OVERPAPER

O V E R PA P E R Carmon Colangelo William Conger Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Beverly Fishman Joan Hall Ann Hamilton Kelley Johnson Chris Kahler Matthew Penkala Judy Pfaff Paul Henry Ramirez Buzz Spector

bruno david gallery

OVERPAPER Carmon Colangelo, William Conger, Alex Couwenberg, Jill Downen, Yvette Drury Dubinsky, Beverly Fishman, Joan Hall, Ann Hamilton, Kelley Johnson, Chris Kahler, Matthew Penkala, Judy Pfaff, Paul Henry Ramirez, Buzz Spector

November 12, 2010 - January 15, 2011 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition OVERPAPER. Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yoko Kiyoi Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and the Artists.

Cover image: Ann Hamilton, Carriage (detail), 2009.

Slices of paperback books, cheese cloth, string and mixed media 13-3/4 x 4 x 2-1/2 inches (34.93 x 10.16 x 6.35 cm) Edition of 15 Copyright Š 2010-11 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

CONTENTS

Essay by Buzz Spector Afterword by Bruno L. David Checklist of the Exhibition

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Essay by Buzz Spector Foolscap, onionskin, papyrus, confetti; paper comes with many names; card, cardboard, poster board, museum board; and its qualities inform both major and minor arts; origami, decoupage, the rubbings of gravestones, or papier mâché. Pulp paper isn’t pulp fiction, and letterhead comes without letter feet, although footnotes may leave tracks at the bottoms of letters. Tracking a paper tiger isn’t risky business, and a paper cut may bleed but it’s never fatal. Paper pushing is work, but works on paper can be playful. Paper comes together in bundles, piles, and pages. Pages are leafs, and reading is to take leave of page after page. Paper is thin, paper is flat, paper is fibrous, flimsy, foldable, recyclable and, on occasion, burnable. It is the preeminent material of artistic reverie, whether in words, notes, or pigments, and if computer screens now take up space in more artist studios, putting anything to paper still implies that it will last, that something is a work of art at last.

Those who suffer over what to put onto paper have much to say about the experience: William Wordsworth urges us to fill our papers with the breathings of our hearts; Alberto Giacometti compares the trace of his pencil on paper to the flailing of a person groping in the dark; Paul Klee, more confident, calls a drawing “a line going for a walk,” but on what kind of paper does that line mark its path? Denise Levertov writes, “Let me walk through the fields of paper/ touching with my wand/ dry stems and stunted/ butterflies . . . .” John Ashbery saw this vista as well, “To get to other places you found/ It all on paper but the land/ Was made of paper processed/ To look like ferns, mud or other . . .” and Thomas Kovachevich placed little squares, triangles, and circles of paper onto pieces of cloth floating in shallow pans of water. Osmosis made those papers dance, curling and writhing, as they absorbed the water vapor rising through the fabric.

Paper as membrane, paper as garland, as bracken, kitchen midden, shingled roof, or mastaba. Paper as schema, paper as atmosphere, as

mise-en-scène. At Bulstrode, in Buckinghamshire, Mary Delany made cut flowers out of colored paper in the 1770s, these so realistic as to fool the casual viewer, some 140 years before collage was “invented” by Picasso. The exhibition that gives this musing its title can be seen as a survey of a material terrain. It is incomplete, in the way that a map is not the territory, but the evocations here include the topographical among others. Paper as the site/space/means of artistic invention.

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Afterword by Bruno L. David

I am pleased to present a group exhibition entitled OVERPAPER, a selection of works on, or of, paper by artists including Carmon Colangelo, William Conger, Alex Couwenberg, Jill Downen, Yvette Drury Dubinsky, Beverly Fishman, Joan Hall, Ann Hamilton, Kelley Johnson, Chris Kahler, Matthew Penkala, Judy Pfaff, Paul Henry Ramirez, and Buzz Spector.

Paper has long been the starting point for conceptions by artists, who worked out their ideas on paper before moving them to other mediums. Now the idea on paper often becomes the art, and this exhibition surveys artists using paper both as the template for creative thinking and as a material base for new artistic forms.

Since the founding of the Bruno David Gallery in 1985, the core mission has been to support the creation of significant new works of art.

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Checklist & Images of the Exhibition

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ANN HAMILTON Carriage, 2009 Slices of paperback books, cheese cloth, string and mixed media 13-3/4 x 4 x 2-1/2 inches (34.93 x 10.16 x 6.35 cm) Edition of 15 6

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MATHEW PENKALA Number and Location, 2010 Dry pigment on paper 20 x 24 inches (50.80 x 60.96 cm) 8

YVETTE DRURY DUBINSKY The Red Line/After J.S., 2010 Mixed media on paper 75 x 33 x 20 inches (190.50 x 83.82 x 50.80 cm) 9

ALEX COUWENBERG Untitled, 2010 Acrylic, mixed media on Mylar 12-1/2 x 17-1/2 inches (59.69 x 44.45 cm) 10

PAUL HENRY RAMIREZ ELASTIC (1), 2010 Acrylic and flashe on paper 25 x 23 inches (63.50 x 58.42 cm) 11

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BUZZ SPECTOR MENSEM, 1989 Red encaustic on 30 sketch books 54 x 47 x 3 inches (137.16 x 119.38 x 7.62 cm) 13

WILLIAM CONGER

(left) Untitled (# 45), 2010 Gouache on paper 5-1/2 x 4-1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43 cm) 14

(right) Untitled (# 48), 2010 Gouache on paper 7-3/4 x 4 inches (19.685 x 10.16 cm)

(left) Untitled (# 46), 2010

Gouache on paper 5-1/2 x 4-1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43 cm)

(right) Untitled (# 47), 2010

Gouache on paper 7-3/4 x 4 inches (19.70 x 10.16 cm) 15

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JUDY PFAFF

Turkey Hill, 2009

Mixed media, cut and layered paper, wire silk flowers, coffee filters, ink 49 x 49 x 5 inches (124.46 x 124.46 x 12.7 cm) 17

BEVERLY FISHMAN Untitled, 2010 Laser cut Mylar, acrylic and enamel on paper 29 x 25 inches (73.66 x 63.50 cm) 18

CHRIS KAHLER

Duality B-1, 2010

Oil and acrylic on paper 22-3/4 x 30 inches (57.76 x 76.20 cm) 19

JOAN HALL Wave, 2010 Mixed media on paper mounted on Mylar 87 x 43 x 6 inches (220.98 x 106.68 x 15.24 cm) 20

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KELLEY JOHNSON Untitled, 2010 Acrylic and graphite on paper 22-3/4 x 30 inches (57.76 x 76.20 cm) 22

CARMON COLANGELO HELP, 2010 Mixed media on paper 30 x 22 inches (76.20 x 55.88 cm) 23

JILL DOWNEN Stack, 2010 Gypsum and matt medium on paper 29 x 21-1/2 inches (73.66 x 54.61 cm) 24

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OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 26

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 27

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 28

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 29

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 30

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 31

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 32

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 33

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 34

OVERPAPER at Bruno David Gallery, 2010 (installation view - detail) 35

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ARTISTS Margaret Adams Barry Anderson Dickson Beall Laura Beard Elaine Blatt Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo

Damon Freed William Griffin Joan Hall Takashi Horisaki Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey

Gary Passanise Robert Pettus Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Lindsey Stouffer

Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Corey Escoto Beverly Fishman

Sandra Marchewa Peter Marcus Genell Miller Iris Nesher Patricia Olynyk

Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley