Robert Kushner

Spring Scatter Summation (Detail), 2005 By Robert Kushner, Oil acrylic, gold leaf, and glitter on canvas 84 x 552 inches

Robert Kushner (born 1949, Pasadena, CA) is an American contemporary painter who is known especially for his involvement in Pattern and Decoration.[1][2] He has been called "a founder" of that artistic movement.[3] In addition to painting, Kushner creates installations in a variety of mediums, from large-scale public mosaics to delicate paintings on antique book pages. He is represented by DC Moore Gallery in New York.[4]

Work

Kushner draws from a unique range of influences, including Islamic and European textiles, Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Pierre Bonnard, Tawaraya Sotatsu, Ito Jakuchu, Qi Baishi, and Wu Changshuo. Kushner’s work combines organic representational elements with abstracted geometric forms in a way that is both decorative and modernist. He has said, “I never get tired of pursuing new ideas in the realm of ornamentation. Decoration, an abjectly pejorative dismissal for many, is a very big, somewhat defiant declaration for me. … The eye can wander, the mind think unencumbered through visual realms that are expansively and emotionally rich. Decoration has always had its own agenda, the sincere and unabashed offering of pleasure and solace.”[5]

Kushner’s most recent installation, Scriptorium: Devout Exercises of the Heart, is a group of over one thousand drawings of flowers and plants on book pages that date from 1500 to 1920. The pages have been removed from discarded and damaged books of all types from around the globe. In 2010, Scriptorium was exhibited in Desire at The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin.[6] It then traveled to the Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense, Denmark[7] before returning to the U.S. for the inaugural exhibition at DC Moore Gallery’s new Chelsea location in 2011. It will be exhibited at the La Jolla Athenaeum in California in summer 2012.

Murals

Kushner has created large-scale murals for public and private spaces. In 2004, he installed two monumental mosaic murals, 4 Seasons Seasoned, at the 77th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station.[8] He has also completed commissions at Gramercy Tavern and Maialino restaurants in New York City,[9] Union Square in Tokyo, The Ritz Carlton Highlands in Lake Tahoe, CA, and Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC. Recently, an eighty-foot-long marble mosaic, Welcome, was installed at the new Raleigh Durham International Airport in North Carolina.[10]

Exhibitions

Kushner's work has been exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Japan and has been included in the Whitney Biennial three times[11] and twice at the Venice Biennale in Italy.[12] He was the subject of solo exhibitions at both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum.[13] A mid-career retrospective of his work was organized by the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art.[14][15]

Other work

In his early career, Kushner participated in solo and group performance art. Many of these performances featured costumes that Kushner created with craft techniques such as sewing and embroidery.[16] His first performance, entitled Costumes for Moving Bodies, occurred in 1971 during the artist's senior exhibition at the University of California San Diego. The following year, Kushner began incorporating food into his clothing-based performances.[17] Kushner created two performances in 1972 that featured food costumes. The first, Costumes Constructed and Eaten, was presented at the Jack Glenn Gallery in Corona del Mar, California, and the second, Robert Kushner and Friends Eat Their Clothes, in New York. Both of these performances ended with the audience eating the garments.[18] According to the artist, the primary artistic elements of such food performances would be the “ephemeral composition of all the costumes together, the observation of their disintegration through the act of eating, and the lingering sense of gustatory titillation.”[16]

He has also published scholarly articles in a variety of publications. Most recently, he edited the publication Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt (2011),[19] a compilation of the art critic Goldin's essays.

Selected bibliography

A monograph on Kushner's three decades of artistic work, Gardens of Earthly Delight, was published by Hudson Hills Press in 1997.[20] Wild Gardens, a selection of Kushner's recent paintings with an essay by Michael Duncan, was published by Pomegranate in 2006.

Additional Bibliography

Public collections

Kushner's work is represented in numerous important public collections worldwide,[24] including:

Notable solo exhibitions[4]

2011

2009

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

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2001

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1995

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1971

References

  1. ↑ Ian Chilvers. "Pattern and Decoration movement". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  2. ↑ Barry Schwabsky (3 May 1998). "ART REVIEW; Pattern and Decoration, Abstract and Otherwise - New York Times". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  3. ↑ "Robert Kushner". Bellasartesgallery.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  4. ↑ Anderson-Spivy, Alexandra. “Robert Kushner: Gardens of Earthly Delight,” New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1997. ISBN 1-55595-121-X
  5. ↑ "Blanton Museum of Art: The University of Texas at Austin". Blantonmuseum.org. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  6. ↑ "Wild Things". e-flux. 2010-06-22. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  7. ↑ ""4 Seasons Seasoned", Robert Kushner (2004)". Nycsubway.org. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  8. ↑ John Leimbach. "Open> Restaurant - The Architect's Newspaper". Archpaper.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  9. ↑ "Raleigh-Durham International Airport". Rdu.com. 1903-12-17. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  10. ↑ Russell, John (1985-03-22). "Art - Whitney Presents Its Biennial Exhibition - Review". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  11. ↑ Robert Kushner: Gardens of Earthly Delight - Alexandra Anderson-Spivy, Robert Kushner, Holland Cotter - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  12. ↑ "Robert Kushner's Panoramic Paintings on Fabric: Arcadia Dreaming". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  13. ↑ "About Robert Kushner | SULAIR". Lib.stanford.edu. 1987-11-29. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  14. ↑ Robert Kushner: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania ... - Janet Kardon, Robert Kushner, University of Pennsylvania. Institute of Contemporary Art, J.B. Speed Art Museum, Aspen Art Museum (Aspen, Colo.) - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  15. 1 2 Kushner, Robert (2004). "Food + Clothing =". Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies.
  16. ↑ Meyers-Kingsley, Dara; Morris, Catherine (2001). "Off the Wall: The Development of Robert Kushner’s Fashion and Performance Art, 1970-1976". Fashion Theory.
  17. ↑ Kushner, Robert (1995). "Life in the Produce Aisle". Art Journal.
  18. ↑ "Hard Press Editions announces "Amy Goldin: Art in A Hairshirt, Art Criticism 1964-1978"". absolutearts.com. 2012-02-16. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  19. 1 2 Robert Kushner: Gardens of Earthly Delight - Alexandra Anderson-Spivy, Robert Kushner, Holland Cotter - Google Books. Books.google.com. 1972-12-10. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  20. ↑ Robert Kushner: Wild Gardens - Robert Kushner, Michael Duncan - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  21. ↑ Robert Kushner: Opening doors - Robert Kushner, Bridget Moore, Mary E. Frank, D.C. Moore Gallery - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  22. ↑ Robert Kushner: the language of flowers - Robert Kushner, Donald Burton Kuspit, D.C. Moore Gallery - Google Books. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  23. ↑ "Robert Kushner, Artist Bio | International Print Center NY". Ipcny.org. Retrieved 2012-05-30.

External links

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