François Morellet, 1926 - 2016

François Morellet, Bleu impair, 2012

François Morellet died 11 May 2016.

Morellet, although relatively little exhibited in the UK was accorded a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2011. He was a significant figure in post-war European geometric abstraction, kinetic and optical art. He worked in a variety of media but was most notable for his use of neon lights and a distinctive, simple style laced with humour.

Two exhibitions are currently showing in London marking, this, his 90^th year: François Morellet 90 is at Annely Juda until 24 June 2016; François Morellet:Les Règles du Jeu is at The Mayor Gallery until 27 May. (See Mayor Gallery press release.)
Read obituary by Hannah Olivennes (New York Times).

François Morellet, 3 trames de carrés réguliers pivotées sur le côté, 1970

(Click on images to enlarge.)

François Morellet, 4 trames de tirets du bleu au vert pivotées sur un côté, 1971

François Morellet, Tous les 2-3-4-5 en diagonale, 1974

François Morellet, L’Avalanche, 1996

François Morellet, Triple X neonly, 2012

François Morellet, La débâcle n°1, 2013

François Morellet, Mal barré après réflexion n°7, 2015

François Morellet, Confrontation n°1, 2015

François Morellet, Contresens n°2, 2015

Ettore Spalletti - Marian Goodman Gallery

Ettore Spaletti: Every dawn, is first / Ogni alba, è la prima is at Marian Goodman Gallery (London) until 4 June 2016.

This is a beautiful exhibition in a beautiful gallery space.

Spalletti’s last solo show in the UK was in 2005 at the Henry Moore Institute – and that show was evidently the first for more than a decade. So this is a rare event indeed.

The paintings are, principally, exquisitely toned panels of luminous blues, pinks and greys – aptly described in the gallery's exhibition text as the tones of Piero della Francesca and Fra Angelico; the panels are sometimes flat to the wall, but sometimes angled away from it; many have bevelled edges which are gilded; others sit in gold lined frames.

Adrian Searle’s review of the 2005 exhibition gives an excellent account of the subtle effects of these beautiful works.

Spaletti was born in Cappelle Sul Tavo in 1940 and continues to live and work there. The beautiful surfaces of his paintings are achieved through the application of many layers of colour – executed at the same time each day – each gently sanded before the next layer is applied.

The paintings are wonderful.
Read review by Cassie Davies; read an interview with Christopher Turner.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

 

Dan Flavin - Ikon Gallery

Dan Flavin, untitled (in honor of Harold Joachim) 3, 1977

Dan Flavin:  It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else is at Ikon Gallery until 26 June 2016.

Dan Flavin’s artworks were made by arranging commercially available, industrial, fluorescent light tubes: they are amongst the most sensually beautiful artworks of the twentieth century.

Alongside his Minimalist peers – notably Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris and Sol Lewitt – Flavin’s art is bracingly free of representation, illusion, expression, symbolism and spirituality: It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else. And what it is, is gorgeous.

In an article about the forthcoming re-opening (14 May 2016) of the San Francisco MOMA with its newly, and hugely, expanded collection (“We expect our colleagues in other museums to be green with envy” - Neal Benezra, director) it was interesting to read that when asked to name her favourite works from that remarkable collection, associate curator Sarah Roberts, cited Dan Flavin’s untitled (to Barnett Newman) two. Thrillingly, this very piece is (apparently) currently on show in Birmingham’s Ikon, where it is also accompanied by numbers one, three and four of that same series. 
This promises to be a spectacular exhibition.

Dan Flavin, "monument" for V. Tatlin 1966

Dan Flavin, pink out of a corner (to Jasper Johns), 1963

Dan Flavin, untitled (in memory of "Sandy" Calder) V, 1977

Dan Flavin, untitled (to Barnett Newman) two, 1971

Dan Flavin, untitled (to Don Judd, colorist) 1–5, 1987

Dan Flavin, installation view, Ikon Gallery 2016 (Photo. by Stuart Whipps)

Richard Smith, 1931 - 2016

Richard Smith, Panatella, 1961

Richard Smith died 16 April 2016.

British Pop and abstract painter Richard Smith enjoyed early success and celebrity but, latterly, was less well known than he deserved to be. Smith graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1957 and had a one-man show in New York in 1961. In 1970 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and had a retrospective at the Tate in 1975. As the late Gordon Burn put it in an article for the Guardian in 2000:  In the 50s he helped invent pop art. In the 60s his huge, advert-inspired canvases were the talk of the London art scene. In the 70s oil millionaires were queuing up to buy them. Then, in the 80s, he vanished. What happened to Richard Smith?

The Tate’s online biography simply stops at 1976.

Smith moved to America in 1978 – it seems that for a while he ‘lost focus’, but in due course and through subsequent decades continued to make his bold and distinctive abstractions.
Read The Invisible Man by Gordon Burn.
Read obituaries in the Guardian (by Chris Stephens), Artforum (by Barbara Rose) and The Telegraph. 

Richard Smith, MM, 1959

Richard Smith, Piano, 1963

Richard Smith, Untitled, 1971-2

Richard Smith, Early Reply, 1972

Richard Smith, Untitled (Yellow), 1996

Richard Smith, Untitled, 2002

Richard Smith, Avedisiane, nd