Norbert Schwontkowski Exhibition
Mitchell-Innes & Nash (534 W 26th St.)
This event has ended.
Poetic, atmospheric, and loosely narrative, Schwontkowski's new paintings depict the artist and his world in a way that is at once cartoonish and melancholy: a curvilinear building in "Musée des Arts" playfully references contemporary museum architecture while seeming to come to life. In "Artist," a Chaplinesque creature made of collaged black and white orbs dances before a curtain created by a swath of red paint. Many of the paintings allude to electrical charges: another reference to the artistic process, as "spark" is a metaphor for creation.
The title of the show is taken from the name of physicist Anders Jonas Ångström, after whom a unit of measurement for light waves was named. The name can also be read as a pun on both the German words "angst" and "flow [electricity]".
Schwontkowski's paintings are made with hand-ground pigments and paints, into which he mixes various materials to yield different textures. His palette of pale earth tones, blacks and grays creates a muted, subdued atmosphere, while his carefully worked surfaces and minimal gestures demonstrate his engagement with the history of painting.
[Image: Norbert Schwontkowski "Artist" (2009) Oil and photo copy on canvas, 39 1/3 x 31 1/2 in.]
Media
Schedule
from November 19, 2009 to January 09, 2010
Opening Reception on 2009-11-19 from 18:00 to 20:00