Abstraction in the Forecast; Gabriel Pionkowski at New Yorks Galerie Lelong
New American Paintings can work in mysterious ways. When Lisa Freiman, Senior Curator and Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Indianapolis Museum if Art, completed the jurying of our 2012 Midwest Competition, the results of which will be published in August as Issue #102, we had a discussion about the overwhelming amount of abstraction in the applicant pool; indeed, the book will strongly reflect this. We were both excited about what we were seeing, and Lisa passed on some of her picks to a colleague at the museum, Adjunct Curator, Veronica Roberts, who was working on a group exhibition titled “Stretching Painting.”
Long story short...Veronica has included one of those artists, Gabriel Pionkowski, in her group exhibition, which has just opened at New York’s Galerie Lelong. In Veronica’s carefully selected show, Gabriel finds himself in the mix with nine other artists, including two New American Paintings’ alumi, Sarah Cain (NAP #73) and Kate Shepherd (NAP #44). The exhibition makes a strong case for just how slippery the definition of painting has become.
These are exactly the kinds of things that we hope New American Paintings will lead to for featured artists. I want to congratulate Gabriel on inclusion in “Stretching Painting.” His work, as well as the exhibition, are well worth a look.
