George Schneeman: Curated by Bill Berkson

GEORGE SCHNEEMAN

GEORGE SCHNEEMAN 10.16.03-11.22.03

Curated by Bill Berkc:,on

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THIS EXHIBITION WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY SQUIRE, SANDERS & DEMPSEY, L .L.P.

FORWARD

We are honored to host this exhibition, which has been generously curated by Bill Berkson. Mr. Berkson. a writer and poet. has chosen George Schneeman. an artist who d1v1des hrs time between New York and Italy. Mr. Berkson·s apprecia­ tion of Mr. Schneeman's work demonstrates how the Foundation's discretionary selection process allows a natural cross-pollination to occur between different forms of expression.

This exhibition of egg tempera landscape paintings showcases Just one aspect of Mr. Schneeman·s work across many different media. and confirms our commitment to art that rs at once of the highest quality and courageous rn its refusal to conform to current trends.

CURATOR'S STATEMENT Bill Berkson

George Schneeman's Italian Hours

Over the past forty years or more. George Schneeman's art has comprised portraits of his family and friends on canvas and in portable frescoes on cinder blocks, collages and paintings based on collages, painted ceramics. and countless cover designs and drawings for books of poetry and little magazines. (He has also devoted considerable studio time to hands-on collaborations with poets in various media.) Bracketing these segments of work, and sometimes 1ntercutting among them, have been the Italian landscapes begun during the time Schneeman first lived in Tuscany from 1958 to 1966 and resumed 1n the 1990s after he started revisiting the Tuscan countryside, having spent the intervening decades solidly in New York. (He and his wife Katie now divide their year between apartments on St Marks Place and in the commune of San Giovanni d'Asso, southeast of Siena.)

The recent landscapes are tempera on carefully gessoed plywood panels.

Practicalities-storage and portability, especially-argue for settling upon a reduced size. without stinting on a picture's energy requirements. Averaging twelve by nine inches. done on location in half-hour sittings, the panels exemplify, Schneeman says, "the struggle between miniature and landscape" - which links the question of the size at which a landscape painting can register across a room to the thornier one of how in a compact two-d1mens1onal space depth and surface will compare notes so that all that is visible can be both actual and clear.

"Distinct in atmosphere. thin clouds blown by the wind, forms bathed in and defined by light" 1 An allegorist by disposition, Schneeman brings out the charac­ teristic drama of each scene. keeping it from being merely a view or bella vista, and proiecting more of what he calls "spatial sentiment." By Tuscan standards, these views are as ordinary as their place names-II Moro, Castelletto. Poggio di Val di Rigo, and so on-are plainly functional. Formed 1n a fissured slope or where a couple of rumpled. vivid gray and brown rises meet. a crotch of ground fills up lustily with thatched greens. T here are subtler moments as well, mostly little details daubed along the ridges: a dark vertical sliver says "distant cypress;"

a cuticle of brick red makes an isolated farmhouse roof. Further off. exquisite incidentals of buildings cluster together amid trees, making some sought-after shade. Still higher. the necessity arises "to invent something in the sky that relates it to the land."

Is spatial sentiment a more far-reaching, iconic version of Cezanne¡s "little sensation," more keyed to the bigger sweep of what the persistent observer takes 1n? The answer may be found 1n the painter's process as Schneeman tells of 1t.

I don't forget the brushes or the water or the palette or the board to paint And I have to take advantage of the clear days, because sometimes a haziness will set in for a week or more. We've already had one spell of that: and it's hard to paint clearly when the landscape is clogged. But j?ven now I haven't had those beautiful clouds to work on. Clouds always

2

make it clearer that there's a heaven and earth. And space between them.

1 2

John-Pope Hennessey on Sassetta's predella for Madonna of the Sr,ows.

George Schneeman. letter to the author, May 24. 2003.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

In this landscape to the southeast of Siena. one does not find the typical lush Tuscan views of vineyard and olive grove. There 1s no terracing and few fruit trees.

The soi here •s heavy with clay, suitable for ra1s1ng sheep, planting wheat and hay or corn and sunflowers along the lower land. It 1s an 1ntr,cate. hilly landscape with small scattered woods up and down the slopes The soil is bone-grey 1n spots. yellow or yeilow-grey n others In June it's gold with wreat; in winter all 1s green but for the reddish woods. In spring v rtually everything 1s green.

The landscape has changed little since the time of the Lorensett1. Unt1 the 1960's there were no poles or telephone lines. Now farming 1s mechanized. The "contad1n " are townspeople: their houses are bought by foreigr'ers who can afford them. Str ct zon ng prohibits the build ng of new housing.

The landscape 1s remarkable. and perhaps most unique. for its graceful mix of the "natural" and the cultivated. The fields and woods have a complex and compelling re1at1onsh1p. Cypress appear 1n odd and unexpected places Italian oak pop up 1n the middle of a field or atop a hill Things are allowed to happen by acc1dert Until now there has been no flattening or bulldozing of slope or field to make the farm rg easier Woods are harvested carefully, and they stay where they are.

On any clear day 1n this southern portion of the province of Siena. one can see the profile of Monte Amiata, a long-extinct volcanic mountain. It 1s pictured by Sassetta 1n a panel where St Francis salutes three airborne female figures (the theological virtues). In Sassetta, as 1n the other Sienese painters. we see the same gent lity and asceticism that one finds in this austere and beautiful place.

CHIUSURE f ,q tempera ,� panel, 1'5'' x 15 ·. 2000

DAL MORO

r J' tEn1r ·r1

panel. C) " x 14', 2002

MONTE AMIATA

Egg tempera on panel. 105'' x 13.5", 2003

VERNI NE VECCHJE (WHEAT)

Egg tempera on panel. 11" x 13.25", 2003

CEMETERY (MONTISI) Egg tempera on panel, 9 5" x 13.5", 2003

WHEAT FIELD Egg tempera on pane . 9.5" x 12.5", 2003

CURATOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Poet and art critic Bill Berkson was born 1n New York 1n 1939 and became active 1n the literary and art worlds 1n his early twenties. He 1s the author of 14 books and pamphlets of poetry, including Saturday Night: Poems 7960-67. Shining Leaves.

Recent Visitors, Enigma Vanat/ons (with drawings by Philip Guston). Blue Is the Hero. Lush Life and most recently, Serenade and Fugue State. His work has been included in many literary Journals and anthologies. He is also a Corresponding Editor for Art in America and a regular contributor to Artforum. Modern Painters, Art on Paper. American Craft and other magazines. From 1971-78, he was editor­ publisher of Big Sky magazine and books. He has received awards and grants for poetry from the Poets Foundation. the National Endowment for the Arts. Yaddo. the Bnarcombe Foundation. and Mann Arts Council, and in 1990 was given an Artspace Award for Art Cnt1c1sm. In recent years he has also curated exhibitions of individual artists such as George Herriman and Ronald Bladen and of contem­ porary painting, and served as an adJunct curator for Facing Eden. 700 Years of California Landscape Art at the Fine Arts Museums. San Francisco. He has taught and directed the public lectures program at the San Francisco Art Institute since 1984. He lives 1n San Francisco.

ARTIST'S

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Born March 11, 1934. St. Paul, MN U.S. Army 1958-60

2001 1999

EDUCATION

BA. Philosophy and Literature. St. Mary's College, Winona. MN Graduate work. English Literature, University of Minnesota. MN

1998

1994 SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1995 "Landscapes and Ceramics," Homeplate. NY 1991 "New Frescoes and Ceramics."

Homeplate, NY 1986 "New Collages and Ceramics," Homeplate. NY 1984 "New Work," The Red Studio, NY 1981 "New Works," Holly Solomon Gallery, NY 1980 "Recent Work," Holly Solomon Ga lery, NY 1979 "Fresco Portraits," Holly Solomon Gallery, NY 1977 Holly Solomon Gallery, NY 1976 "Nude Portraits," Holly Solomon Gallery, NY 1973 "Collages," Fischbach Gallery, NY 1972 98 Greene Street Gallery, NY 1970 Star Turtle Gallery, NY

1991 1985 1984 1983

1982 1981

1979 1978 1976 1975 1968

"Banner exhibition", Venice Biennale.

Venice, taly "Invitational Exhibit of Painting and Sculpture." American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY "A Secret Location on the Lower East Side." Berg Collection, New York Public Library "Fresco: A Contemporary Perspective," Boston College, Boston. M A; Snug Harbor, Staten Island, NY "Poets and Painters Collaborations."

Brooke Alexander Gallery, NY "The Drawing Center Show," Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY "The Red Studio", Holly Solomon Gallery, NY Holly Solomon Gallery, NY "New York Now. " Kestner-Gesellschaft.

Hanover, Germany "Intoxication," Monique Knowlton Gallery, NY "Be My Valentine," Delaware Art Museum.

Wilmington, DE "Alternatives in Retrospect, 1969-1975," The New Museum. NY "Poets and Painters," Denver Art Museum "Painting and Sculpture Today," lndianapo is Museum of Art. IN Holly Solomon Gallery, NY Fischbach Gallery, NY Star Turtle Gallery, NY

CUE ART FOUNDATION MISSION STATEMENT

CUE Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides deserving artists from around the country an opportunity for solo exhibition. Located in New York's Chelsea gallery district. the Foundation's 2,000 square foot ground floor exh1bit1on space affords these artists professional exposure comparable to that offered by neighboring commercial galleries, without the usual financial restraints. CUE does not promote a particular school of artistic thought or practice; rather, the criteria for selection have been devised with the sole purpose 1n mind of exhibiting work by artists who have not had a solo exhibi­ tion 1n a commerc1a venue, or have received minimal exposure in New York in the last ten years.

At the core of CUE's mission 1s the determination to foster an agenda­ free program of twelve exh1b1ting artists a year, each handpicked by a single curator. An on-site art st-in-residence program offers selected artists studio space 1n which to produce or finish work for their exhibition at CUE. The responsibility to choose qualified individuals from the visual arts and beyond to act as exhibition curators rests with CUE's Advisory Council, an honorary group of artists and leading figures from the arts education, applied arts, art history, and literary communities. The curators, in turn, will play a role throughout the exhibition process, helping the artist catalogue his or her work for exhibition, and participating in gallery lectures and programs.

Educational initiatives in the form of public programs and artists' dialogues will take advantage of the diverse community that participates in CUE's gallery and studio programming. Foundation internships and stipends will help prepare the next generation of artists and art educators by providing practical working knowledge of the art making and exhibition process.

ARTWORK

GEORGE SCHNEEMAN

CATALOG DESIGNED BY SPECK, BROOKLYN, NY PRINTED IN ( ANADA

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Gregory Amenoff Thomas G. Devine Thomas K. Y. Hsu Brian D. Starer ADVISORY COUNCIL

Gregory Amenoff Vicky A Clark William Corbett Petah Coyne James Drake Bruce Ferguson Sanford Hirsch Dana Hoey GALLERY DIRECTOR

Jeremy Adams

51 I WEST 25TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10001 WWW. CUEARTFOUNDATION. ORG

CUE ART FOUNDATION