Global InformationDavid Row information
David Row | |
|---|---|
 David Row at the opening of his 2018 solo exhibition Counter Clockwise at Loretta Howard Gallery | |
| Born | 1949 (age 74–75) Portland, Maine |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Yale University, Yale School of Art |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Contemporary Art, Abstract Art |
| Spouse | Kathleen Schenck Row |
David Row (born 1949) is a contemporary abstract painter associated with the movements of Postmodern Painting and Conceptual Abstraction.[1][2] His primary aesthetic has evolved around a language of painterly fragmented geometric abstraction that is usually formed on shaped canvases and installations.[3][4][5] Row lives and works in both New York City and Cushings Island, Maine.[6] He is married to former AIGA NY Board president Kathleen Schenck Row.[7]
- ^ Maine, Stephen (March 6, 2016). "Calisthenic Abstraction: Four Decades of David Row". artcritical.com. Art Critical. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
The work of New York painter David Row has been labeled 'conceptual abstraction' but the unabashed physicality of his work—of which 15 choice examples are on view at Loretta Howard Gallery—suggests 'calisthenic abstraction' as an equally apt designation. This exhibition's checklist spans the promised 40 years, from 1976 to the present, and every painting is as much a material presence as it is a pictorial conundrum.
- ^ Karmel, Pepe; Pissaro, Joachim (2012). "Conceptual Abstraction: October 5-November 10, 2012, Hunter College". Conceptual Abstraction. New York: Hunter College of the City of New York. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-9839261-6-0.
In November of 1991, the Sidney Janis Gallery opened the groundbreaking Conceptual Abstraction exhibition under the auspices of Carroll Janis, with the collaboration of the painter Valerie Jaudon who coined its title. This was, in effect, one of the last shows at a gallery long associated with the rise of post war art in New York. Founded in 1948 by the intrepid dealer Sidney Janis, the gallery played a major role in the development of Abstract Expressionism; in 1962, it showcased the first major Pop Art show, and by the nineties it had become synonymous with blue chip Modernism. Conceptual Abstraction, however, was a radical departure for a gallery better known for representing a roster of established artists that included such luminaries as Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, and Claes Oldenburg. Organized at a time when abstraction had fallen into disfavor, the original exhibition included a new generation of painters who strayed from modernist notions of non-figurative painting and instead built their abstracted visions on fresh aspects of a newly surfaced reality—be it decorative patterning, direct appropriation, geometric constructions, or language. This initiative by the Janis Gallery spurred a plethora of similar group exhibitions around the New York art world, serving as a lively platform for debate on the state of painting at the end of the twentieth century. Moreover, Conceptual Abstraction demonstrated that abstract painting remained a vital and progressive option for contemporary art, and it could be argued that the current renaissance of abstract painting began with this 1991 exhibition.
- ^ Corwin, William (October 2018). "David Row: Counter Clockwise". brooklynrail.org. The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
His fractured canvases, plywood assemblages, and faux-assemblages, are puzzles that question the act of puzzling—in this case the act of constructing an image from odd parts. What is wonderful about these works is how they don't need to follow through with what we've come to expect from a puzzle. While all the segments fit snugly together to form a variety of many-faceted irregular polygons, the surface imagery—loosely a thematic series of Xs and Os—does not usually add up to a contiguous whole. There are mismatched angular chunks interjecting into the curves of the Os and there are truncated and dismembered Xs.
- ^ Zinsser, John (October 1991), "Geometry and it's Discontents", Teme Celeste Art Magazine (32–33): 72–76,
Row's work plays off a viewer's pre-establishes expectations of what geometric paining should 'look like.' His recent show at John Good Gallery in New York was ambitiously conceived and executed, comprised of large scale works made up of multiple intersecting rectangular panels. Here Row's work shared an attitude with his antecedents Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella: the Abstract paintings can operate at a scale and with visual impact that relates them directly to the popular culture experience.
- ^ Brenson, Michael (March 15, 1991). "Reviews Art American Beauties, Images of Softness Rendered in Concrete". The New York Times. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
David Row John Good Gallery 532 Broadway (near Spring Street) Through March 23. David Row is trying to make abstract paintings that will have the sensuousness of, let's say, David Reed's work but also an even greater degree of self consciousness. In his new paintings the smallest is 77 by 76 inches, the largest, 91 by 164 inches Mr. Row works with matte surfaces and both muted and high-pitched colors. All the paintings consist of several canvases, each one a different size. In each, there are lines suggesting huge parabolas. Sometimes the sweeping curves continue from one canvas into the next. More often the effect is one of discontinuity and incompleteness. A fluid, even cosmic, movement seems well under way within a canvas yet already broken by the edge or by the different movement in an adjacent canvas. The discontinuity is reinforced by the textures, which seem like old walls whose paint has been scratched or has begun to peel away. The problem here is that the emotional needs and intellectual demands within these paintings work against each other, almost canceling each other out. These paintings will not discourage any one who believes Mr. Row is a painter to watch, but the conceptual, self-conscious side of the work clearly wins the day.
- ^ Beem, Edgar Allen (July 23, 2008). "Maine in the Abstract". newengland.com. New England Today Living. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
One of the artists I had in mind was David Row, a Portland native now working in New York. Row, who returns summers to Cushings Island in Portland Harbor, was a student of the geometric abstract painter Al Held at Yale and his own complex and elegant abstract paintings and prints speak a similar universal language of form with Row's own accent.
- ^ "Past AIGA NY Boards". aigany.org. AIGA NY. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
Kathleen Schenck Row, president