Lucas Samaras’ fabric Reconstructions at Jay Grimm Gallery, Chelsea
Three fabric Reconstructions by Lucas Samaras will be shown at the Jay Grimm Gallery, 505 West 28th Street, New York City, from March 11 through April 17, 1999.
Executed in the late 1970s, the Reconstructions mark one of the many fruitful moments in Samaras’ prolific career. The two-dimensional rectangular works consist of brilliantly colored strips of cloth that are sewn together to create dynamic visual activity. Using the cubist grid and modernist strategies of composition, Samaras achieves the formal tension and emotional vibrancy which are hallmarks of his work.
The show at Jay Grimm Gallery, organized by Todd Hignite, marks the first time this body of work has been exhibited together in New York since they were originally show at the Pace Gallery in 1980. The exhibition will present Samaras as an important precursor to the current interest in opticality and pattern in contemporary painting.
Samaras said in a recent interview with Hignite, "…you could conceiveably think of (the Reconstructions) as psychically enveloping you...and it would be soft and soothing. Maybe it would give you some bad dreams, but at the same time it would stroke you." Excerpts from the interview will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.
The show is organized in cooperation with PaceWildenstein.
Read the Review in ARTnews/Summer 1999
Jay Grimm, was Assistant to the President of PaceWildenstein, New York for the past three years before opening his gallery last November. Grimm also worked for four years at Joan Washburn Gallery, New York. He holds a Master’s Degree in Art History and Criticism from SUNY/Stony Brook and is Editor-in-Chief of Critical Review (creview.com), an electronic publication of art reviews.
Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11-7 P.M.
