With an exhibition title that originated from the Wu-Tang Clan random name generator, it is only fitting that “Shady Beautiful,” art advisor Anna Hygelund’s premiere group show with New York’s Malin Gallery, would too bring together seemingly disparate subjects in a surprising yet elegant way. Featuring the work of 11 contemporary artists from abstract painters, sculptors and West Coast artists of the Light & Space movement of the 1960s, the show, which is on view through September 11, bridges a variety of artistic ideas and schools-of-thought, and in doing so, uncovers commonalities that draw a through line back to its title. Four thematic pillars unite the art: tension within the aesthetics of beauty, the use of chiaroscuro, the interplay between light and topography and the surprising creations of resplendence through acts of destruction or violence.
With over a decade of experience in the art world as an advisor and a graduate of Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and a career that began working across several sectors, Hygelund has built relationships with galleries, museums and auction houses. Her knowledge of the post-war and contemporary art markets informs exciting juxtapositions within “Shady Beautiful.”
Anna Hygelund.
The show’s standouts include Aaron Young’s large-scale abstraction where a motorcycle rider performs intricate choreography on painted brass; Larry Bell’s glass-incorporated paintings that focus on the experiential effects and alterations of light and shadow; Oliver Lee Jackson’s “Dark Illumination” paintings in which the artist explores a range of tones and textures of Black paint and Vaughn Davis Jr.’s sheath of unstretched canvas cut, ripped, frayed and soaked in pigment to reveal a dynamic abstraction.
The latter is one of the youngest artists in the show, but also the most challenging of the practice of painting itself. The St. Louis native artist’s work rests within the ambiguous space of painting and sculpture: he deconstructs canvases into the simplest forms and paints without using a brush. His focus on simplicity rebukes formalism and reframes the role of the art-maker.
Oakland-based painter and sculptor Oliver Lee Jackson, another native of St. Louis, employs a dark palate in his paintings to allow the viewer an experience in the subtle impact of incident light. Known for his richly layered images that incorporate figurative elements, his abstract fields present a deep appreciation of global art history. Jackson is an affiliate member of the Black Artists Group (BAG) which originated in St. Louis in the 1960s. Sustained viewing is deeply rewarding as the work shown in “Shady Beautiful,” Painting No. 12 (12.23.13), (2013), changes in light conditions and perspectives.
Installation view, “Shady Beautiful” at Malin Gallery. Works by Laddie John Dill and Aaron Young.
Meanwhile, in Impenetrable Room, (2016) a seminal work by the Chilean artist Iván Navarro, the viewer, too, stares into a dark abyss, though this is a one-way mirror surrounded by a square pattern of bright orange neon tube lights. The social context guiding Navarro’s work addresses the violence inflicted by the Chilean military dictatorship of Pinochet. Born in 1972 in capital city Santiago, Narravo experienced the country’s military regime and now uses light as his primary artistic medium to speak to humanitarian issues including capital punishment and torture, specifically in reference to the torture by electricity and loud music of prisoners who resisted the government. The detention center where these injustices occurred was ironically known as La Discotheque, which loosely translates to a dancehall or nightclub.
Through these striking, sensorial art experiences, “Shady Beautiful” sparks internal conversation. Hygelund’s unique curatorial premise brings together such monumental works to unexpected effects. Far more than just a dialogue about elements of light and shadow, this show asks the viewer to consider the ways in which we interpret beauty, violence and analyze our collective societies.
Installation view, “Shady Beautiful” at Malin Gallery. Works by Joseph Hart and Dorian Gaudin.
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
