessa, Texas, 1998/99. 66×42” edition of 3 Archival Ink on Hahnemuhle

*above: Car Recycling. Silver Dollar Recycling, North las Vegas, Nevada. Archival Pigment on Hahnemuhle Paper. 62×97″ edition of 1; 66×42″ edition of 3; 32×50″ edition of 7; 20×31″ edition of 10.

*above: Car Dealer Flags, 1998/1999. Astro Car Dealership, Gulfport, Mississippi. Archival Ink on Hahnemuhle Paper. 62×97″ edition of 1; 66×42″ edition of 3; 32×50″ edition of 7; 20×31″ edition of 10.

*above: Street Lights. Bridge City, Texas. Archival Pigment on Hahnemuhle Paper. 62×78″” edition of 1; 42×53″ edition of 3; 32×40″” edition of 7; 25×20″ edition of 10

*above: Cadillac Ranch, 1998/1999. Interstate 40, Amarillo, Texas.Archival Pigment on Hahnemuhle Paper. 62×78″ edition of 1; 53×42″ edition of 3; 40×30″ edition of 7; 25×20″ edition of 10.

*Images courtesy of Randall Scott Gallery.

A major new installation opens this weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. New York-based artist Emilie Clark‘s “My Garden Pets” – a series of fluid watercolor and graphite amalgamations of flora and fauna – explores the work of 19th-century American naturalist (and Darwin collaborator) Mary Treat. Specifically, they address the concept of ‘the beneficial insect,’ depicting acts which often go unseen by the human eye – a microscopic war between plants and insects.

Explaining the inspiration behind her work, Clark says, “When I first began using Victorian women naturalists as the point of departure for my art in 2003, I discovered an unanticipated freedom. By inserting myself into the dynamics of the work of these historical naturalists and into the worlds opened up by their lives and practices, I was able to live more fully in my own constructed world of art making – a world that, like theirs, emerges out of close observation of ambiguous objects and feeds off the constant flux between categories generated by that observation. Spores, pollen, egg sacks, hives–nature is filled with tiny worlds that are at once contained and whole and yet built or woven out of infinite parts. The role of a naturalist involves the investigation of these parts, the dismantling and the reconstruction of them.”

To create the series, Clark spent four months on site at the Garden as its first artist-in-residence, researching in its libraries and talking to BBG horticulturalists, scientists, and other staff members. Her project combines works on paper in which galls, thorns, canes, beetles, aphids, nematodes, leaves and pods flow in and out of each other, in accumulation and transformation, with an audio piece drawn from the extensive correspondences between Treat and Charles Darwin and Asa Gray. In the tradition of the natural history museum, display cases will contain a variety of plant specimens sent by Treat to Harvard University, facsimiles of original correspondence, and the artist’s mapping of her process. A Victorian terrarium and armchair will complete the installation.

The exhibition title refers to a treatise on beneficial insects penned by Treat in 1887, describing a kind of unwitting cross-species collaboration, when insects help plants survive the attacks of their predators. “’My Garden Pets’ links Treat’s specific expertise in beneficial insects to the larger institution of the scientific correspondence, exploring the ways in which Treat herself might have performed something like the role of the beneficial insect for her famous male colleagues, “ says Clark.

Asked to further describe the impact of the era’s gender divide on Treat’s work, Clark explains: “Perhaps the most emblematic example of the gender divide for women professionals during the Victorian era was that Treat was commissioned by the Brooklyn Ethical Association to write an obituary tribute to Asa Gray. Her obituary was published, but because women were not allowed to be members of the association, it was presented by a man.”

She goes on, “During Treat’s life, it was extremely difficult for a woman to pursue an academic career, say in the way that Asa Gray had. The first public university to admit women was not opened until 1884. There were only a few co-ed private colleges and a hand full of women’s colleges. Even so, women who did go to college were generally taught home economics. Treat had no formal education. Asa Gray and Charles Darwin both had received formal education and Gray remained tied to an academic position for the duration of his career. In Gray’s case, the academic affiliation afforded him all sorts of perks—libraries, research funds and assistants, academic publishing, lectures and colleagues. Darwin was independently wealthy so he was not dependent on academic affiliation. Still, his relationship to his professors at Cambridge, in addition to his class position, played a key role in every opportunity—from being invited on the Voyage of the Beagle to publishing, organization affiliations and his ability to acquire specimens.”

“Mary Treat was entirely self-taught and dependent on income from her publishing. She collected numerous specimens for Gray and Darwin, but was only given postage for her efforts. She writes in a letter to Darwin:

‘Dr. Gray asked me to publish the Sarracenia article in the American Naturalist, and you may wonder at my selecting a literary magazine rather than a scientific one, but I am wholly dependent upon my own exertions, and must go where they pay best.’

“So just as beneficial insects can help deter injurious ones, allowing plants to thrive, Treat’s extensive research and specimen collection for Asa Gray and Charles Darwin, contributed to the advancement of their theories, their knowledge, and their recognition—she helped them to thrive.”

“My Garden Pets” runs March 6th – May 23rd, and is part of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s 100th anniversary celebration. For more information, visit www.bbg.org.

Located at:
Steinhardt Conservancy Gallery,
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Admission to the exhibition is free with admission to BBG: $8 for adults and $4 for senior citizens (65 and older) and students with ID. Children under 12, all school groups, and Garden members are admitted free at all times.

*Images: (from top) “Untitled, BBG-6 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-1 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-3 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-4 from My Garden Pets,” and “Untitled, BBG-2 from My Garden Pets.” All 2009. All watercolor, ink and graphite on paper, measuring 22″x15″.
All images courtesy of the artist, Emilie Clark.

Opening tonight, the Brucennial 2010: Miseducation is adding some genuine excitement to the 2010 Whitney Biennial festivities.

Organized by the five anonymous players behind the artist collective Bruce High Quality Foundation and 23-year-old Vito Schnabel (the son of artist Julian Schnabel), Brucennial 2010 supposedly “brings together 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 discrete disciplines.”

Known for witty and playful institutional critiques – their motto is “Professional problems. Amateur solutions.” – the group’s new show is getting a ton of hype. The results remain to be seen, but we do know one of ArtSlope’s favorites will be participating in the show: artist Mark Joshua Epstein.

Check it for yourself starting tomorrow at:

-350 W Broadway through April 12th and at
- Recess (41 Grand Street) through March 20th

*Images from Epstein‘s latest series, “Preserved Disaster,” which will be on display during the Brucennial. 16 x 20″, Oil on panel. Courtesy of the artist.

New York-based artist Palden Weinreb’s first solo show – This World is Flat – is on view now at London’s Rossi & Rossi. A Tibetan-American, Weinreb traveled to Tibet in 2006 to reconnect with his heritage, an experience that resonates in his current work. His new show includes elegant works on paper, mixed media prints, and new media wall sculpture created by the twenty-something artist (b. 1982) over the last two years.

Heavily influenced by Buddhist practices as a result of his Tibetan heritage, Weinreb often recites a mantra while acting on what he describes as a “shamanistic compulsion to create meticulous hand drawn lines.” These lines are incredibly precise – remarkably, they’re created without guidelines. For the series This World is Flat, planes created by fields of successive lines are dissected by thin angles, curves of negative space and varying line weights to create subtle, multidimensional forms.

Above: “Astral Redux” (2009), a recent foray into new media, in which Weinreb employs laser-cut lines to create a sunburst pattern over a brilliant white LED lightbox.

ArtSlope had the opportunity to interview Weinreb on the eve of his new show…

How do you feel about your first solo show? What have you learned from the experience so far?
I feel lucky. There are too many talented artist who do not have opportunities to exhibit. Having said that, you really need to be hungry for success as well, and know where you work is at. Anyway, I have never been so stressed out about a deadline! However, I am better for it. The pressure forces you to approach production in a more serious manner. Friends, family, my girlfriend – I barely saw any for a time. “Welcome to a life as a shut in” I thought. I learned to keep to schedule and constantly reassess what was possible within the given the time frame. Negotiating what I wanted with what was realistic changed weekly. I would try to anticipate as many problems as possible in order to avoid them… though I’ve learned you can never plan for everything. What I’ve really learned is the extensive preparation and execution it takes to make a truly substantial body of work.

What themes or emotions are you trying to express through your artwork?
Well, it varies from piece to piece. Overall, I try to create what I would describe as a contemplative, escapist visual experience – one in which the viewer is entranced to challenge preconceived notions of the illusions that surround us all. I like the idea of alluding to the fact that there may be an otherworldly code or system that exists on a universal scale. I attempt to deconstruct the illusions to the bare bones of their structure, hopefully exposing their falsity and interconnectedness.

Above: The “Oblivion” triptych (2009), in which off-centered concentric rings are created through thousands of lines broken by spiraling curves of negative space, creates a sense of motion.

Can you explain the relationship or balance between negative space and varying line weights?
It defines the dialogue of absence and presence that is central to my work. Pushing the negative space to point where it is just as evident as the marks of graphite challenges a viewer’s preconceived notions of space. I try to conceive compositions where the negative space becomes positive and backgrounds become indistinguishable from foregrounds. This is key.

Above: “Genesis” 2008, graphite and encaustic on paper and panel board

How do see your own evolution as an artist up to this point? What are your hopes for the future?
I’ve become more focused in defining my voice. With a strong understanding of this voice I am able to diverge in other directions while still staying connected to my work as a whole. There is a self-imposed pressure to challenge myself that will always result in an evolution of my work. Stagnancy is an artist’s worst enemy. Getting better at problem solving is always important, and it is important to know what you want. It is also important to know when “what you want” is not necessarily a good thing. Being able to see potential, no matter how slight, is crucial to inspiration. For the future, I can really only hope for continued support and success, as I know that sustaining a career in the arts is just as difficult as establishing one. I will always be just getting to that next step.

This World is Flat runs through March 18th at Rossi & Rossi.
16 Cliffor Street, London