(Baader-Meinhof is currently requiring masks indoors)
One way to understand an artist is to see their work from its birth to the present. And that is the nearly literal aim of the retrospective “Joshua Abelow: 1982-2022,” opening at Baader-Meinhof on Friday, April 8 from 6-10pm, at which the artist will be present.
Literal, because this exhibition of more than 100 paintings features not only the New York-based Abelow’s ever-evolving serialized abstractions but traces their underpinnings in the form of his childhood drawings and other ephemera. The heart of the show, however, are works from the last 20 years. Dominated by small-scale, formalist explorations into geometric and color balance, they strike a balance between sharp-edged precision and casual painterliness.
Revealing Abelow’s idiosyncratic humor are his “self-portraits,” cartoonish logos and word-based paintings, which suggest at more curious sentiments he’s expressed as an art blogger and poet.
A big fan of artist-run spaces like Baader-Meinhof, Abelow is founder of Freddy, a curated project space now located in an old church in Harris, NY.
Baader-Meinhof gallery is located at 1322 S. 6th Street and is open by scheduling an appointment via email: director@baader-meinhof.org.