See the Abstract Show Before Visit With Bob Nickas

You may wish to visit "Material Occupation," the UAlbany Art Museum's current exhibit on contemporary abstract art, in advance of a Bob Nickas's visit on Monday, March 26th.

The contrarian art critic and curator is widely regarded as America's leading authority on recent abstract art. He is also the author of the highly praised 2009 book, Painting Abstraction.

The reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle called it, "a wild ride of a reference book.” The New York Times called it, “a lively survey… a useful tool in forming a sharper, broader sense of what is going on in the world of abstract painting.”

"Material Occupation" runs through April 7, 2012.

"The artists represented in Material Occupation challenge the idea that abstraction is a rarified concept that bears little relation to everyday experience. Using familiar patterns, structures, designs, and systems, these artists explore the cultural associations inherent in prosaic materials. Traditional art-making gestures are replaced by actions equated with manual labor, such as staining, pasting, bleaching, mending, stretching, taping, daubing, recycling, and tearing. Drawing on a wide range of materials and references, these artists apply a keen eye and a steady hand as they transform house paint, thread, old and newly woven fabric, industrial tape, and other ordinary materials into poetic abstract forms. The decorative, the contemplative, and the marginalized thus take precedence in work that proposes an alternative relationship to Modernist abstraction." More.