What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week
The New York TimesMartha Schwendener, Jason Farago, Will Heinrich and Jillian Steinhauer
June 20, 2018
Extract: 'Beyond the Veil’
Through July 8. Olsen Gruin, 30 Orchard St., Manhattan; 646-613-7011, olsengruin.com
Who gets to narrate history? Who gets to represent whom? These questions have been roiling the American art world lately, but they are nothing new in Australia — especially in regard to its indigenous population, who faced official efforts to erase their culture well into the 20th century through forced assimilation. Visual art has provided a crucial tool to help redress these erasures, and at this New York outpost of a Sydney gallery, the paintings by five women from central Australia, and one collaborative group, testify to the vibrancy of Aboriginal Australian art and the necessity of speaking for yourself.
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Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
The Approval Matrix
New York MagazineJune 2018
The Approval Matrix - Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies...
BRILLIANT - The breathtaking small survey of Aboriginal art "Beyond the Veil" at Olsen Gruin gallery.
Related exhibition
Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
Beyond the Veil at Olsen Gruin
Arte FuseJonathan Goodman
9 June 2018
So, there is something that holds true in a show like this, which presupposes a different way of looking at society because of the long reach of the West's current obsession with money. Clearly, affluence is not a major interest of the women in this show, who live in the central desert of Australia and who work on paintings that, despite their abstraction, remain close to their lives. This is a different cry by far from the recent dot paintings of Damien Hirst, whose probable appropriation-we are not certain this is true-looks like very much like the theft of a venerable art coming from a culture some 100,000 years old. Hirst's borrowings do tend to look facile in light of the greater gravitas of the indigenous women's works, which can be understood by Western viewers-albeit on a level likely more superficial than the paintings themselves. In any case, the controversy raises real issues about the appropriation of other cultures-a hallmark of Western art practice since the beginnings of modernism, when Picasso made use of African masks for his work Les demoiselles d'Avignon.
BEYOND THE VEIL CURATED BY ADAM KNIGHT
May 16 ?? July 8, 2018
OLSEN GRUIN NY
-Jonathan Goodman
Related exhibition
Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
Three Sentence Reviews of Marlene Dumas, Dan Colen, and 11 Other Art-World Big Shots
Vulture.comJerry Saltz
May 31, 2018
To coincide with several big art fairs and last week’s massive auctions, many larger galleries mounted shows of their bigger artists. So let’s read the tea leaves on the upper end of the food chain.
Extract:
Beyond the Veil
Curated by Adam Knight
Olsen Gruin
No doubt many of the bigwigs in town for all the art stars, megagalleries and super-auctions, missed maybe the best secret show in New York at the moment, this six-artist exhibition of Australian Aboriginal women painters curated by the president of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia — a show that gives us a breathtaking small survey of what critic Robert Hughes (who in almost every case except this I disagreed with) called “the last great art movement of the twentieth century.”
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Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
Beyond The Veil at Olsen Gruin, New York
Blouin ArtInfoMay 29, 2018
Olsen Gruin is currently hosting a group exhibition titled "Beyond The Veil."
Until July 8, 2018, Olsen Gruin will host an exhibition that celebrates Aboriginal Australian artistic practices. ??Beyond the Veil? features a group of contemporary Australian artists. It has been made possible by the gallery??s collaboration with the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia. The group show will be on view at the gallery??s New York venue.
This group exhibition of Central Desert Paintings has been curated by the President of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia, Adam Knight. The anticipated show features select works by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Evelyn Pultara, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Gayla Pwerle, Polly Ngale, and the Women??s Collaborative comprising Beverly Cameron, Kathy Marinkga, Imitjala Curley, and Tjangili George.
Featured: Untitled 1993 Emily Kame Kngwarreye Synthetic polymer paints on Belgian linen 23.6 x 35 inches (59.9 x 88.9 cm)
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Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
Beyond the Veil
www.artweek.comEmerald Gruin
13 May 2018
Olsen Gruin is pleased to present Beyond the Veil, a group exhibition of Central Desert Paintings curated by the President of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia, Adam Knight. The anticipated show features select works by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Evelyn Pultara, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Gayla Pwerle, Polly Ngale, and the Women’s Collaborative comprising Beverly Cameron; Kathy Marinkga, Imitjala Curley, and Tjangili George, and will be on view from May 16 – July 8, 2018.
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Beyond The Veil curated by Adam Knight
Beyond the Veil x Adam Knight
the360mag.com7 May 2018
Olsen Gruin is pleased to present Beyond the Veil, a group exhibition of
Western Desert Paintings curated by the President of the Aboriginal Art
Association of Australia, Adam Knight.
The anticipated show features
select works by Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Evelyn Pultara, Gabriella Possum
Nungurrayi, Gayla Pwerle, Polly Ngale, and the Women's Collaborative
comprising Beverly Cameron; Kathy Marinkga, Imitjala Curley, and
Tjangili George, and will be on view from May 16 - July 8, 2018.
Did Damien Hirst Rip Off Aboriginal Australian Artists's Work?
Frieze.comApril 3, 2018
Australian artists and dealers claim ??uncanny?? similarities between Hirst??s ??Veil Paintings?? and landscapes of the late Emily Kame Kngwarrey.
Damien Hirst??s ??Veil Paintings?? works ?? recently on show at Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles (ranging from USD$500,000 to $1.7 million) ?? have come under fire for their similarity to the work of female Aboriginal artists, including Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who died in 1996.
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SHARING COUNTRY curated by Adam Knight
Stephen Ormandy Only Dancing
SURFACE MAGAZINE Weekend Cheat SheetSurface Editors
March 5
Stephen Ormandy “Only Dancing”
Olsen Gruin
OPENS: March 7
The Lower East Side gallery presents a collection of new abstract oil on linen paintings and resin sculptures by Australian artist Stephen Ormandy, co-founder/creative designer of Dinosaur Designs.
Related exhibition
Stephen Ormandy Only Dancing
ANNA-WILLI HIGHFIELD | OLSEN GRUIN
http://www.dartmagazine.com/Christopher Hart Chambers
February 2018
Christopher Hart Chambers reviews Anna-Willi Highfield‘s exhibition Spirit Faces at Olsen Gruin Gallery in New York City.
Up front by the gallery's storefront window on the Orchange Street strip on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which is now perhaps the premier location for current fine art, stands a construction of sheet brass shards, with straight, think brass rods projecting outwards in all directions, extending like rays of light or exclamation points.
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Anna-Wili Highfield Spirit Faces
Spirit Faces: Anna-Wili Highfield's First Show at Olsen Gruin Gallery NYC
Yellowtrace (www.yellowtrace.com.au)19 February 2018
After a 10-plus year hiatus, Australian artist Anna-Wili Highfield has
returned with a collection of mixed media sculptures. Titled ‘Spirit
Faces’, the sculptures are currently being shown at Olsen Gallery’s New
York City outpost, Olsen Gruin.
The show is Anna’s first fully
conceived body of work in over a decade and follows on from the
gallery’s calendar of other strong shows representing some pretty
excellent Australian artists: Stephen Ormandy, George Byrne, Leila
Jeffreys, and the super cool TV Moore.
Related exhibition
Anna-Wili Highfield Spirit Faces
Anna-Wili Highfield: Spirit Faces at Olsen Gruin Gallery
Arts Summary - A Visual JournalFebruary 1, 2018
"Olsen Gruin is pleased to present Spirit Faces, an installational exhibition of new sculptures by Australian artist Anna-Wili Highfield (b. 1980, Sydney). Highfield's first fully conceived body of work in a decade, Spirit Faces gathers a celebratory mélange of animals, body parts, and self-portraits. Virtuosic and playful, Highfield's mixed media sculptures reach new heights of exuberance and material imagination.
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Anna-Wili Highfield Spirit Faces
Anna-Wili Highfield's Spirit Faces
www.gessato.comFebruary 1, 2018
A selection of thought-provoking, mixed media sculptures.
After the clean and minimal photographs of sunny LA which provided a vibrant glimpse into the urban landscape of California, New York-based gallery Olsen Gruin presents the work of a strikingly different artist. Anna-Wili Highfield‘s Spirit Faces exhibition features mixed media sculptures that create an intriguing collection. Made of a blend of glamorous materials, brass, and spray painting finishes, the intricate artworks draw the viewer closer. Animals and body parts combine in carefully shaped sculptures that often remind of a self-portrait.
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Anna-Wili Highfield Spirit Faces
'Jens Einhorn: Raw Vision' at Olsen Gruin, New York
Blouinartinfo.comBlouinartinfo
January 30, 2018
Olsen Gruin is currently hosting a solo exhibition by Jens Einhorn, titled "Raw Vision."
The exhibition presents a collection of new collage-paintings by the German artist. Einhorn's body of work reveals his interest in channeling the assertive energy of the urban periphery. His new works incorporate shapes cut from tarpaper, layered starkly above a vibrant collage of fabric, acrylic, and spray paint. Similar to how associating our personal memories gives meaning to others' discarded objects, Einhorn's collages are full of suggestion and opportunity.
Born in 1980, Jens Einhorn graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as a Master Student with Professor Tal R. The artist currently lives and works in Berlin.
The exhibition will be on view through February 5, 2018 at Olsen Gruin, 30 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002, USA.
Related exhibition
Jens Einhorn Raw Vision
Butt Naked Salon: art, music and nudity collide in deeply moving performance
www.theguardian.comClarissa Sebag-Montefiore
December 1, 2017
A string quartet plays and a nude model poses as an artist paints the walls, in an ephemeral happening in Sydney inspired by the Parisian Belle Époque
_View article at www.theguardian.com
an Jones – the artist, not the shock jock – squeezes paint out of a tube, mixes it with water, and lifts a fat, unwieldy brush to the wall. We are in Potts Point, Sydney, and Jones is making a mural inside the hallowed Yellow House.
He is not alone. Generating music that feeds his rhythm is a live quartet; watching him is a small audience; and, arched over a black plinth, long dark hair cascading down her bare back, is a naked muse.
I am at the opening night of the Sydney Art Quartet’s Butt Naked Salon II, a re-working of the same concept first launched last year, inspired by the salons in the Belle Époque period in Paris.
Image: ‘The night is a blank canvas – anything can go,’ says artist Alan Jones. Photograph: Barnaby Wilshier
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Alan Jones Butt Naked
The rebirth of coo: reconsidering the pigeon - in pictures
www.theguardian.com26 October 2017
Australian photographer Leila Jeffreys focuses on diversity within bird species, and these wildly colourful portraits belie the lowly reputation of the pigeon.
Nicobar Pigeon These striking portraits of the pigeons and doves of New Guinea and Australia form part of Leila Jeffreys’ current exhibition, Ornithurae Volume 1, at Olsen Gruin, New York, until 12 November. The captions below are from an accompanying essay, Reconsider the Pigeon, by biologist Tim Low. All photographs: Leila Jeffreys
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Leila Jeffreys Ornithurae Volume 1
Leila Jeffreys - Ornithurae
the360mag.com11 October 2017
OLSEN GRUIN is pleased to present “Ornithurae” a new selection of work by the Australian artist, photographer and environmentalist Leila Jeffreys.
Jeffreys has photographed native birds in her home country and the US (she was personally invited to shoot at Ojai Raptor Center, a sanctuary for wounded birds in California). Her unique work has featured everything from budgies to eagles; wrens to pigeons; cockatoos to hawks.
Olsen Gruin and Brooke Shields invite you to the opening of
LEILA JEFFREYS
ORNITHURAE VOLUME 1
Opening: Friday 13 October, 5–8pm
Exhibition continues until 12th November
Related exhibition
Leila Jeffreys Ornithurae Volume 1
George Byrnes New Order Photographs Idealize LA Light
Observer.comAlina Cohen
September 13, 2017
The clean lines and colorful, minimal shapes in George Byrne’s photographs belie the busy, messy time in Los Angeles that led to their making. The Australian-born Byrne arrived in the city in 2010, after years of traveling. “I was personally in a very strange place when I got here,” he says. “No idea what I was doing with my life.”
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George Byrne New Order
Art Talk | George Byrnes
My Design AlleyHande Renshaw
Sep 13, 2017
_View article at My Design Alley
George Byrne's photographic work makes my heart skip a beat. Using the urban Los Angeles landscape as his canvas, George captures forms and colour into unique compositions so they have an incredible alchemy and depth. His latest exhibition, NEW ORDER, includes twelve new works, capturing new compositions of color and geometric forms on the streets of LA - once again taking the ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary.
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George Byrne New Order
Art Talk | Stephen Ormandy
My Design AlleyHande Renshaw
Sep 9, 2017
Stephen Ormandy has a way with colour. His bold and graphic paintings are strongly influenced by the natural world with a focus on colour and organic forms. His large scale oil paintings and cultural work are a synergy of line, shape and surface all working beautifully in harmony. For Stephen, colour is ''pure joy'' and his latest exhibition at the Olsen Gruin gallery is no exception.
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Stephen Ormandy