Dike Blair
Dike Blair | |
---|---|
Born | 1952 New Castle, Pennsylvania, United States |
Nationality | American |
Education | School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Colorado Boulder, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture |
Known for | Painting, sculpture, installation |
Style | Realist, abstract, conceptual |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship, American Academy in Rome |
Website | Dike Blair |
Dike Blair (born 1952) is a New York-based artist, writer and teacher.
Early career
Blair was born in 1952 in New Castle, Pennsylvania.
In the early 1980s, he began—somewhat ironically—painting small, illusionistic gouaches of sailboats, initially from observation or memory, akin to Sunday painting.[10] He eventually integrated them into wall constructions, shown at Baskerville + Watson (1986) and Cash/Newhouse (1987).[14][15] This work evolved into more widely known installations, such as his 1991 show at Ealan Wingate, based around photographs he took at Disney's Epcot. The show featured mixed-media images installed in a darkened room scored to Muzak, and decorated and carpeted in mauve with plants and suburban benches; reviews described it, alternately, as suffused with loss and nostalgia, soothing, and surprisingly spiritual.[16][9][17]
Blair's work has been shown at the
Work and critical reception
Blair's two bodies of work serve as counterpoints and foils for one another in regard to composition, color, texture and theme.[6][25] His realistic, deadpan paintings (primarily untitled, painted in gouache, and derived from his own snapshots) are more literal, yet illusionistic; the Postminimal, installation-like sculpture is abstract, but concrete and painterly.[25][10] Together they investigate oppositions and liminal spaces—between nature and architecture, inside and outside, fullness and emptiness—and themes including pleasure and boredom, escapism and transcendence, and the intersection of designed environments, mass experience and desire.[26][3][27]
Blair's earlier gouaches focus on diaristic, largely American scenes (bedside set-ups, cocktails, cigarette butt-littered ashtrays, soda cans, VHS tapes) and anodyne transitory environments (motels, lounges, lobbies, Las Vegas, Disneyland) that
In the mid-1990s, Blair began producing décor-like works inspired by contemporary corporate and domestic design and guided by Japanese flower arrangement rules.[31][32][25] They compress installation-work elements of light, material, color and image into discrete, hybrid sculptures that evoke interiors, furniture, drawing, architecture, landscapes and the human body.[33][11][30] Blair carefully manipulates elements such as electrical cords unfurling like lines across color-fields of industrial carpet, Plexiglas and plywood, lightboxes, shipping crates and lamps, seeking a balance in which objects retain their specificity yet read together as singular works.[34][32][30] Paralleling his gouaches, the earlier sculptures examine themes involving atmosphere, designed space and consumer culture, while his post-2006 works take up phenomenological issues relating to the body, such as ocular versus corporeal experience of images, objects and space.[1][27][8][5]
Later exhibitions
Blair's exhibitions at Feature (2001, 2004) and Mary Goldman (2005) inclined toward increasingly spare, refined presentation.[33][27][32] They paired gouache paintings of lyrical water-streaked windows and flowers with electrical cord and geometric carpet lengths, glowing boxes and low-slung Minimalist objects, creating spaces that reviews describe as calming, mysterious and melancholic domestic tableaux (e.g. Some Of and And When, 2001; to want to, 2005).[34][1][32] The Brooklyn Rail compared the effect of these exhibitions to the ambient music of artists such as Brian Eno, "tastefully calibrating" momentary experience, while remaining ambivalent about the consequences for subjectivity of living in a thoroughly designed world.[27]
In the later 2000s, Blair placed greater emphasis on perceptual issues, introducing close-up paintings of women's eyes and painted shipping crates that simultaneously evoke functional objects, picture planes, space dividers, walls and figures.[30][8][35] For the survey, "Dike Blair: Now and Again" (Weatherspoon Art Museum, 2009), he produced a subtly staged and lit experience involving two sculpture courts—mirror layouts to one another invoking the space in its entirety—that flanked a series of galleries housing his gouaches; Artforum described the show as an intimate and uncanny meditation on experiencing versus seeing, real versus illusionistic space.[8] In exhibitions at Gagosian (2010], Feature (2013), Linn Lühn (2014) and Jürgen Becker Gallery (2017), Blair continued to expand the range of allusions and effects, painting crate-sculpture sides like pebbled-glass windows (Those and These, 2010), benday-dot print patterns sometimes suggesting peepholes (Dance, Dance, Dance, 2011), and minimal intimations of skies and landscapes (OHCE, 2014), which he adorned with paintings of eyes, interiors and other subjects.[36][5][29][37]
In 2017, Blair suspended his work on sculpture and took up oil painting.[38][39] The subjects of those paintings are consistent which his gouaches—sometimes the same image—but the oils have a different physicality, including very slight impasto and intaglio. Around the same time, he began producing drawings, something that had not previously been part of his practice.[40][38]
Other professional activities
Blair's professional activities include writing and teaching. He has contributed articles and reviews to Artforum,
Awards and public collections
Blair has received a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), the American Academy in Rome Prize (2010), and fellowships from the
References
- ^ a b c d Princenthal, Nancy. "Dike Blair," Art in America, May 2002, p. 148–9.
- ^ a b Rian, Jeff. "Dike Blair, New York, New York," Apartamento, 2011, p. 194–207.
- ^ a b c Richard, Frances. "Dike Blair," Artforum, March 2007, p. 315. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Schjeldahl, Peter. "Dike Blair," The New Yorker, December 2018. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c Wilk, Deborah. "Dike Blair," Modern Painters, September 2013, p. 110.
- ^ a b c d Smith, Roberta. "Dike Blair," The New York Times, November 2, 2001, p. E40. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b Knight, Christopher. "Portraits of Transience," Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2001, p. F16. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Martin, Cameron. "Dike Blair," Artforum, May 2010, p. 242–3. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c Rian, Jeff. "Ouverture, Dike Blair," Flash Art, November/December 1997, p. 104.
- ^ a b c d e f g Stillman, Steele. "In the Studio: Dike Blair," Art in America, September 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c Prince, Richard. "Window On Their World: Dike Blair Interviewed by Richard Prince," ArtReview, 2005, p. 78–81.
- ^ Cohen, Ronny H. "Energism: An Attitude," Artforum, September 1980, p. p. 17–23. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Cohen, Ronny H. "Dike Blair," Artforum, January 1982, p. 78–80. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Sturtevant, Alfred. "Dike Blair," Arts, April 1986.
- ^ Heller, Sally. "Dike Blair," 108 An East Village Review, January 1987, p. 2.
- ^ Hagen, Charles. "Dike Blair," The New York Times, October 25, 1991, p. C5. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ The New Yorker. "Goings On About Town: Photography," October 28, 1991. p. 84.
- ^ a b Griffin, Tim. "Tim Griffin talks with the curators of the 2004 Whitney Biennial," Artforum, January 2004, p. 57–9. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- ^ Abramovich, Alex. "Termite Art and the Modern Museum," The New Yorker, February 28, 2019.
- ^ Leguillon, Pierre. "Purple Horizon," Beaux Arts, July 2000, p. 40.
- ^ a b Whitney Museum of American Art. "Dike Blair," Artists. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ a b Brooklyn Museum. Lotus and Robot, Dike Blair, Collection. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ a b Artforum. "Guggenheim Fellows Announced," News, April 10, 2009. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- ^ a b c American Academy in Rome. "The “Glimpse” Series: Dike Blair Contemplates Japan While in Rome," News. March 1, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Carlson, Ben. "Working Practice: Dike Blair." Modern Painters, June 2007, p. 128.
- ^ Griffin, Tim. "The Intangible Economy: Ricci Albenda, Stephen Hendee, Dike Blair," Artext, 70, August–October 2000, p. 66–71.
- ^ a b c d White, Roger. "Dike Blair," The Brooklyn Rail, May 2004, p. 14. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c Saltz, Jerry. "Pulp Friction," The Village Voice, January 17–23, 2007.
- ^ a b c Smolik, Noemi. "Dike Blair," Artforum, April 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Knight, Christopher. "Dike Blair at Mary Goldman Gallery," Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2008. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Harrison, Helen. "Stepping Beyond the Traditional in Still Lifes," The New York Times, October 10, 1999, p. LI14. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Balaschak, Chris. "Dike Blair," Frieze, November/December 2005, p. 141. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ a b Dailey, Meghan. "Dike Blair," Artforum, January 2002, p. 141. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- ^ a b Williams, Gregory. "Critics' Picks: Dike Blair,"[permanent dead link] Artforum, November 2001. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Gibson, David. "Dike Blair," Frieze, September 2013, p. 172–3. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Fry, Naomi. "Dike Blair," Frieze, November–December 2010. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Linn Lühn. Dike Blair. Exhibitions. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
- ^ a b Rian, Jeff. "Dike Blair," Purple, Issue #33, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
- ^ The Modern Institute. Dike Blair. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike. Dike Blair: Drawings, New York: Karma, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
- ^ Artforum. Dike Blair, Contributor. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "Michael Goldberg," ARTnews, March 1991, p. 142–3.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "Flip-Flopping Fictions and the Interface of Some Spaces," Art Press, #21, 2000, p. 144–8.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "Cameron Martin," Bomb, Fall 2007, p. 14. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike and Michael Drake. "Typing test," Harper's, March 2000, p. 32–5. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "A Reflection or Two (on Richard Prince)," Parkett, #72, 2004, p. 96–107.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "Dan Colen," Purple, Spring/Summer 2008, p. 352–3. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike. "Anti-Column," Purple, Fall/Winter 2014, p. 352–3. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike. Again : Selected Interviews and Essays, Chicago: Whitewalls, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Blair, Dike and Isabelle Anscomber. Punk, New York: Urizen Books, Inc., 1978. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Dike Blair, Fellows. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ^ Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. "1995," Previous Winners. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Armstrong, Annie. "Dallas Art Museum Adds Eight Works to Collection with Dallas Art Fair Acquisition Fund," ARTnews, April 11, 2019. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art Stiftung Ludwig Wien). Dike Blair, Shine, Collection. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. Dike Blair, Collection. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Portland Art Museum. Untitled (three panels), Dike Blair, Collections. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- ^ Weatherspoon Art Museum. Dike Blair, Artist. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
External links
- Dike Blair official website
- Dike Blair Guggenheim Fellowship page
- Dike Blair artist page, Karma
- Dike Blair artist page, Gagosian
- Dike Blair artist page, Jürgen Becker Gallery
- "DIKE BLAIR WITH STEEL STILLMAN", Art in America 9/18/09