Tag Archives: Arts & Events

On Mark Webber | An Essay by Eliza Callahan

Mark Webber. Untitled. 2019. Stone, Hydrocal, Steel. 23″ x 15″ x 9″

It is neither too difficult nor unreasonable, at this particular moment in time, to imagine a dramatic or catastrophic shift in our landscape that shuttles us into a new epoch. But what is left over after the event and who finds what is left?—Broken foundations, pieces of larger structures that no longer exist, colors stripped or faded away. Just like that, a new antiquity is formed. When looking at Mark Webber’s sculptures, which often take form as objects made from interlocking shapes, there is a sense that the parts which comprise the work are made from pieces of greater structures, a vision of what is left. Webber makes use of a combination of hand sculpted and ready-made, found materials to build his monochrome, architectural constructions (Webber sites Luis Barragan’s Emotional Architecture as an influence). His minimal formations often make use of hydrocal—a mixture of plaster and cement which appears almost like ceramic or stone—-as primary material which he then mingles or fastens with glass, wood, steel and sometimes string. The white sculptures lend a cycladic air. His studio which is so heavily populated by the work, appears like a small, dream-like city, a visible nod to Atelier Brancusi.

Webber’s sculptures are just as gestural as they are structural; there is a push and pull between calculation and happenstance. In them an, intrinsic harmony exists—like pieces from varying puzzles that have somehow slipped (or wedged) into peaceful accord. In Webber’s sculptures, modernism’s sharp, clean edges and hard angled forms have been blunted and weathered as if by the elements. (Webber is a devoted sailor and paddler and a nautical note is present).

It is compelling to consider Webber’s background as a cabinet maker and furniture designer in relation to his art objects which visibly share some lineage with functional design. While Webber’s sculptures lend an air of function, as viewers, we are not able to gather what that function might be, and that is not the point.

– Eliza Callahan

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Mark Webber in 27East

The work of Mark Webber, an artist based in New York City and Sag Harbor, will be featured in “We Shall Be A City Upon A Hill,” an exhibition running February 12 to March 14, at Anita Rogers Gallery in Manhattan.

Mark Webber. Untitled. 2019. Glass, hydrocal, copper, paper and permanent marker. 7h x 4 1/2w x 3d in

Webber has been steeped in visual art his entire life. Growing up in a house filled with world-class art (his mother was on the Acquisition Committee of MoMA), he was inspired by the Miro, Henry Moore and Jim Dine work on the walls and went on to study art at Banff, Windham College, earning a BFA from SUNY Purchase.

In addition to painting, sculpting and drawing, Webber is also an accomplished furniture designer and woodworker, sailor and paddler. When he is not in the studio, he is drawing further inspiration from being on the water.

“I take traditionally static forms such as rectangles, ellipse and lines and uncover subtle subtexts such as intimacy, separation and balance,” said Webber in a statement. “The viewer is welcomed to draw their own conclusions about how a piece stands, supports itself, engages in a dialogue with the materials used. Whether it is the process or the materials, each piece finds a balance through gravity and composition.”

Anita Rogers Gallery is located at 15 Greene Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. The show opens with a reception on Wednesday, February 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information visit anitarogersgallery.com.

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Hamptons Art Hub | Mark Webber: We Shall be a City Upon a Hill

 

Anita Rogers Gallery presents We Shall be a City Upon a Hill, an exhibition of work by American artist Mark Webber. The show will be on view February 12 – March 21, 2020 at 15 Greene Street, Ground Floor in SoHo, New York. The gallery will host a reception with the artist on Wednesday, February 12, 6-8pm.

Mark Webber. Untitled (Structures Series). 2019. Stone and hydrocal. 22″ x 12″ x 15″

The exhibition will feature a variety of work ranging from eight-foot-tall portals to tabletop structures, as well as small, handheld fragments. Webber works with a diverse range of materials, including hydrocal, stone, steel, glass and wood. It will be the artist’s largest and most varied exhibition to date.

Webber studied under Charles Ginnever and Peter Forakis at Windham College in Vermont. He received a BFA in sculpture at SUNY, Purchase. He has exhibited at many galleries in the Hamptons and is in several private collections on the East Coast. This will be his first solo exhibition with Anita Rogers Gallery. Webber resides in SSag Harbor, NY in The Hamptons.

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The Art Scene: 02.06.20 | Mark Webber Sculpture

 

Mark Webber Sculpture 

“We Shall Be a City Upon a Hill,” a show of sculpture by Mark Webber of Sag Harbor, will open at Anita Rogers Gallery in SoHo with a reception on Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through March 21. The artist’s largest show to date, it will include work ranging from small fragments to standing sculptures eight feet tall.

Mark Webber. Untitled. 2019. Hydrocal, copper, wood and steel. 16″ x 10″ x 8″

Rectangular monoliths with smaller rectangular sections cut out from their center, which Mr. Webber calls “portals,” are a recurrent theme in his work. He also makes wire constructions, drawings, collages, totems, and a variety of other objects that reflect his sensitivity to such materials as plaster, glass, copper, steel, papier-mache, and Hydrocal.

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James Scott’s Latest Art Documentary ‘Fragments’ Premieres at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam

Thanks to his curiosity – and perhaps unwillingness to fit into any category invented to classify filmmakers – director/artist James Scott was able to create one of modern cinema’s most perplexing oeuvres. In the second half of the 1960s he came to some prominence with a series of unconventional art documentaries, including Love’s Presentation (1966) on David Hockney. In 1970 he co-founded the Berwick Street Film Collective, a legend in radical political cinema, from which he successfully moved towards narrative fiction features, shorts and television; and then into silence.

He re-emerges with Fragments, which returns him to his roots: an intimate portrait of British pop artist/filmmaker Derek Boshier, shot on an iPhone in his studio in California. Boshier, once commissioned by David Bowie, reflects on his life and creative practice while working on a giant drawing, ‘World News’, and a series of paintings titled ‘Night and Snow’.

Derek Boshier in his California studio.

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Mandy Vahabzadeh’s Photographs Featured on MonoVisions

Anita Rogers Gallery will present an exhibition of photographs by Mandy Vahabzadeh. The exhibition will include a selection of images from a period spanning almost thirty years, taken in India, Laos and Vietnam.

Mandy Vahabzadeh is a Swiss American photographer of Persian origin residing in New York City. She attended Pratt Institute, Columbia University and Parsons School of Design. Her photographs have been exhibited in New York City, Aspen, Santa Monica and Atlanta. This will be the artist’s debut show with the gallery.

Mandy Vahabzadeh. Untitled, Rajasthan, India 1991. Archival Pigment. Edition of 25. 16″ x 20″

Mandy Vahabzadeh
Photographs
January 8 – February 8, 2020

Anita Rogers Gallery
15 Greene Street, New York, NY, USA
http://www.anitarogersgallery.com

Ennead Architects Kicks Off Visual Arts Series with Paintings by Gordon Moore

Work by Gordon Moore, along with works by Doug Argue, will be on view in Ennead Architect’s new office at 1 World Trade Center through Spring 2020.

About Gordon Moore: 

Born in Cherokee, IA in 1947, Moore received his MFA from Yale University in 1972. He has been the recipient of several awards and grants, including a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts-Visual Artists Fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in Painting. His work is part of many prestigious collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MA), Baltimore Museum of Art (MD), the Block Museum of Art (IL), Chase Manhattan Bank, General Electric Corporation, and Yale University Art Gallery (CT). In 2018, The Salina Art Center hosted a retrospective for the artist. Moore lives and works in New York.

Gordon Moore’s paintings at Ennead Architects

Learn more about Ennead Architects.

Anita Rogers on Prince Harry’s & Meghan Markle’s Exit

Meghan Markle fans love her ‘Game of Thrones’ escape from the royals

Excerpt:

But building a life in L.A., should the couple choose to do so, wouldn’t be simple, others warned.

“I’m interested to see how they’re going to support themselves and what kind of life they would be able to have,” said Anita Rogers, chief executive and founder of British American Household Staffing, which connects local families with British nannies and other domestic workers. “I don’t think the queen would allow a royal son or daughter to not have the best of the best when it came to education and child care.”

The city’s hundreds-strong paparazzi corps would also pose a problem.

Read the full article on the Los Angeles Times here.

Untitled, Fatehpur, India 2003. Archival Pigment. Edition of 25. 16" x 20" Framed: 29 1/2" x 23"

Mandy Vahabzadeh: Photographs at Anita Rogers Gallery

When a person is gracefully present in front of a camera, gaze direct, without a trace of self-consciousness, it is a gift to the photographer who then disappears.

A portrait is an invitation to connect with the viewer. With the magic of light, it becomes poetry in black & white.

– Mandy Vahabzadeh

Untitled, Fatehpur, India 2003. Archival Pigment. Edition of 25. 16" x 20" Framed: 29 1/2" x 23"

Untitled, Fatehpur, India 2003. Archival Pigment. Edition of 25. 16″ x 20″ Framed: 29 1/2″ x 23″

This January, Anita Rogers Gallery will present an exhibition of photographs by Mandy Vahabzadeh. The exhibition will include a selection of images from a period spanning almost thirty years, taken in India, Laos and Vietnam. The work will be on view at 15 Greene Street, Ground Floor in SoHo, New York from January 8 through February 8, 2020.

Mandy Vahabzadeh is a Swiss American photographer of Persian origin residing in New York City. She attended Pratt Institute, Columbia University and Parsons School of Design. Her photographs have been exhibited in New York City, Aspen, Santa Monica and Atlanta. This will be the artist’s debut show with the gallery.

Visit the artist’s page at Anita Rogers Gallery.

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Gordon Moore’s Tribute to Robert Frank Published by the Brooklyn Rail

A Tribute to Robert Frank (1924–2019)

America, Robert Frank, and Dinah Shore’s Fist

by Gordon Moore

A Personal Remembrance

Robert Frank, View from Hotel Window, Butte, Montana, 1956. © Robert Frank.

Excerpt:

Somewhere like nine years later while I am working at the University Bookstore on the Ave. at the UW in Seattle, a book comes in to the art department titled “The Americans” and I start looking through it. I am stunned. Totally stunned. Who did this? Where did this come from? Did I dream this? As I turned the pages, I could actually remember my pulse accelerating at confronting the American social, political and cultural authenticity of those images. I quite realistically felt I had lived that book. And when I turned the page to the image of the window of the Finlen Hotel in Butte, Montana, I had such a rush, I had to sit down. In a very real sense…I had. From that moment forward, in my mind, Robert Frank had been elevated to something approaching a deity. Something he would not, in his humility, feel comfortable with. We had never seen images that honest before.