Nicholas Hondrogen - view work

Nicholas Hondrogen: Mumonkan Series 1996-1998
October 6 – November 18, 2007
Extended by popular demand through November 25!

wünderarts is pleased to present Nicholas Hondrogen: Mumonkan Series 1996-1998. The exhibition of 21 works is being shown for the first time and has been organized in association with the Nicholas Hondrogen Trust.

Nicholas Hondrogen (1952-2007) was a prolific painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. A part of the art-star generation of 1980s New York, Hondrogen had more in common and spirit with the Minimalists and Conceptualists of decades prior. The artist began his career in Paris in the early 1970s following an accelerated course of study at the Boston Museum School. Achieving almost immediate recognition in Europe, Hondrogen enjoyed numerous solo exhibitions and was collected by both individuals and notable public institutions. He returned to the U.S. in the early 1980s, settling in New York City where he founded a successful design and construction business and refocused his art toward filmmaking. Hondrogen’s award-winning 1997 film, Perfect Moment, created after his move to Los Angeles, documents the life-defining recollections of a wide-range of individuals both famous (Philip Glass, Vincent Gallo, Norman Lear) and unknown. Hondrogen was the recipient of two Pollack-Krasner grants in 2000 and 2005.

The series is based on the Zen concepts of Mumonkan or the “gateless gate.” Beginning in 1996 and continuing through 2000, Hondrogen painted over one hundred works on translucent mylar, hoping to photograph each painting and then enlarge them on Duratrans to the same size of the originals. These images were to then be displayed on lightboxes. The paintings were to be destroyed with the reproductions serving as the “original.” However, the work was never destroyed and reproduced as planned. In the spirit of the artist’s original intent, a reproduction of the painting “Negotiating/Desperation” will be presented in this manner. The corresponding original will also be on view.

The Nicholas Hondrogen Trust was formed in February 2007 at the time of the artist’s death. Hondrogen’s long time patron and supporter Jeff Vespa was chosen to chair the estate, with the artist’s brother John acting as a trustee. Mumonkan Series marks the Trust’s inaugural show. In conjunction with the show, the Trust will publish a 46-page color catalog.

 

InsideOut

Inaugural Exhibition
Dean Brown and Derek Noble
August 4, 2007 - September 21, 2007

For its inaugural exhibition, wünderarts is proud to present the first local gallery show for Amherst residents Dean Brown and Derek Noble: InsideOut.

Dean Brown - view work

Dean Brown's exploration of the emotional and physical aspects of home, relocation, and family is the basis of the 15 drawings that make up his House series. After 20 years in Brooklyn, Brown, his wife, their 2 children, and an assortment of pets moved to Amherst. The basic outline of his house served as the template for his work.

Upon completion of the House series, struck by the raw and simple beauty of the silhouettes of newly barren trees behind his home, Brown began to photograph them on his walks. The photos helped him construct a new series of Tree Drawings, striking in his precision in rendering the natural form, and yet with an echo of abstraction. With the advent of spring, Brown has ventured into drawing trees with leaves.

Derek Noble - view work

A practicing architect, Derek Noble uses formal and conceptual elements to make space. In his practice, Noble manipulates space through the use of the human body and movement, site and context, form and materials, believing that architecture is only truly understood while physically interacting with a space. His paintings seek to experiment with that interaction on a more personal scale without the programmatic and utilitarian structures of design; the form and space in his work implies movement and focus or the the first interaction between the body and mind.

His work treads along a consistent landscape theme (Out) to a new internal cellular form (Inside). The inner and external universes are marked by a tension represented in layers of color and texture. His paintings are bold proclamations, under which is a guarded and complicated imagination. It is that dynamic relationship of harmony and contrast which engages the viewer, stirring memory and emotion.