Matt Smith Chavez

July 17, 2015, 9:41am

Printmaking, Abstraction: “Zero to One on Paper” at Ratio 3

There’s a piece of public art installed in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco that is quintessential Richard Serra. Two 80-ton steel slabs emerge from ground at a slight angle, tilting vertically as they extend 50 feet into the air. Like other works by Serra these are experiential sculptures, un-monuments meant to affect the way we perceive the space around them. That work is titled “Ballast,” referencing the performative heft of the piece as it serves as a kind of anchor in a transitive cityscape. Serra’s etchings at “Zero to One on Paper,” on view at Ratio 3 through August 21, share the same name, though in this case the titles are “Ballast II” and “Ballast III”. Like his  public sculpture at Mission Bay the works at Ratio 3 are monolithic and textural, anchor-like in the expansive gallery space that also has works by a host of painters and other artists making editioned work on paper. - Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco Contributor

Zero to One on Paper, July 2 – August 21, 2015, Installation view: Ratio 3, San Francisco, Courtesy of the gallery

July 15, 2014, 9:25am

Seeing Things Invisible: Forrest Bess at the Berkeley Art Museum

Forrest Bess never made a living as an artist. He spent  most of his working life as a bait fisherman off the Texas coast making meager wages and living in ramshackle conditions. Yet he navigated the New York art world with relative ease. He exhibited his work at Betty Parsons Gallery along other artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. He held a lifelong correspondence with notable art historian and critic Meyer Shapiro. And his work was purchased by distinguished art collectors like John de Menil. All the while Bess felt marginalized, perceiving that the artists of his generation thought of him as nothing more than a hick.

Forrest Bess | Before Man, 1952–53; oil on canvas; 8-3/4 x 22-3/4 in.; Collection Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College State University of New York, Gift of Roy R. Neuberger. Photo: Jim Frank.

Bess, then, was a man of dualisms, at once a rugged roughneck in the oil fields of Texas and a deep thinker who corresponded with Carl Jung. He was both a supremely accomplished painter and an isolated fisherman who struggled with alcohol and mental illness. Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible, on view at the Berkeley Art Museum through September 14, presents Bess’ paintings alongside an archive of historical material that shed light on the artist’s life. -- Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco Contributor

March 27, 2014, 10:17pm

Mission Schooled: Jason Jägel at Gallery 16

If you’re a fan of underground hip hop then you’ve probably seen Jason Jägel’s (NAP #25) work. He’s produced album cover art for the likes of Dudley Perkins, Madlib, and MF Doom, including the cover of the 2011 reissue of Operation: Doomsday (originally released in 1999),  a classic in underground hip hop. If you’re unfamiliar with any of these names then you’re more likely to be impressed by the twenty years exhibiting that Jason has under his belt, half of those coming after he completed his MFA at Stanford University in 2002. His current exhibition, From the Sky, Rivers Look Like Snakes (through March 31), marks his first show in the expansive loft space of Gallery 16. It offers a glimpse at the narrative line drawings that have become Jason’s signature style. And it includes oil paintings -- a first for the artist since 1997 -- that seem to hint at the influences guiding his work. - Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco Contributor

Jason Jägel | Hand/Eye, 2012. Gouache on paper. 81.5” x 60.5”. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 16

February 02, 2014, 9:36am

The Relativity of Black: Q&A with Laura Judkis

Laura Judkis (NAP #100) doesn’t make black paintings. Sometimes she doesn’t even use black in her compositions at all. Her work is pushed by the dark theatrical narratives that are associated with the color black, and even though she often works with other colors these associations tend to persist -- in her work white becomes the absence of black, pink becomes its twisted hyperactive relative, etc. It all points to the cultural imprint that black leaves on our psyche. Ultimately, black may not be the color that we see in front of us, but the color that we imagine when we look.

Installation view of Laura Judkis’ work in Group Show (2013) at sophiajacob in Baltimore.

Over the last two weeks I’ve spoken with artists that work with the color black. Two weeks ago I spoke with Vincent Como about the connection between his paintings and modernism. Last week I chatted with Sean Talley about his interest in using black as a means of investigating the material properties of his compositions. This week, in the final installment of this series,  I speak with Baltimore-based Laura Judkis, whose dark narratives evoke black even when she avoids the color all together. My conversation with Laura after the jump. -- Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco contributor