Showing posts with label Judy Pfaff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judy Pfaff. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Install Week - Behind the Scenes Sneak Peek

This Friday we have our much anticipated Judy Pfaff opening, along with new paintings by returning artist, Jennifer Scott McLaughlin. Take a sneak peek at the worker bees, making it all happen after the artists put their art in our hands.

the elusive HR
Kerri, Johnna, and Heather - pro art packers
New gorgeous paintings by Jennifer Scott McLaughlin.
Kerri and Aaron deinstall a delicate Noelle Allen piece after the Alumni (SAIC) exhibit.
New work by Jennifer Scott McLaughlin amongst the organized chaos.
Monday, ready for Judy's work to arrive on Tuesday.
Rob and Aaron unpacking on Tuesday. Rob has worked for Judy for 16 yrs and drove her work all the way from NY!

One of Judy's pieces. Rob said she will continue to work on it when she arrives on Thursday. This is how Judy often works, her process...a piece evolves up until the very end, before exhibiting. A true installation artist.

Amazing!





Don't miss this amazing exhibit, opening this Friday, April 16th from 5-8pm.

Learn about and watch Judy's process on Art 21.

-meghan




Thursday, April 1, 2010

Judy Pfaff Studio Visit

I visited Judy Pfaff's studio this week to check out the work that will be here for her show. Judy's studio is on a large plot of land at the base of the Catskill mountains. It is pretty idyllic. It was raining pretty hard that day, but Judy warmed me up with a cup of tea and her generous spirit. She's an outstanding and lovely individual.

Her studio is a place of constant flux - the way any good studio is. She's simultaneously preparing for our show at the gallery, our booth at Art Chicago and a concurrent show at the Reavley Gallery at the Texas National 2010 show in Nacogdoches, Texas.

The Texas National show is an annual competition, open to all artists living and working in the United States, juried each year by an internationally acclaimed artist. This year, 191 artworks by 161 artists were chosen by Judy. The TN 2010 show will be held in the Ledbetter Gallery of The Cole Art Center at the SFA School of Art. Previous jurors have included Doug and Mike Starn, who have also show at the David Weinberg Gallery, along with the likes of Leon Golub, Donald Sultan, Sandy Skoglund, Ed Moses, and - one of my favorite enigmatic artists - Mel Chin.

On top of managing all of this, Judy is also the head of the Art Department at Bard. It's pretty astonishing to think that she can handle the (overly)full plate that is in front of her, especially considering that several works we will show are very large, new, and never before seen. She's amazing and the show will be amazing. See you there!


New, in progress and as yet untitled work by Judy Pfaff - likely to appear on the back wall in Gallery 1, Assemblage materials / Mixed media, 91x91, 2010


A photo I snapped on my last visit to Judy's studio in August of 2009. Judy is a sponge and takes inspiration from nearly everywhere, but this is just outside her back door and I think you can see a direct relationship to the previous image. Awesome.


Studio view


Another studio view

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Judy continued...

Judy's studio:















Examples of her work from The Year of the Dog series and others:





























Judy Pfaff

Our new exhibit will be opening on April 16 and we are delighted to have the honor to host the work of Judy Pfaff. This is a must-see show and a rare opportunity since Judy has not exhibited in a Chicago gallery since the 80's.

Much of what we will show will be brand-new (she's still creating it) and LARGE. So large, in fact, we sadly can't even fit many of the pieces in the gallery. After talks of ripping out door frames and smashing through cement walls (not kidding) were quieted, we decided to exhibit the smaller works here (and by small we're still talking 6ft) and take 2 large pieces to Art Chicago. Like I said... you don't want to miss this.

To get a little background on Judy, here is her bio and her segment on Art:21 -

Biograhpy......................
Judy Pfaff was born in London, England in 1946. She received a BFA from Washington University, Saint Louis (1971) and an MFA from Yale University (1973). Balancing intense planning with improvisational decision-making, Pfaff creates exuberant, sprawling sculptures and installations that weave landscape, architecture, and color into a tense yet organic whole. A pioneer of installation art in the 1970s, Pfaff synthesizes sculpture, painting, and architecture into dynamic environments in which space seems to expand and collapse, fluctuating between the two- and three-dimensional. Pfaff’s site-specific installations pierce through walls and careen through the air, achieving lightness and explosive energy. Pfaff’s work is a complex ordering of visual information composed of steel, fiberglass, and plaster as well as salvaged signage and natural elements such as tree roots. She has extended her interest in natural motifs in a series of prints integrating vegetation, maps, and medical illustrations, and has developed her dramatic sculptural materials into set designs for several theatrical stage productions. Pfaff has received many awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (2004); a Bessie (1984); and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1983) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1986). She has had major exhibitions at the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison (2002); Denver Art Museum (1994); St. Louis Art Museum (1989); and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (1982). Pfaff represented the United States in the 1998 São Paolo Bienal. Pfaff lives and works in Kingston and Tivoli, New York.


Video link......................