Giuseppe Penone at Marian Goodman

Giuseppe Penone, Nel lengo (2008)

James writes:

Arte Povera was a reaction to the Italian economic miracle that followed World War II. Countering the industrialization of the 1950s and early '60s, Italian artists turned to "poor" materials and craft. The results took many forms, not all of them lasting, but Giuseppe Penone (b. 1947) has endured for his unique take on nature.

Raised on a family farm outside Turin, the home of both Fiat and Slow Food, Mr. Penone connects fingerprints, tree rings and marble veins in a sculptural riff on the parlor game "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." At Goodman are works from 1968 to the present: photographs; radiographs; vegetal pigment on canvas; grass juice on paper; acacia thorns on silk; and sculptures in wood, bronze and—whew!—white Carrara marble.

Giuseppe Penone, Propagazione (2011)

Mr. Penone starts with diverse materials and draws out their intrinsic similarities. In the spare "Propagazione" (2011), a fingerprint's swirls are extended by concentric ink lines to form a drawing, 13 feet across, that resembles the rings of a giant tree. The stagy "Tra…" (2008) is a bronze sculpture made to look like the broken halves of a tree trunk. The trunk splits at eye level, allowing just enough space to walk through. It's a long setup for a so-so punch line.

At left: Giuseppe Penone, Tra... (2008)

Far better is "Nel legno" (2008), where Mr. Penone carves around the growth rings of a milled block to reveal the remnants of the younger tree within—the process uncovering the true nature of the product.

Detail view: Giuseppe Penone, Nel lengo (2008)

Details:

Giuseppe Penone

Marian Goodman Gallery
24 W. 57th St., (212) 977-7160 Through June 16

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

Jan Müller at Lori Bookstein

Jan Müller, The Concert of Angels (1957, Oil on canvas, 56 1/2" x 148")

James writes:

In 1954, the 31-year-old painter Jan Müller (1922-1958) received a pacemaker, version 1.0, which kept him alive for a few desperate years and provided the drumbeat for his urgent artistic output. With a broken heart, he produced a heartbreaking series of paintings based on "Faust." Praised in their day, they are now largely, and sadly, forgotten. Lori Bookstein has brought them back for an exhibition that includes significant work from the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

Jan Müller, Walpurgisnacht—Faust I (1956, Oil on canvas, 68" x 119")

Mr. Müller's last museum retrospective took place in 1962 at the Guggenheim; his reconsideration is long overdue.

Born in Hamburg, Mr. Müller fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1941. From 1945 to 1950 he studied under Hans Hofmann, the godfather of New York School abstraction. But Mr. Müller soon synthesized the influences of German Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism, becoming one of the first Hofmann students to return to figuration.

Jan Müller, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1957, Oil on canvas, 80" x 121 1/2")

In "The Concert of Angels" (1957), more than 12 feet wide, white ghosts reach down from the canvas edge. A row of figures with terrifying faces sing. Despite the gothic subject matter, the paint handling and composition reveal a modernist sensibility.

The blocky figures are mosaics writ large; the angular spirits are brush strokes—Abstract Expressionism meets animus.

Mr. Müller energized his final paintings with a life that could survive even death.

Jan Müller, Untitled (Temptation of St Anthony) (c. 1957, Oil on board, 15 3/4" x 17 3/4")

Jan Müller at the opening of his solo exhibition at the Hansa Gallery Photograph by Robert Frank, 1957. Müller (facing the camera) is standing in front of his painting Faust, II. MoMA purchased the similar painting Faust, I from this exhibition for $1,500, at that time the Hansa’s largest sale. (from MOMA)

Details:
Faust and Other Tales: The Paintings of Jan Müller
Lori Bookstein Fine Art
138 10th Ave., (212) 750-0949
Through June 23

--Adapted from "Course of Nature and Faust," The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2012

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