Cathy Nan Quinlan and Kurt Hoffman at Valentine

Cathy Nan Quinlan, Simple Still Life (2011)

James writes:

Valentine is an apartment gallery in the Ridgewood section of Queens, a vital little venue at the eastern edge of the arts wave that has washed over Williamsburg and now inundates Bushwick, Brooklyn. Fred Valentine, the gallery's owner, is a refugee from Williamsburg with an eye for off-the-grid art. His exhibition of still-life paintings by Cathy Nan Quinlan (b. 1953) and ink landscapes by Kurt Hoffman (b. 1957) demonstrates how alternative the alternative can be.

Cathy Nan Quinlan, Sunset (2011)

Ms. Quinlan starts with Giorgio Morandi's iconic etchings and recasts them in oil, painting her own hatch-marks. The work has an intimate, cool feel, with unexpected colors in place of Morandi's black and white. Ms. Quinlan once ran her own Williamsburg space called the "'temporary Museum" that, she writes on her website, prized the "compact, intense stillness" of oil on canvas.

Cathy Nan Quinlan, Optimism (2011)

At Valentine, her most intense statements are the ones that are the most compact and still, like "Optimism" (2011) and "Sunset" (2011).

Kurt Hoffman, Ramble, NYC, Jan 1, 2012 (2012)

Over the past decade Mr. Hoffman has gone from drawing lewd little pictures to serene large landscapes. Examples of both are now on view. In 2010 the Eastern tradition of ink brushed on paper compelled him to turn off the cartoons and head to Central Park to draw en plein air.

Kurt Hoffman, Japanese Maple (2010)

The resulting landscapes might border on chinoiserie, but the spare beauty of "Japanese Maple" (2010) rises above pastiche with its simple beauty.

Details:
Cathy Nan Quinlan and Kurt Hoffman
Valentine Gallery
464 Seneca Ave., Ridgewood, N.Y.
(718) 381-2962
Through June 24

--adapted from "Course of Nature and Faust," The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2012

A Guide to Bushwick Open Studios 2012

James writes:

If there was any doubt about the vitality of the outer-borough scene, just go to artsinbushwick.org and scan through the more than 500 venues now participating in Bushwick Open Studios, to take place June 1 through June 3.

This year BOS will include the neighborhood’s first art fair, cheekily called “Bushwick Basel” (with several participants from Ridgewood).

Here's also what I'm looking forward to:

• the final weekend for the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House installation.
• The shows at The Active Space. 
• The works of Dana Gordon (more here).
• My colleague Rebecca Litt
• The 1980s Bushwick photographer Meryl Meisler (whose work I first saw in Steve Malanga's history of Bushwick for City Journal)
• Cathy Nan Quinlan and Kurt Hoffman at Valentine Gallery (more here)
• Amy Lincoln and Kevin Curran
• Maps and Mimosas at Norte Maar
• Group painting organized by Julie Torres at The Coin Locker
• And a show at Sharon Butler’s studio honoring the blog Two Coats of Paint curated by Austin Thomas (whose pioneer Bushwick gallery Pocket Utopia has recently reopened on the Lower East Side).

Bushwick is the place to be for its sixth and biggest open studios this coming weekend. Visit artsinbushwick.org to make your own list.   

Deborah Brown, Freewheeling II (2012) at The Active Space

Meryl Meisler, Vanessa Mártir, Patricia O'Brien, Defying Devastation: Bushwick in the 80s, at The Living Gallery

Rebecca Litt, Elsewhere in the City (2011)

Dana Gordon, Untitled (2011)

Amy Lincoln, Breakfast Table

BOS2012 : Be sure to wear your walking shoes! Here's a map of the shows

 --adapted from "Gallery Chronicle," The New Criterion, June 2012

Ridgewood Comes into its Own

James writes:

History isn’t always so precise, but it’s possible to declare May 12 as the day when the arts of Queens came into its own. On that Sunday, the Queens Museum of Art organized what it promised would be a “historic art crawl” through an event called “Actually, It’s Ridgewood.”

The title was an amusing response—a declaration of independence aimed at Bushwick, Brooklyn, the neighborhood bordering Ridgewood that usually claims the Queens arts spaces as its own. The symbol for the event included a rendering of Arbitration Rock, the traditional border delineating the two boroughs, and included the motto “vere, Ridgewood est.”

Among the stopovers was the ersatz “Bushwick” gallery building 1717 Troutman, the influential galleries Valentine and Small Black Door, and the temporary sculpture garden, curated by Deborah Brown and Lesley Heller, now at the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, the oldest Dutch colonial building in New York City.

The event became the talk of Twitter and was a coup for the Queens Museum (the Brooklyn Museum, which must need a trail map whenever it steps off Eastern Parkway, was notably absent from the proceedings).

The crawl also showed how this neighborhood, once the bastard child of Bushwick, is coming into its own.

One Ridgewood show I am especially looking forward to it Cathy Nan Quinlan and Kurt Hoffman at Valentine Gallery, opening June 1. 

There's a gallery in there: Valentine Gallery (red brick building), 464 Seneca Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens 

Cathy Nan Quinlan, The Morandi Series: The Candy Dish (2010). 

Cathy Nan Quinlan, The Footed Bowl (2009)

--excerpted from Gallery Chronicle, The New Criterion, June 2012