FULL TILT

Curated by John Yau

April 11 – May 10, 2015

Opening Reception – Saturday, April 11, 7PM

GARY STEPHAN

DON VOISINE

LOUISE BELCOURT

MARILYN LERNER

STANLEY WHITNEY

JASON KAROLAK

LINDA FRANCIS

For immediate release

During the past two years I went to the studios of six of the seven artists included in this exhibition. Galleries represent some of them, including the one artist whose studio I did not visit, but others are not represented. As a reviewer, I do not want to write only about what is being shown, as that renders complaints about the market moot.

As someone who has written about painting since the late 1970s, I believe that there is a lot of very interesting and very good work out there that has not been seen. Whether as a curator or as a writer, we should try to move the art we believe in from one place to another, from one level of visibility to another.

This exhibition came out of remembering overlapping preoccupations among these artists – their interest in geometry and their belief that neither it nor painting has been exhausted. Their inventiveness was evident to me, and that is what I wanted to focus on.

Full Tilt is the name of an online poker room, as well as a nod to Kasimir Malevich. Geometry is the oldest language of abstraction. The conjunction felt right to me. The artist in the studio makes his or her own luck. The outcome of that gamble is what viewers will encounter in Full Tilt.

—John Yau