Opens Wed, July 11, 6-8p:
“Painting is History”
Charles Browning, The Chadwicks, David Fertig, Joe Fig, Valerie Hegarty & Steve Mumford.
Winkleman Gallery, 621 W27th St., NYC
“While the practices of these artists vary greatly, they are united by their interest in the traditional use of painting to record history. For much of art history, painting occupied a central role in the formation of shared memory. The pictures of historical events became the way in which they were remembered and commemorated. During the 18th and 19th Centuries, the academies of Europe placed history painting at the pinnacle of artistic achievement privileging the mode above all others.
Of course, this idea no longer holds. Film and digital media are the primary means of recording history, and painting is considered suspect by many observers for the very reason of its former function in this regard. Indeed, to be a contemporary painter is to often reject the past or to forget it altogether—to paint without memory. And yet, there are contemporary artists who are intrigued by possibilities within painting for recording and imagining human affairs. This show presents a small group of artists who explore this possibility.” - curators Jay Grimm & Edward Winkleman
