Contents for February 09th, 2026
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Weekly Spotlight: Franklin Furnace relaunches the Franklin Furnace Events Database, access online at archives.franklinfurnace.org
1. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, FF Alumn, new publication
2. John Ahearn, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Asia Stewart,Krzysztof Wodiczko, Francesca Woodman, FF Alumns, now online at NYTimes.com
3. Anh Vo, FF Alumn, now online at Movement Research Performance Journal
4. Mona Hatoum, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
5. Charles Yuen, FF Alumn, at MIlton Resnick & Pat Passlof Foundation, Manhttan, opening Feb. 13
6. Robert Rauschenberg, FF Alumn, at The New School, Manhattan, Feb. 19
7. Raquel Rabinovich, FF Alumn, at Hutchinson Modern, Manhattan, opening Feb. 11
8. Carlos Martiel, Pamela Sneed, FF Alumns, at Leslie Lohman Museum, Manhattan, Feb. 20-Apr. 12
9. Crystal Z Campbell, FF Alumn, at Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, VA, thru May 10
10. Nicky Paraiso, Carmelita Tropicana, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, FF Alumns, to receive 2026 Obie Awards
11. David Cale, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
12. Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Arlene Rush,Miriam Schapiro, James Siena, FF Alumns, at Lehman College Art Gallery, The Bronx, opening Feb. 11
13. Penny Arcade, FF Alumn, at Essex Flowers, Manhattan, Feb. 21
14. Deb Margolin, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, Mar. 6,7, 13, 21
15. Lisa Levy, FF Alumn, at Life World, Brooklyn, Feb. 26
16. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, now online at https://youtu.be/w4JmKDztlkk
17. elin o’Hara slavick, FF Alumn, at Pitzer College, Pomona, CA, thru April 4
18. Spalding Gray, FF Alumn, at Wendy’s Subway, Brooklyn, Mar. 1
19. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Jefferson Market Library, Manhattan, Feb. 15
20. Debra Pearlman, FF Alumn, @EjectaProjects, Carlisle, PA, thru Mar. 7
21. Elise Engler, Joyce Kozloff, Martha Rosler, FF Alumns, now online at NYTimes.com
22. Christine DeFazio, FF Alumn, new publication launch, Bronx Art Space, Feb, 14
23. Vernon Fisher, FF Alumn, at Orange County Museum of Art, CA
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Weekly Spotlight: Franklin Furnace relaunches the Franklin Furnace Events Database, access online at archives.franklinfurnace.org
Franklin Furnace is pleased to announce the public relaunch of its Events Database, offering renewed access to over 1,620 records of performance, installation, new media art, and exhibitions presented by Franklin Furnace from 1976 to the present. The Franklin Furnace Events Database, digitized for public access, provides essential information about these events, including photo and video documentation as well as related ephemera. The Events Database is a free service that provides electronic access to these unique documents, with additional materials available upon request.
We are pleased to share news of the database’s relaunch following a comprehensive modernization process. Working with professional web developers, our team redesigned and upgraded the database, enhancing both its functionality and aesthetic appeal. The new system supports improved navigation and advanced search capabilities to better serve artists, researchers, and archivists.
New features include the ability to search and display works by a single artist, expanded data fields such as event series, event type, and press releases, direct links to video documentation on Vimeo, and the option to view search history—making exploration of Franklin Furnace’s rich legacy more dynamic and accessible.
Access the Events Database here!
For more detailed instructions on navigating the database, please visit the Events Archive webpage and find the search help. Franklin Furnace’s electronic event record documentation is a work in progress – if you have additional information or suggested upgrades/corrections, please be in touch at mail@franklinfurnace.org.
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1. Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, FF Alumn, new publication
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel publishes new essay with Routledge: Taylor & Francis’ Teaching Artist Journal
“Forget the Red Apple/A Prickly Pear for the Teacher/La Escuelita/A Latinx Evening School for Critical Consciousness/The Austin, Texas Chapter”
My art studio at the University of Texas, Austin, became a week-long escuelita, a little school within the campus and within Austin, Texas, at large. I invited neighbors from all walks of life to contribute to its curriculum with classes, workshops, panels, talks, performances, and lectures representative of Latinx experiences alive in the city. This temporary school makes ample room for areas of knowledge not always represented in the traditional college or university roster. La Escuelita brings together key historic/herstoric/theirstoric Latinx voices and lineages dealing with organizing for change and social justice in Austin and surrounding areas.
Link to journal: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15411796.2025.2575551
Journal Editors: Lucia Scheckner and Ashley Thaxton-Stevenson
Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel treads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively through creative experiences that he helps unfold within the quotidian. He has exhibited or performed at Madrid Abierto/ARCO, The IX Havana Biennial, PERFORMA 05/07/21, IDENSITAT, Prague Quadrennial, Pontevedra Biennial, Queens Museum, MoMA, Printed Matter, P.S. 122, Sculpture Center, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance BAAD!, Hemispheric Institute of Performance Art and Politics, City as Living Laboratory, Princeton University, Anthology Film Archives, El Museo del Barrio, Center for Book Arts, Longwood Art Gallery/BCA, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Franklin Furnace and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Nicolás has received mentorship in art in everyday life from Linda Mary Montano, a historic figure in the performance art field.
Residencies attended include P.S. 1/MoMA, CEC ArtsLink, The Performance Project, Soaring Gardens, Jentel, Henry Street Settlement/Abrons Arts Center, Center for Book Arts, Lower East Side Printshop, Artists Alliance Inc., Yaddo, and MacDowell. Nicolás has curated exhibitions or programs for El Museo del Barrio, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, Bronx River Art Center, Franklin Furnace, Elizabeth Foundation Project Space, Artists Alliance Inc., Art in Odd Places, and The Institute of Art, Religion and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York, as well as for the Filmoteca de Andalucía in Córdoba, Spain. Publications include Pleased to Meet You, Life as Material for Art and Vice Versa (editor), One Person at a Time (editor), Induced Labor, and For Art’s Sake, among others.
Nicolás holds an M.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, where he studied with Coco Fusco, and an M.A. from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He recently served as a senior lecturer and social practice artist in residence in the Art and Art History Department at The University of Texas at Austin and was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow in Washington, DC. He is the founding director of The Interior Beauty Salon, an organism living at the intersection of creativity and healing. Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, Nicolás was baptized as a Bronxite in 2011. www.interiorbeautysalon.com
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2. John Ahearn, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Asia Stewart,Krzysztof Wodiczko, Francesca Woodman, FF Alumns, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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3. Anh Vo, FF Alumn, now online at Movement Research Performance Journal
This is an essay that took me a decade to write. It revisits my memory of witnessing Đại Lâm Linh on Vietnamese national television as a high school student. It was basically my non-consensual initiation rite into the world of artistic experimentation…
You can read the full essay online at https://mrpj.org/articles/editors-letters-3
Please grab the full journal in print!
Edited by the brilliant @jlubinlevy @jarthy @nicole_bradbury @lumit @mauranguyendonohue
Designed by the visionary @carlosromomelgar @johnphilipsage
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4. Mona Hatoum, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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5. Charles Yuen, FF Alumn, at MIlton Resnick & Pat Passlof Foundation, Manhttan, opening Feb. 13
How Asian Is It?
Curated by Lilly Wei
February 13, 2026 – July 11, 2026
Opening reception:
6 – 8pm, Friday 2/13
Emily Cheng, David Diao, Shirley Kaneda, Il Lee, Kikuo Saito, Shen Chen, Barbara Takenaga, Walasse Ting, Richard Tsao, Kim Uchiyama, Robert Yasuda, and Charles Yuen
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation
87 Eldridge Street
New York, NY 10002
+1 (646) 559-2513
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6. Robert Rauschenberg, FF Alumn, at The New School, Manhattan, Feb. 19
Robert Rauschenberg & the News: Select Prints from The New School Art Collection
Opening reception and panel: Thursday, February 19, 5:30–8 pm
Exhibition on view through January 2027
Wollman Hall, The New School
65 West 11th Street, 5th floor
register here: https://event.newschool.edu/robertrauschenbergthenewsselec
Robert Rauschenberg & the News: Select Prints from The New School Art Collection brings together, for the first time, 15 prints by Robert Rauschenberg held in the university’s collection. Created between the 1960s and 1990s, the works register urgent responses to moments of social and political unrest as they unfolded in real time. Co-organized by The New School Art Collection and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, the exhibition is presented with the support of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on occasion of the artist’s Centennial.
Inaugurating the installation, an opening panel discussion on February 19 gathers experts to speak to the artist’s multifaceted practice, expanding on Rauschenberg’s work in relation to journalism, activism, and politics, with curators Juliana Ochs Dweck and Helen Hsu and New School faculty and poet Margaret Rhee, moderated by the VLC’s Carin Kuoni. The opening reception includes an introduction by Emily Clayton, The New School Art Collection, and welcome remarks by The New School president Joel Towers.
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7. Raquel Rabinovich, FF Alumn, at Hutchinson Modern, Manhattan, opening Feb. 11
We are is pleased to announce
Raquel Rabinovich: Gateless
an exhibition celebrating the life and work of Argentine-born New York artist
Raquel Rabinovich (1929-2025)
Opening on Wednesday, February 11th
a reception will be held at the gallery from 5:00-8:00pm
An online Study Room at Hutchinsonmodern.com, along with exhibition texts authored by the artist’s intimates—her family, friends, and artistic collaborators—will accompany the show, offering an in-depth review of Rabinovich’s singular and prolific career.
Rabinovich employed a wide range of media—including drawing, collage, painting, sculpture and installation—to visibilize elements of objects, ideas, and language that are often concealed. The resulting works possess tremendous auras, and their implications are as significant as their physicality. Gateless, the first posthumous exhibition of Rabinovich’s work, will present a selection of outstanding paintings, works on paper, and glass sculpture created throughout the artist’s career, which together affirm her dedication to embodying paradox; to transcending that which is tangible; and to processes of slow and intuitive unfolding. Rabinovich’s art encourages viewers to embark on voyages not just of the eye, but of the mind, and in this way provide a profoundly rewarding escape from everyday life.
Raquel Rabinovich was born in Buenos Aires in 1929 and was a resident of the United States from 1967 until she died in Rhinebeck, New York, in 2025. She received numerous honors, including an NEA scholarship and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She represented the United States at the 2009 Cuenca Biennial, and her work has appeared in publications such as Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New York Times. Her work is included in prominent public and private collections, both national and international, and has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and alternative spaces across the globe.
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8. Carlos Martiel, Pamela Sneed, FF Alumns, at Leslie Lohman Museum, Manhattan, Feb. 20-Apr. 12
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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9. Crystal Z Campbell, FF Alumn, at Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, VA, thru May 10
Is the world on fire? My short film, FLIGHT, incorporates archival footage around Black townships that pursued self-determination and thrived in spite of waves of domestic terror, including the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
It will be on view in this timely show. Thanks to Jeremy Drummond for curating this group (so much adoration for these other creative makers) and to Video Data Bank for keeping on. Note: Films rotate every two weeks
February 4th – May 10th, 2026
Politics of Place (Group Exhibition, Photo/Video Installation)
Featuring: Jeremy Drummond, Kevin Jerome Everson, Cathy Lee Crane, Adam Piron, Basma al-Sharif, Tiffany Sia, Theo J. Cuthand, Sky Hopinka, Crystal Z Campbell, Little Egypt Collective, and New Red Order
Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA
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10. Nicky Paraiso, Carmelita Tropicana, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, FF Alumns, to receive 2026 Obie Awards
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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11. David Cale, FF Alumn, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link:
Thank you.
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12. Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Arlene Rush,Miriam Schapiro, James Siena, FF Alumns, at Lehman College Art Gallery, The Bronx, opening Feb. 11
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – NEW EXHIBITION, SPRING 2026
The Painted Word: Text, Gesture, and Expression in Contemporary Art
February 11 – May 2, 2026
Reception: Wednesday, February 11, 5 – 8 pm
How do you paint a word? Words parade across pages and anchor bytes in a barrage of media. Words can be romantic – ‘I love you,’ or stand-ins for feelings that must out-‘I will miss you, ‘til we meet again’. The Painted Word, Lehman Art Gallery’s first exhibition in 2026, brings together 36 contemporary artists who show us our powerful words and push the boundaries of written language through the physical act of painting.
At the heart of The Painted Word pulses the tension between form and meaning. Its artists transmute language, not always transparent, to show our inner feelings. They employ text not merely as a communicative vessel, but as a dynamic medium through which to excavate questions of identity, culture, emotion, and societal constructs. With bold, kinetic gesture and innovative typographic intervention, language is elevated from the confines of the page into painting’s expansive realm, dissolving the boundaries between visual and linguistic expression.
The Painted Word delves into the intersection where gestural painting meets textual expression. Its artists seize upon language—traditionally perceived as a rational instrument of communication—and deconstruct it through intuitive, often deliberately chaotic gestural painting. In this transformation, they unleash the emotional and instinctual power that lies dormant within words. Rather than prioritizing legibility or narrative coherence, the works of the three dozen artists featured in The Painted Word foreground the subjective, fluid experience of language itself, inviting viewers to encounter the sensory and emotional dimensions of words as potent visual symbols.
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive 125-page catalog featuring essays and entries by the curatorial team − Bartholomew Bland with Melissa Brown, Shawn Cheng, Sean McCarthy, and David Schwittek. Curatorial registration and research support is being provided by Ashley Lum and Maribelle Ceballos.
Artists: Chris Ashworth, Emma Beatrez, Mel Bochner, Kurt Boone, Scott Covert, Ben Durham, Nicky Enright, Shepard Fairey, Tony Fitzpatrick, Futura, Alicia Gibson, Jeffrey Gibson, Rachel Harrison, Evan Hecox, Meg Hitchcock, Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Royal “Kingbee”, Glenn Ligon, Jen Mazza, MRS, Loren Munk, John O’Connor, Rune Olsen, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Maria D. Rapicavoli, Arlene Rush, Paula Scher, Miriam Schapiro, Sneha Shrestha, James Siena, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Despina Stokou, Nari Ward, Anna Warfield, and Peter Williams.
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13. Penny Arcade, FF Alumn, at Essex Flowers, Manhattan, Feb. 21
Penny Arcade presents a short performance in conjunction with Expired. Across a career spanning five decades, her work has confronted cultural expectations with wit, urgency, and incisive honesty. Her presence in the gallery affirms endurance—an artistic practice that continues to evolve, resisting erasure and expiration.
for complete info please visit
Bio: Penny Arcade (Susana Ventura) is a New York–based performance artist, writer, and theater maker whose long-form, text-based work bridges experimental theater and performance art. Centered on community and cultural critique, her practice has established her as a true original on the mainstream international stage.
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14. Deb Margolin, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, Manhattan, Mar. 6,7, 13, 21
Remember when a phone was a phone,
not a newspaper, a computer, a GPS, a game of solitaire, or a spycam?
Come be part of OBIE award-winning playwright and performer Deb Margolin’s newest work in progress “A Brief History of the Telephone.”
Deb insists that when a young person’s phone rings, they call the police, because they never heard that sound before. Is that you? Let’s chit chat and chew the fat, as Deb explores a lifelong passion for the sexy, disembodied possibilities of talking with friends and strangers on the phone. At this show, not only can you leave your hat on, you can leave your phone on! You can call Deb during the show if you want! Let’s bring talking to people back in fashion! Live and in-person, Deb Margolin…she’s a smooth operator.
Tickets to the show! A Brief History of the Telephone!
Thank you.
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15. Lisa Levy, FF Alumn, at Life World, Brooklyn, Feb. 26
HELLO MY FRIEND—
I’m so happy you opened this and are looking at it – Thank you!
Here’s something I am really excited about doing. I don’t usually talk up events cause – who likes people who do that? I hate pressure! But it’s possible this one could be cool.
Y’know it’s funny—when I started performing as Dr. Lisa, the self-proclaimed psychotherapist in 2001, the idea I had, was to do psychotherapy on audience volunteers as a stage show with the audience respectfully chiming in. I had no previous experience performing and no formal psychotherapy training. I got into a performance festival with a tape from Surf Reality. Right away Kristin Marting, then the Director of HERE, gave me a monthly show and within a year, I had a feature story in the New York Times.
Every time I would stop, the Dr. Lisa character came back in one form or another. Most recently, in the last 10 years, I’ve had a radio show Dr. Lisa Gives a Sh*t on Radio Free Brooklyn and I have done some Dr. Lisa at art fairs and parties as well.
When I first started performing in 2001, it was a lot of work to get people to be real and share on stage. But in the past 20+ years, thanks in large part to reality TV and social media, we have normalized oversharing. Nothing makes me happier, so I thought it would be great to try it again at this SUPER COOL theater, Life World. It’s literally 2 blocks from the Jefferson L, so if you haven’t heard of Life World, just know, its very accessible.
I don’t want to bore you with the nuts and bolts right now cause you’ve gone through this much, but scroll down if you want to know more. Tickets are $5.50 and you can buy them here https://restlessnites.com/events/psychotherapylivewithdrlisa26feb2026https://restlessnites.com/events/psychotherapylivewithdrlisa26feb2026. There’s only 50 seats so don’t wait too long,
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16. Harley Spiller, FF Alumn, now online at https://youtu.be/w4JmKDztlkk
Please visit this link to the podcast Dumpling Talk with Guillermo Hung. Please also consider subscribing and commenting to help launch this new podcast series:
Thank you.
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17. elin o’Hara slavick, FF Alumn, at Pitzer College, Pomona, CA, thru April 4
elin o’Hara slavick’s work is included in the exhibition Atomic Dragons, a show by SWANS: Slow War Against the Nuclear State, a group she founded in 2022 with 8 women artists addressing nuclear issues. Atomic Dragons opens at both galleries at Pitzer College in Pomona, California February 7, 5-7pm and closes April 4, with a symposium with nuclear experts and the artists that day.
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18. Spalding Gray, FF Alumn, at Wendy’s Subway, Brooklyn, Mar. 1
Book Launch, Performance, and Conversation: Some Monologues by Tyler Coburn
Sunday, March 1, 8–10pm (Doors: 7:45pm)
Join us for the New York release of Some Monologues by Tyler Coburn. On this occasion, Coburn presents a new monologue entitled People that draws influence from A Personal History of American Theatre (1980), a one-person performance by the American actor and writer Spalding Gray (1941–2004). Moving through a set of index cards bearing the names of plays he acted in, Gray told stories related to those productions, dwelling on events unfolding behind the scenes. As the order of the index cards was random, no two performances were ever the same. In Coburn’s version, each of his cards indicates the name of a person who has a role in the book: an academic he interviewed for a project, an amorous attendee to one of his monologues, his collaborator Susan Bennett (the original voice actress of Siri), a data center employee who insulted him, and more. People brings focus to Coburn’s many collaborators and the monologues they helped create.
After performing People, Coburn is joined in conversation by writer and art critic Nicole Kaack.
Location: Midtown Manhattan, address provided upon RSVP.
More information about the event and book: https://wendyssubway.com/programs/events/book-launch-some-monologues?utm_source=Mailing+List&utm_campaign=065971e39d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_10_03_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-eef827a94a-514685725&mc_cid=065971e39d&mc_eid=ba1a5172dc
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19. Galinsky, FF Alumn, at Jefferson Market Library, Manhattan, Feb. 15
Join Me Sunday February 15th at 2pm
Register soon because space is limited, here: https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2026/02/15/could-you-patent-sun-solo-show-robert-galinsky
Seating is limited
Date and TimeSunday, February 15, 2026, 2 3PM
Location – Jefferson Market Library, First Floor
COULD YOU PATENT THE SUN?
Inspired by the Story of Jonas Salk
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20. Debra Pearlman, FF Alumn, @EjectaProjects, Carlisle, PA, thru Mar. 7
Debra Pearlman’s work is currently on view in Swimming in Cold Seas @ejectaprojects located at 268 W. North Street, Carlisle, Pa.
The show is curated by Shannon Egan and Anthony Cervino and on view thru March 7th on weekends and by appointment. A timely and poetic exhibition!
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21. Elise Engler, Joyce Kozloff, Martha Rosler, FF Alumns, now online at NYTimes.com
Please visit this link
Thank you.
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22. Christine DeFazio, FF Alumn, new publication launch, Bronx Art Space, Feb, 14
BronxArtSpace and Lived Places Publishing are pleased to present the book launch for Bronx Visual Identity by Christine DeFazio and closing celebration of Tales from the Ghost Yard Featuring Mike 171, SJK 171, Snake 1, and T-Kid 170 on Saturday February 14 from 5:00-7:00 pm at Bronx Art Space.
Bronx Visual Identity from Subway Writers to Mural Artists: Aerosol Art from 1968 to the Present follows the story of writing from its inception in 1970s Washington Heights, to the Golden Age in 1980s South Bronx. Author , artist and curator Christine Defazio explores the development of street art from bombing and inter-borough competition, to painting walls, and the crack down on train graffiti.
From the Lived Places Publishing Artist Studies collection led by Joy Sperling and part of Intersections: Identity and Place Ebook collection
Bronx Art Space is located at 700 Manida Street, Bronx, NY and is open Thursday-Friday 12-6 pm and Saturday 12-5 pm.
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23. Vernon Fisher, FF Alumn, at Orange County Museum of Art, CA
Mark Moore Fine Art is pleased to announce the acquisition of an important graphic work of artist VERNON FISHER (1943-2023) titled “Scenes from the American West (Mickey Mouse)” from 1990 by the Orange County Museum of Art for their Permanent Collection.
Since its founding, OCMA has been a leader in presenting and preserving the art of our time. When thirteen visionary women came together in 1962 to open the museum—then called the Fine Arts Patrons Pavilion Gallery—they shared a powerful conviction that Orange County needed a venue where important art could be enjoyed.
Along with its predecessor institution, the Newport Harbor Art Museum, OCMA has an established reputation as an innovative art museum with a history of actively discovering and engaging with living artists at pivotal points in their careers. Since its inception, OCMA’s commitment to artists and audiences has been at the core of its activities, presenting the voices and work of influential artists and creative thinkers through innovative and ground-breaking exhibitions and programs.
In their new permanent home located on the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus in Costa Mesa, California—designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis Studio—the Orange County Museum of Art will continue to champion the transformative possibilities of art.
As OCMA’s collections, exhibitions, and programs have grown, so has its reputation of investing in promising artists and helping shape art history. Their mission is to enrich the lives of a diverse community through modern and contemporary art.
Drawing upon his early interest in how people make sense of the world, Fisher weaves together literary references, pop cultural imagery, and cartography with his own symbolic lexicon. Renouncing the convention of a singular or autonomous narrative, his works imply a seemingly endless metonymic chain.
Art Critic Dave Hickey stated that Fisher works in a kind of formula of “imperfectly analogous juxtapositions of three imperfectly distinct kinds of phenomena (the personal, the social, the natural), described by three imperfectly distinct information systems (the literary narrative, the iconographic image, and the cartographic grid).”
In viewing various works made over time, these “imperfectly analogous juxtapositions” begin to form their own story, revealing Fisher’s expertise in creating a unique and elusive narrative with a comic’s sensibility.
Vernon Fisher is an American artist working in a wide range of media, best known for his skillful combinations and juxtapositions of image and language.
The mid-1970s was the period when Vernon Fisher started his artistic career, in the era marked by the legacies of Pop and Conceptual art. This mixture of styles created a unique fusion between painting and installation, in that way shaping new inspiring compositions derived from juxtapositions of language and imagery. Influenced by this period in contemporary art, but also by artists such as Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari, Fisher began creating his multilayered visual narratives. Resulting works – paintings, installations and collages – represent Vernon Fisher’s view on pop culture and contemporary society, enriched with art-historical and literary references. Often contextualized within a postmodernism, his works shares an influential practice of self-appraisal with Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg.
Vernon Fisher was born in 1943 in Fort Worth, Texas. He studied English literature at the Hardin-Simmons University, where he received a BA in 1967. Vernon got his MFA in 1969, from the University of Illinois. As a true Fort Worth child, Fisher was raised and is still living in his hometown, where he enjoys appreciation as one of the Texas’s most internationally recognized artists.
Images, biography, reviews, on-line catalogs, and general information on VERNON FISHER and his work can be found on our website HERE for your reference.
Vernon Fisher also recently had a 300 page catlog of his works released. This volume (pictured below) is currently available at the link attached.
This is the first monograph on Vernon Fisher’s work since 1989, and it presents the most comprehensive survey of his art from the early 1970s until 2009, with an emphasis on his mature work. It reproduces twenty suites of Fisher’s work, including Hills Like White Elephants, Parallel Lines, Lost for Words, Brainiac, Movements Among the Dead, and Swimming Lesions.
In her introduction, Frances Colpitt deftly situates Fisher’s work in the context of postmodernism’s radical transformation of art, tracing his affinities with artists such as Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg. She also decodes recurring symbols and literary references in Fisher’s art, showing how this “writerly” artist constructs narratives with multiple meanings and cultural allusions that defy reduction to a single storyline or definite ending. In an interview with Michael Auping, Fisher describes his creative process, especially how he uses “apparently random and disordered notations” to suggest the “tentative and fluid quality of the mind at work.” Acknowledging that his art never reaches a conclusion, Fisher says, “I love the loopy and disconnected . . . for me, the disjunctive and inconclusive is what feels honest and real.”
“Anything that is resolved is either delusional or dishonest. We live far more arbitrary and capricious lives than we’re ready to admit. I think if we admitted it, we’d be scared all the time. Nothing in life is ever truly neat.” – Vernon Fisher
Due to the nature of this offering, please remember that all work is all available subject to a prior sale. Shipping, customs (if applicable), and/or installation, if any, would be additional.
Please call me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Mark Moore
Mark Moore Fine Art
Mobile: +1.310.266.2283
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For subscriptions, un-subscriptions, queries and comments, please email mail@franklinfurnace.org
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Goings On for Artists is compiled weekly by Rohan Subramaniam, Archive Intern
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