Duane Zaloudek | MONITOR STUDIO

EARLY WORKS

17 January – 1 March 2015

Monitor Studio, 195 Chrystie Street, suite 502B NY

“Zaloudek’s paintings have become increasingly visually elusive. The work is a distillation of sensory phenomena for which I have no vocabulary.” -Jack Eyerly, 1971.

The American artist Duane Zaloudek (b. Texahoma, 1931, lives and works in New York) will in 2015 begin a series of collaborations with Monitor curated by Paola Capata and Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center in New York. The debut exhibition in January 2015 will be at Monitor Studio, New York and will feature five paintings produced between 1966 and 1967 and two rare oil on paper works from 1963. The second exhibition will be a solo show in March 2015 at Monitor Rome, Italy and will highlight Zaloudek’s paintings realized between the late 1950’s and early 1970’s, which include his Trask series (1961-1964), Milarepa series (1965-67) and first white-on-white canvases (1968-71). The Rome exhibition will be accompanied by a four color catalogue with an interview between Littman and the artist.
Zaloudek’s works explore the phenomenological aspects of vision through an investigation of form, light and color. Zaloudek describes his process as follows ,“I have been concerned with ideas relating to sensory inhibition and the implications such ideas hold for the technology of painting and the spectator – object relationship. A group of works have evolved from this concern to make painting an exclusively physical-visual experience in line with studies on the possibilities of visual actions and actions with extremely low contrasts. The objective has been to move more completely away from formal problem solving and to delve more deeply into the self – conscious awareness of the physicality of seeing. Progressively reducing the value and color contrast my goal has become an intensifying of an awareness of being on the part of the viewer, through an intense encounter with carefully reduced stimuli.”

Zaloudek’s best known early works from the Milarepa series were realized between 1965 and 1967 and are epononymously named after the Tibetan saint. The Milarepa paintings are infused with oblique erotic content and feature fluid, bifurcated circles centered on monochromatic fields. Author Douglas Hall Kent in 1966 in Art Forum stated, “In his blatantly austere subject matter, Zaloudek discovers a subtlety in the statement and understatement; he achieves this largely through juxtaposition of primary forms with additional planes and the physical limitations of the canvas. The precision with which Zaloudek handles his medium and his scrupulously limited vocabulary of form and space and color, brought into balance by a strict syntax, leaves these Milarepa paintings with a hauntingly dramatic quality.” Although, these works were exhibited during the 60’s in several exhibitions in the United States, including the Whitney Annual in 1969, this series has not been exhibited since.

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Duane Zaloudek

Duane Zaloudek , (b. Texahoma, 1931, lives and works in New York)
Solo shows (selected): 2015 Early Works, Monitor, Rome (upcoming); Solo Show, Monitor Studio, New York; 2013 Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich 2001 Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich 1997 University of Buffalo, New York 1996 Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich, Switzerland 1994 Akira Ikeda Gallery, New York 1993 Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf, Germany 1993 Akira Ikeda Gallery, Nogoya, 11ÚJapan 1985 Artists Apace, New York (Mark Rothko Foundation Award) 1980 White Columns Gallery, New York 1978 55 Mercer, New York, 1972 Gallery Reese Palley, San Francisco, California 1971 Mount Hood College, New York 1971 Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, Oregon 1970 University of California, Davis, California 1969 Attica Gallery, Seattle, Washington 1968 Portland State University, Oregon 1967 Comara Gallery, Los Angeles, California 1964-65 University of Portland, Oregon 1962-68 Marylhurst College, Oswego, Oregon 1962-66 Fountain Gallery, Portland, Oregon 1959-61 Oregon New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon 1956 Morrison Street Gallery, Portland 1955 Adeles Gallery, Portland, Oregon
Group shows (selected): 2014 Un’Idea di Pittura I, Monitor, Rome Un’Idea di Pittura II, Monitor Studio, New York 2012 Prographica, Seattle 2011 2d Gallery, Marfa, Texas 2010 Prographica, Seattle, Washington 2009 Boden und Wand/Wand und Fenster/Zeit, helmhaus, Zurich 2006 Pullian Deffenbaugh Gallery, Portland, Oregon 2000 3ness, museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgie 1999 Art Fair, Basel 1997 Chicago Cultural Center, III Espace d‘Art Contemporain, Demigny, France Davenport museum of Art, Iowa 1996 Madison Art Museum, Wisconsin 1992 Landfall Press, New York 1976 Akron Art Institute, Ohio 1970 Portland Art museum, Portland, Oregon 1969 Whitney Annual, Whitney museum of American Art, New York 1967 Lytton Center for the Visual Arts, Los Angeles 1966 Seattle Art Museum, Washington 1962 Denver Art Museum 1961 San Francisco museum of Art, Passadena Art museum, California 1960 San Francisco Museum of Art 1959 the Oregon scene Centennial Paintings, Portland, Oregon 1953-57 Portland Art museum, Oregon 1949-50 Portland Art museum, Oregon